Sink the Biz Markie

Four o’clock on a Monday afternoon might not be the most ideal time for a hip-hop start to make a visit to our campus, but no one told that to Biz Markie.

After listening to the man scratch turntables for a few minutes, I had the pleasure of hearing his input on a panel about the future of green energy here at IU and around the country.

The panel discussion constituted the meat of the event. Alongside Biz were representatives from all levels of the University, including the director of diversity education, student leaders and a graduate student in education.

The discussion was moderated by Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., the CEO and president of the board of Hip Hop Caucus, the national civic engagement organization that sponsored the event.

The main message of the panel centered on the notion that clean energy is the civil rights movement of our generation. The speeches of Al Gore were equated to the murder of Emmett Till as a call to action. According to Rev. Yearwood, the legacy this generation will leave for the next will be based on how well we handle the energy and climate issues of today and the near future.

I wish I could tell all of you more about their message of change, but I cannot. There simply wasn’t any more than that.

The panelists all claimed to be proponents of the clean energy movement, but they did little more than continually reiterate that message throughout the event. “Big Oil” was repeatedly used in the pejorative sense, and only passing mention was made of solar panels. Most of what was discussed covered broad topics related to clean energy, including recycling, conservation of resources and health issues due to pollution, but little time was actually used to talk about cleaner methods of producing power.

When Biz Markie left the event early to catch a plane back East, half the crowd shuffled out with him. Rev. Yearwood then took this opportunity to talk about how social movements cannot be based on celebrity status and spoke of those that had gone as deserters to the cause.

I agree that clean energy is a pressing issue that spans from the individual level to the world as a whole. I also happen to agree that celebrity endorsement is a poor way of fueling social and political movements. Unless of course those people happened to gain their celebrity from the movement itself.

As shown by the display at Monday’s panel, however, there is simply no way the movement for clean energy will be able to stand on its own unless those at the forefront rethink their approach to spreading the message to the public. Without a focused objective and a willingness to discuss the facts of the situation, the moral push for cleaner energy touted by Hip Hop Caucus is doomed to remain nothing more than a footnote to history based on celebrity appeal.

Do us all a favor, though. Recycle this newspaper.

E-mail: erbcox@indiana.edu