In 1903 W.E.B. Dubois penned the “Talented Tenth,” an essay in which he asserted that the African-American race would be lead by highly trained, educated black men. His descriptor of the term “talented tenth” is that the top 10 percent of black males will “rise and pull all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground.”
This assertion warrants examining as we are upon the 110th anniversary of this famous essay and as the African-American graduation rate continues to decline. How has his thesis of the college-bred African American, ordained as the group leader who sets the ideals of the community, exemplified today?
W.E.B. Dubois would be surprised to learn that the highly educated black men are not the Talented Tenth and group leaders are no longer the Afristocracy (black upper-middle class lawyers, physicians, intellectuals, civil rights leaders). Today, when contemplate who has the most influence on setting the ideals of the community, one group stands out: rappers.
The future of any race rests upon the people who have no voice in the immediate political landscape but constitute 100 percent of the future: the youth. So theoretically, whoever seizes the youth’s attention and develop seeds of influences within them controls the future. Rappers have created an art form and made the world conform to their culture and style, whether it’s baggy jeans, skinny jeans or wearing a suit.
Dubois would never have fathomed that today’s title of “Talented Tenth” would be occupied by the mostly uneducated and have more societal and global influence than Ivy League intellectuals, in many ways constituting a complete role reversal. More people are quoting Jay Z and Lil Wayne than Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. or Cornel West.
Even President Barack Obama pays homage to the hip-hop world. During his speech at the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner on April 28th, 2012, Obama said, “In my first term I sang Al Green, in my second term I’m going with Young Jeezy.”
In America the notion of success rests upon “pulling yourself up from your bootstraps,” and what better example of that than hip-hop stars. Some of these rappers do not have a high school diploma, yet managed to become millionaires in a society that at one time required African Americans to work in a factory to make it to the middle class. They aren’t condescending, like previous Afristocractic ordained leaders, who preached self responsibility but were not handing out any opportunities. The new Talented Tenth is breeding more millionaires, minus the sermons.
It is for this reason that public intellectuals are meeting with rappers to discuss content because they too realize the shift in power. What the rappers are doing with the influence is a topic for another discussion, but they undoubtedly have more influence than any other group on social movements and in directing their thoughts and ideals.
