Peace! Unity! Love! (...and having fun!)

Saturday, I found myself--with girlfriend riding shotgun--at the Columbia Heights Youth Center in the newly gentrified Columbia Heights area of NW DC. We arrived around 4PM. The DC Hip Hop Theatre Festival was in town, and Words Beats & Life was hosting this year's "Freshest of All Time", a b-boy/b-girl battle, that took place from 2pm - 8pm.

Fortunately, I carried my Flip video cam to document this experience, because as I walked around in this wide open gym space, filled with people respecting the original form of hip-hop, it hit me--What other art form has managed to bridge cultural gaps so effectively?

The self-absorption of today's mainstream hip-hop artists (possibly an unfair generalization) would almost make one forget the origins of hip-hop, and the goals of peace, unity and love. Sounds like a bunch o' hippie crap, but listen to some old Afrika Bambaataa. (I love hippies, by the way).

With so many fake rap gangstas getting all of the attention these days, claiming Blood, Crip, Folks, etc., someone not schooled in the entirety of hip-hop would get the impression that it's all about division and violence.

Anyway, as I stood among the hundreds of people in that youth center on Saturday, for hours, I stood among a vast number of Asians, African-Americans, Latinos, and Whites--many from each culture VERY skilled in the art of b-boyin'. They just wanted to dance. I saw people dancing with each other, sans prejudice. Just the normal posturing, but that's just a part of the culture.

All of these people vibing together in one room, in a neighborhood still battling with its own identity among rebuilding and gentrification. In a neighborhood, that still is the home to the occasional murder. I know this, because I see it on the news--NBC 4, Fox 5, ABC 7, CBS 9.

Where were those reporters on Saturday? All of that love, unity and peace and one room, and not 1 news camera.

Well, I had my camera. Here are a few clips from what I saw that day: