PAUL SCHRAG: HIP-HOP COMMUNITY DIALOGUE >>>

So, a dancehall DJ-turned-UPS-professor, several city and county officials, a Tacoma hip-hop heavy named General Wojack, several cops with guns on their hips, a few b-boys, a bunch of poets, bloggers, community activists, nerd rappers, educators, street hustlers, journalists, thug rappers, theater administrators and graffiti artists walk into a theater to talk about hip-hop. …

Punchline: It actually happened … in Tacoma. Thanks to Dexter Gordon, Lucas Smiraldo, General Wojack (Levitate all of a sudden, son!), David Fisher, Ms. Jessy, 2012 crew, and about 100 people that showed up to discuss why the E-40 concert was canceled at the Pantages Theater in March, breathe fresh life into Tacoma’s surprisingly live scene, and teach the following lessons:

Lesson No.1: Elements of hip-hop culture have encouraged alienation from Middle America by emphasizing misogyny, decadence and violence. Those elements are not unique to hip-hop. You’ll find celebrations of violence, abuse of women and worse in country music, rock and roll, folk, Chinese opera and screamo. Hip-hop is at risk at being marginalized indeed, but it would be dishonest to say it’s all about the message embedded in a bunch of cartoonish, pop-culture constructs. Much of the opposition to hip-hop is rooted in age-old fears of angry black men, says Gordon, a professor of African American studies at the University of Puget Sound and event moderator of the Broadway Center’s community forum on hip-hop held Sunday inside Theatre on the Square.

Lesson No. 2: Gangsta rap, sold to America by the same people who sell Tim McGraw and Celine Dion, hasn’t helped matters. Gangsta rap, by the way, is a relatively new aspect of hip-hop culture. Most people don’t know that hip-hop has much more to offer.

Lesson No. 3: This conversation is rich with risk, and it’s not always positive. It is definitely not safe. But it is as real, significant and meaningful a conversation as any that has ever occurred in Tacoma.

Lesson No. 4: Hip-hop saves lives. As an artistic outlet, as a business venture, as an excuse to party amidst struggle, and as a medium for sharing knowledge, inspiration and pain, hip-hop is a positive force in the lives of everyday folk.

Lesson No. 5: This conversation was powerful because it included voices from all corners of hip-hop culture â€" not just the components that middle-class Americans can identify with â€" and people from throughout the greater Tacoma community. It may not have been entirely comfortable, but it was real, and everybody learned something.

Lesson No. 6: Hip-hop has a place in Tacoma. In fact, Tacoma better make room if the turn out for this conversation was an indicator of hip-hop’s potential in Tacoma.

Lesson No. 7: Collectively, hip-hop and its supporters are more than capable of coming up with a plan to set this off.  Dozens of ideas and pages of feedback gathered at the event are now being compiled by Broadway Center for the Performing Arts officials, who will distill it all into a roadmap and learning tool for people dedicated to moving hip-hop forward.

Lesson No. 8: Behind this conversation is a much larger conversation about race, culture, poverty, oppression, and centuries of confusion about who we are, and how we relate. If you haven’t been part of that conversation, look at the covers of major dailies across the country, listen to conversations in coffee shops, dive bars, street corners, boardrooms, senate subcommittees and watch this year’s presidential debates. Or listen to hip-hop â€" heads have been talking about it since the early ‘70s.

Who wanna be down? Learn more here.

LINK: Tacoma's bad rap.
LINK: E-40 concert canceled.