Can't Stop, Won't Stop by Jeff Chang

We started reading Can't Stop today, and some students were lost initially; however, after we got to page 13, and stopped to reflect, I think it was clear that Chang was setting the stage for the birth of hip hop. His baseball illustration and the subsequent demise of a community: white flight, urban renewal--read: removal of affordable housing stock, the development of concentrations of low income housing projects, the influx of drugs and handguns, the structural isolation or geographic quarantine of certain people, built into the plan by developers like Robert Moses (not to be confused with Civil Rights leader, Bob Moses), was a recipe for disaster for all but the privileged.

DJ Kool Herc says, what architects of the resulting metropolis did was create a way to let society forget about the folks under the freeways, the ones passed over, left to drown in urban decay and squalor. The poor and often black and brown folks, were no longer in the game. Perhaps this is the analogy Chang is drawing with his emphasis on the first black baseball players to integrate the major leagues Jackie Robinson and his heir, Reggie Jackson. Integration went only so far for so long. The revolution stopped and with it came sabotage of all the gains, especially once key leaders were killed or defamed.

Even if you don't understand all the details here...don't get stuck in the specifics, ride the train to the end of the station. It will make sense by the time you get to the end of the chapter, certainly by the next chapter.

Read the preface and the introduction, before you write your analysis of hip hop culture and the complete the artifact assignment. We will start these presentations Wednesday.

Keep reading. Summarize the sections. It will help you understand what you read. Also, keep a vocabulary log and jot down questions in the text in the sections you disagree or don't understand. This is a history of hip hop and Chang received the American Book Award for this book.

We will read this book, supplemented by Dyson :-)and other texts, music and essays. We will start reading Elements of Style in a couple of weeks. Students should look to starting a discussion group. You can meet informally and I can host a discussion group; the best space though is right here, so engage one another in a conversation. If someone's points really clear something up for you, tell them so. If more questions are raised, which is a good thing too, tell the writer this too.

The on-line conversation is only as useful as you make it. This is a writing class, so the dialogue is helpful for us, because it is a way to get instant feedback and fine tune one's written communication skills.