Imus...redux!!!!
Somebody out there help me. The recent dance over Imus' comments seems like deju vu...all over again! The usual suspects trot out the predictable set of warmed over ideas. African Americans are expected to apologize for the nominal benefits a few receive from hip hop smut, while whites can feel superior because, after all, Imus'got his verbal ammunition from African Americans in the first place.
Last time I checked, few African Americans controlled music distribution, in the US or anywhere else. Granted, we write and perform the songs, but -- as is the case in history -- we don't sign ourselves to contracts, book tours, and roll ourselves up in the billions the music generats.
Yet African Americans are expected to apologize for creating hip hop culture. Apologize to who? For what? Our system has reached its highest level. Those who control the media and public opinion have gotten the art of target shifting down to a science. Want to deflect public attention from the basic problem of an amoral economic system? Turn the discussion away from fundamental ideas. Focus instead on devolved themes.
...and lacking a useful framework from which to accurately evaluate oursevles in the context of this society, we freeze.
Last time I checked, few African Americans controlled music distribution, in the US or anywhere else. Granted, we write and perform the songs, but -- as is the case in history -- we don't sign ourselves to contracts, book tours, and roll ourselves up in the billions the music generats.
Yet African Americans are expected to apologize for creating hip hop culture. Apologize to who? For what? Our system has reached its highest level. Those who control the media and public opinion have gotten the art of target shifting down to a science. Want to deflect public attention from the basic problem of an amoral economic system? Turn the discussion away from fundamental ideas. Focus instead on devolved themes.
...and lacking a useful framework from which to accurately evaluate oursevles in the context of this society, we freeze.
Who cares who writes it. Who cares who signs the contracts. People will write, perform, and produce it as long as it will make them a few dollars. WHY do PARENTS allow their kids (some as young as 9, 10, 11) to BUY it? This is not a function of any one race. Black kids buy it, White kids buy it, Hispanic kids buy it, Asian kids buy it. The language promotes violence and severe degradation of women, and yet parents simply allow it, or even worse, fund the purchase of it. We need to check with where the parents are putting their priorities if it isn't on the upbringing of their kids.
As for Imus? He was contracted and promoted because there was an AUDIENCE and it made someone some money.
Your views are bang on!!!