• The  name ‘Common’ stands for ‘Common sense’
• He was born in Chicago in 1972
• Launched his own record label
• first rapper to win an academy award
• starting an acting career
• net worth of £45 million

13th Amendment:

Section 1

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

• Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
• The 13th Amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union, and should have easily passed in Congress.
• On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. 
• With the adoption of the 13th Amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery. The 13th Amendment, along with the  14th and 15th, is one of the trio of Civil War amendments that greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans.

Key Concepts:
● Cultural resistance
● Cultural hegemony
● Subcultural theory

Key idea: the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined. The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest. Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change.

Antonio Gramsci: Italian philosopher writing in the 1930s

Cultural hegemony: power, rule, or domination maintained by ideological and cultural means.
● Ideology: worldview – beliefs, assumptions and values.

What is a subculture?
● Working-class youth culture
● Unified by shared tastes in style, music and ideology
● A solution to collectively experienced problems
● A form of resistance to cultural hegemony –  (re: Jodie’s presentation)

Common Lyrics:

• “Slavery’s still alive, check Amendment 13” – talking about how slavery hasn’t been abolished just because rules have changed. They are constantly living in fear of doing the wrong thing or even being falsely accused.
• “Prison is a business, America’s the company” – talking about how the justice system is prejudice to POC.

• “We staring in the face of hate again The same hate they say will make America great again” – how America is great for cultural hegemony like white people . Referencing to Trump who uses this line in his campaign – terminology used in the 60s.
• For America to rise it’s a matter of Black Lives– talking about how America benefits by exploiting POC.

13TH:

“America is home to 5% worlds population but 25% of the worlds prisoners” – the 13th

“300,000 prisoners in 1972 but now its 2.3 million”

“POC were arrested for minor crimes such as loitering or vagrancy.“

“if you are white you are living the life based on what you’re ancestors chose. If you’re Black then you are living your life based on what your ancestors didn’t get to choose. “

“myths based on needing black bodies working”

“kkk was romanticised…another wave of terrorism…. shifted to something more legal; segregation”

“for the first time justice became at least a possibility”

Post Colonialism:

Overall, this is a topic that concerns IDENTITY and REPRESENTATION. In other words, where does our identity come from? How is our identity formed? How do we understand our own identity and how is our identity represented in the local, national and global media? But here it is specifically looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism. Critically looking at culture. A key figure is Edward Said who wrote a couple of books about the link between culture, imperial power and colonialism.

ORIENTALISM:

The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism

Similarly, ‘the East becomes the repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge (cruelty, sensuality, decadence, laziness and so on). At the same time, and paradoxically, the East is seen as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive.’ (Barry, 2017:195)

The one thing the orient couldn’t do was represent itself.

Jacques Lacan “The Other”

French Philosopher who says that we will never truly understand who we are or who others are. That we are in a state of constant comparison and subtly searching for identity. He says when a baby first sees itself in the mirror is the first time it becomes self-conscious as it understands that that is themselves in the mirror whilst animals wouldn’t. We only get a sense of who we might be or could be. We can never truly see who we are and will never know.