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... I guess we outsmarted ourselves / Someone thought “finders keepers” and called the cement trucks to smother our mother to death / On went the years garnished by the tears of the victims that knew that they were / And those who were kin did not see any sin for they were the ones born within / Then one day a strong woman with fist in the air had finally had it up to here / She smashed the concrete and what grew from there made the entire world stare (yet still refuse to care) / The rose that grew from concrete / Life for this little flower was enough to make the bravest man cower / and still with all of his power his sweetness slowly turned sour / But how can we blame this flower I name / when the world was already lame before he even came / At least he still had hope. ... (“Fucked Up” by London Laidlaw)
Tupac Amaru Shakur. ... He was named Tupac Amaru after an eighteenth-century Incan chief and revolutionary who was killed when Spanish conquistadors tore his body apart with horses. Shakur, a common name adopted by the New York Panther clan, is Arabic for “thankful to God” (Holler, 25). ... Rather I would say that Tupac was one of the most interesting, inspiring, and important persons of his generation. Sure most of Tupac’s art was negative, but look at what it was negative towards. By his own admission Tupac was “America’s worst nightmare. ... Whatever the case, so much can be learned by Tupac’s life and death if we only take the time to look. ... Tupac’s mother Afeni Shakur, a woman at the forefront of the Black Panther movement was undeniably the source of Tupac’s strength and wisdom. While in the first stage of pregnancy with Tupac, Afeni was arrested alongside the legendary Black Panther contingent New York 21 and was charged with conspiring to bomb several New York department stores, police stations, and commuter railways. ... The fact that tupac was in prison before he was even born serves as a foreshadow to the difficulties that this child would face. ... Tupac appreciated his mothers honesty. ... Afeni wasn’t the only one showing Tupac what a hard world this is. ...
After the government systematically destroyed in the Panther movement, life went from bad to worse for all of it’s former members. ... Not long after that Tupac’s mother became addicted to crack. ... The fallout is the real bullshit. Tupac represents the fallout generation. ... It was an abandonment that deeply effected Tupac, spurring him to create brilliant art and to cry out for attention with his own brand of chaotic, self destructive behavior” (40). ... Yet even though crack was tearing them apart, Tupac still learned and looked up to Afeni. ... ” Tupac constantly shifting between an optimist and a pessimist but forever a realist.
One of the most incredible pieces of film featuring Tupac is an interview that he did for a theater project when he was seventeen. At the age of seventeen Tupac had already lived through an incredible amount of pain but as this interview showcases Tupac still had hopes and dreams. ... Tupac’s solutions for the problems of urban life are somewhat unrealistic but no more unreal than the conditions of the real world. ... Tupac’s main area of concern was poverty but he also saw education as something that needed to change. He felt that although school tries to get you ready for the world it doesn’t get you ready for the real world. ... He thought that each school should have it’s own curriculum and that the classes should reflect the actual conditions of your individual life. ... Tupac saw education as the answer but not education as it stands today. This is what bleed from every act and action that Tupac ever made, education. ... Tupac knew of the statistical conditions in which he lived. In talking about Baltimore, Tupac states “Baltimore has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy, the highest rate of AIDS within the black community, the highest rate of teens killing teens, the highest rate of teenage suicide, and the highest rate of blacks killing blacks” (Thug Angel). Not only did Tupac know things about his community that most people don’t know, he also did things for his community that most people wouldn’t do. ... It was undoubtably Tupac’s Panther roots that spawned in him this need for change. ... There the black community was being terrorized by skinheads and Tupac (not one to be disrespected) tried to find a solution. So as a defense mechanism Tupac started up the Black Panthers again. ... What Tupac wanted to do is to give pride back to the black community. ... And just like Afeni taught Tupac, Tupac’s plan was to teach the rest of the world.
Approximate Word count = 3998
Approximate Pages = 16
(250 words per page double spaced)
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