RAPPER SAYS STUDENTS TODAY NEED MORE COMMON SENSE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 8, 1992                   TAG: 9202080121
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-9   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: JOE TENNIS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium
RAPPER SAYS STUDENTS TODAY NEED MORE COMMON SENSE
Today's college students need to think for themselves and use more common sense, rapper and lecturer KRS-ONE said Thursday night at Radford University.
An audience of nearly 500, packed standing-room-only into Porterfield Theater, heard the popular rapper, known as a voice of increasingly frustrated young black Americans.
He told his audience the biggest disease in America today is "CSDS," or "Common Sense Deficiency Syndrome."
"Without common sense," the rapper said, "correct thinking is impossible. . . . You don't fight, then think - that's jail. You must think first."
What's more, he said, common sense leads to intellect. "Intellect is always asking questions. . . . It's impossible to be an intellectual without asking questions. . . . If you don't ask no questions, you're not gonna know nothing."
KRS-ONE, whose real name is Kris Parker, took to the streets when he was 13. The runaway was homeless for six years.
Now a social activist, Parker uses his talents as a rap singer to raise the social consciousness. He's a regular on the college lecture circuit.
One thing Parker dislikes is the learning process at institutions of higher education. Yes, students get all the answers when they come to school, he said. But all they do is memorize information - not think - to satisfy their teachers, he said.
Learning that way makes no use of common sense - something the educational system refuses to teach, he said. "The minute you start thinking, you'll fail your class. . . . You either do what the teacher tells you to do or you'll fail. That's memory."
Parker urged people to knock down culture barriers and stop using labels. "Before any of the labels we give ourselves, we are human beings first," he said.
No one is specifically white, yellow, black or red: We all are different shades of beige, he said. Holding up a white sheet of paper, he joked: "If a white man was this white, he'd be dead."
Still, Parker said, "we are being governed by these labels we give ourselves. Yet, none of us are these labels."
Americans need to change by letting nothing stand in the way of ridding prejudices. "Anything can be changed because nothing is really here - according to your philosophy class," he said.
Speaking as part of the university's recognition of Black History Month, Parker said people need to know others' history to understand each other.
African history, for example, should be shared by all, he said. "Once we know our cultures, we can define each other."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB