MC Hammer was hip hop's first artist to cross over to mainstream superstardom. He sold more than 50 million albums and became an advertisers' darling for megabrands like Pepsi, Taco Bell and KFC. In the early 1990s, "U Can't Touch This" was on every radio, TV and T-shirt in America.
No doubt about it, a young black rapper from Oakland, Calif., was one of the hottest figures in American pop culture.
Juxtapose that with the climate that poor people in America's urban centers (disproportionately black and brown) were facing in the early '90s. The recession hit them hardest of all. Bill Clinton was carrying the "tough on crime" baton of Ronald Reagan's "war on drugs" like a champ. When he wasn't playing sax on "The Arsenio Hall Show," Clinton was implementing three-strikes laws, gutting welfare and making it impossible for anyone convicted of even using drugs to live in public housing. Police brutality soared and eventually boiled over into the L.A. riots. All this while Tipper Gore was leading a national campaign against "Gangsta Rap."
The Hood was taking a beating, but you'd never have known it by flipping channels and seeing Hammer's Colgate smile selling sneakers or popcorn chicken.
I bring this up now because a middle-aged Hammer was arrested last week in an Oakland suburb. He reports being approached by an officer while driving an elegant car through a mall parking lot. Instead of the standard "Good afternoon, sir. License and registration, please," the conversation began with "Are you on parole or probation?"
Having paused in a moment of offense and mild amusement, Hammer says the officer reached in to grab the keys from the ignition. Hammer's understandably visceral response led to his arrest for impeding the work of an officer.
Twenty years later, there's hardly a sliver of pop culture that doesn't bear the influence the black expression. Beyoncé is the biggest singer in the country; Oprah Winfrey is one of the most powerful figures in television, and Jay-Z is part-owner (1/15th of 1 percent) of the Brooklyn Nets. Most notably, America's president and Kennedyesque first family are black.
These pop-culture mascots would seem to indicate a shift in the racial equity of America. The dominant narrative in the age of Obama is that we've evolved into postracial color-blindness. Obama (and, to a lesser but still imperative degree, entertainment figures) are invoked as evidence that America has outgrown its legacy of institutional racism.
