What are you talking about?
This year alone there’ve been like a dozen very popular singles that make reference to “the hood” or things being “hood” (adj.) in some way or another.
That’s the point. popular. watered down…reduced to cliche for the mass market to understand. “urban” dialogue and descriptions aren’t used in popular songs, by the time it reaches that point, it’s no longer “in style”; it’s just popular.
YMMV, of course
They are…but no more or less than the rest of us. As Chris Rock also said in one of his skits, we are a nation of B and C students. B and C black students don’t get to run companies or be president.
Not at all; I was quite careful to start off with a caveat: “People are poor for many reasons, and some of them, including discrimination, are beyond their control.” If you want to change that “some” to “most” I won’t argue.
Indeed, IMO the whole root of the problem is that slavery cut off American blacks from traditional African cultures.
No one is saying that. We are saying that culture, behavior and choices bear some responsibility. Perhaps more importantly, they are the things African-Americans have the most power to change.
Flawed, yes. Completely invalid, no.