Popular 90s talk show host Geraldo Rivera isn’t mad that almost won, but lost Celebrity Apprentice (to former talk show host/entertainment news correspondent Liza Gibbons), however, he does have quite the opinion about the Hip Hip culture that’s maddening (to some, or many):
“Hip-hop has done more damage to black and brown people than racism in the last 10 years. When…when you find the youngster, a Puerto Rican from the South Bronx or black kid from Harlem, who has succeeded in life other than being the one-tenth of one-tenth of one percent that make it in the music business… that’s been a success in life, walking around with his pants around his ass and with visible tattoos.”
Although he fancies himself a “militant moderate” who borrows from both, works for Fox News but no full fan of Fox News views, a proud Obama supporter and supporter of immigration reform, pro-life and gay marriage, still, his unapologetic views on hip hop teeter on the militant (rather than moderate) side of his social/political acumen which, (according to his political/social m-o), claims that this whole ethos (encouraged and supported by people like Russell Simmons etc.) is something that he [quote] “laments” [unquote].
Rivera asserts that the culture is removed from the mainstream such that it has encouraged a lifestyle that pretty much [can’t and/or doesn’t and/or isn’t equipped with and/or
doesn’t have interest] in participating or contributing to society any further than “garment district” and “entry-level jobs.”
As I take a deep breath, to that I say this (with all my love and respect for Geraldo Rivera-whom I share many of his viewpoints and even astrological sameness-let me throw in the bag):
I invite you, and people like you who have ascertained that cut and dry opinion about the culture and what IT (alone) has “done to black and brown people”–to pop in this entire documentary called Hidden Colors 3.
…so that we may get to the BOTTOM of the top by which you stand-looking down with your opinion about this thing, will you?
Please. I beg of you and implore you.
Because, on the surface-I too, would agree with what you [Geraldo] said. On the SURFACE.
An educated, versatile, hip-hop lover myself, whose musically, academically an artistically inclined who by the way has worked for major corporations from P&G on down, I can admit-I still suck my teeth when I hear a rap song beginning with grammar like: ‘Ion got no type” …and in my mind (like people like you) I would just as soon stick “those types” right in the category of your opinion that they can’t and/or doesn’t want and/or aren’t equipped 
with the necessaries and/or doesn’t have interest] in participating or contributing to society any further than “garment district” and “entry-level jobs” and want to lay around smoking weed all day “walking around with his pants around his ass and with visible tattoos.”
HowEVER, I know that it goes deeper than your snapshot/surface opinion at a glance.
Please. Geraldo (and people with the same viewpoint as Geraldo)-please see the entire documentary. I assure you it would enlighten you. It did-me.
Thank you.
Click here to cut to the chase for the snippet of where he said what he said.
Click here for Geraldo Rivera’s entire Huff Post Live interview (Warning: before you get started…I don’t want to waste your time. Know that his full interview isn’t about the subject of this blog–the statement that he made. This statement was just interjected in the conversation during the interview).
