People are quick to attribute societal issues to specific groups. AIDS is a "gay" thing. Immigration is a "Mexican" thing. Terrorism is a "Muslim" thing.

Since it's not "your" problem, it's more permissible to sweep such issues under the neighbor's rug. That is, until neglected issues mutate and return with avengeance. Then, by default, it becomes "our" problem. This occurs well after symptoms have become epidemic and a quick fix is no longer a viable solution.

Needless to say, I was not surprised that hip-hop would be labeled a "black" problem.

Look at our prisons, wars, violent movies and video games, women fighting for equal pay and girls gone so wild that I can't even watch the commercial with my mother. Obviously, the black community does not have a monopoly on these trends of sexism and violence. This makes hip-hop a universal problem rooted in a shift in societal values, the commercialization of a music genre and the growing disenfranchisement of America's youth.

Don Imus didn't discover hip-hop's weaknesses. An internal struggle has existed for sometime - not as the source of the problem, but as a symptom that has needlessly reached epidemic. And now hip-hop has been publicly deemed an aberration by both black and white detractors with no real connection to the music.

Those of us who are connected wonder if people really "get" what they are fighting against.

In the African Griot tradition of storytelling, hip-hop infuses spiritual hopefulness with the pain of the blues. Often misunderstood, it has given voice to the experiences of those who otherwise felt ignored. Remember controversial rap group N.W.A. gave us "F*** the Police," a song that spoke of widespread police brutality. America gave us Rodney King, a personification of that very issue.

Everyone had a voice, and the urban experience had a national venue for a variety of perspectives. But once rap music became a lucrative investment for label executives, originally nonbelievers, the balance was gone.

Messages of hopelessness and degradation became the most pervasive images, glamorizing ignorance and poverty. Yet, record sales continued to explode with over 66 percent of these sales being from white consumers. Where was the uproar then?

Artists whose lyrical prose expresses more to life than dying for nothing still don't receive the same marketing and promotion as the more self-destructive artists. Last year, rap group 36 Mafia received an Academy Award for its song, "Hard Out There for a Pimp."

How many black people sat on that panel?

Our young people are becoming increasingly disengaged by education and formal support structures. And while we must continue to praise those who excel in spite of their circumstances, we cannot stop there. They don't shoot out in broad daylight or make the scantily clad stroll down East Fourth Street with children in tow. These are the young women and men who have been labeled as our community's pariahs and left to make due as a problematic subculture.

They are most likely to identify with the negative themes of today's rap music; it's their life-soundtrack. We hear the music and shake our heads when we should be listening to understand.

It IS absolutely about individual choice. But why would a young person risk life to sell drugs or align themselves with gang-bangers? Why would a young woman feel that a provocative dance provides the only positive affirmation that they are entitled to?

It is because WE, as a total community, talk at and about them, but not to them.

We have ceased to remind them of their greatness. Now, they are no longer connected to the community in which they live, growing restless and defiant. "We" are responsible for that, not Hip Hop.

KBOL 100.1FM was a pioneer in using hip-hop as a tool of engagement to create community change. Only then could one offer enlightenment and opportunity. But those who didn't understand the lure of the music or the youth that flock to it, didn't see the value in offering support.

When wielded by those who know its positive potential, like Michael Muhammad, hip-hop can unify and empower others to change their conditions. Meanwhile, improving our socio-economic climate and creating innovative opportunities for self-realization are tasks that we are all charged with. Only then will the inherent messages in the music change.

I hope that you will consider what position you will play, because until then hip-hop is still our problem.