Why America's necessary healing could come 'Straight Outta Compton'

I believe there is an opportunity to heal from an unlikely place. I think that healing just might come 'Straight Outta Compton...'

Anyone familiar with me or my history would consider me the least likely to use my platform and influence to promote the film Straight Outta Compton.

N****z With Attitudes, more popularly known as N.W.A., introduced the world to a new genre of music. Their songs experienced meteoric success, with hits like “F*ck the Police,” a song that exposed and protested police brutality.

N.W.A’s music was laden with provocative lyrics that appeared to glamorize gang life, violence and murder. Incidentally, their music skyrocketed simultaneously with an unprecedented epidemic of gang violence and murder in inner cities throughout the country. It’s hard to tell if the music influenced the epidemic or vice-versa, but what I can remember is the culture wreaking havoc in communities like the one I grew up in.

Eventually, it would nearly cost me my life.

I didn’t know the storyline of the film, but I was worried that bringing attention to the group who wrote arguably the most popular anti-police song in history could further strain relations between law enforcement and the inner-city. Would Straight Outta Compton widen the gap of division in our nation and lead us to a point of no return? These thoughts and questions played out in my mind but were short-lived when replaced by a prevailing, more positive thought: This film could be an opportunity to tell a version of history not often heard. Could it serve as the missing element required to create a brighter, more compassionate future for our nation?

After seeing the film, I believe that answer is yes, and that the film can do that very thing.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be exposed to a variety of environments and cultures throughout my life. The first nine years of my life, I lived in the multi-cultural climate of Oakland, California. From there, my mother and I moved to Watts, an inner-city community that borders Compton ,which at the time was predominantly black. Much like Ice Cube’s storyline in the film, my mother bussed me out of Watts to attend a suburban school in the affluent Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

When the opportunity presented itself, I began to attend private school in the Long Beach area. My life’s journey has continued to lead me to experience socioeconomic and cultural variety, both domestically and internationally. My experiences have afforded me the ability to learn many lessons. One of the greatest lessons that these experiences have taught me is that judgment is always based upon vantage point. This means the broader the perspective, the fairer the judgment.

I believe that prejudice is the greatest enforcer of conflict to unity and progress and creates a barrier in the human experience. The prejudice that I’m speaking of is not synonymous with racism, although a racist has already pre-judged. I submit for your consideration that any person becomes a pre-judger when they draw a conclusion to a matter before seeing it from every possible angle. The only way to accurately, fairly and productively judge something is to strive to see it from every side.

Straight Outta Compton’tells the story of the rise and fall of N.W.A from a vantage point that most Americans would never be able to see. The plight of a group of young black men with a unique set of circumstances is humanized by the common context that brought them together.

I wonder if the society that “pre-judged” them ever stopped to try and understand them.

Before seeing Straight Outta Compton, I had judgment in my heart toward gangsta rap because I believed that it played a part in the surge of violence that cost so many lives and nearly cost me my own. After viewing the film, I left seeing a bit of myself in several of the characters. They each represented early parts of my evolution.

My wife, Sarah, recounts her mother discussing how humans have the tendency to hypocritically “burn the school down after they graduate.” I didn’t want to be guilty of lighting a match to a time and place I knew all too well. After watching the movie, I saw myself in Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and so many others.

The prevailing sentiment of N.W.A. is that they wanted the same thing that most people want — to express themselves, and to get ahead. The inner-city environment creates a desperation to escape by any means necessary. The possibility of finally doing so can blind many to the reality that some of those means leave a trail of bodies on their road STRAIGHT OUTTA where they came from. I don’t believe that N.W.A .expected their music would fuel gang culture or create hate. They just blazed a trail using what appeared to be the only option in sight. Gangster rap may have been their runway, but their exposure allowed for them to take off and evolve into doing greater and more productive things.

Maybe you have a right to critique their methods, and your vantage point should be respected as well, but when you make a judgment, you must factor in the group’s reality at the time they were creating their sound. This is a lesson that even our nation’s justice system can learn from. Fair and productive justice will always require the balance that comes from seeking to understand diverse perspectives.

Will I ever again be a fan of gangsta rap, or “reality rap” as N.W.A. would call it? I doubt it, but our nation would do well by understanding it and aiming to see the part that we’ve played in its creation. Often, we play a role in the creation of something by ignoring the cry that created what we have come to lament.

I believe there is an opportunity to heal from an unlikely place. I think that healing just might come Straight Outta Compton.

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