While this post may seem weeks too late, or too slow, for someone (me) who claims to be caught up with current affairs, I think my patience with this topic has paid off. Recently, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons called for record labels and broadcast corporations to consent to banning specific language used in music.
This story of course stemming from the Don Imus controversy when he called female basketball players "nappy-headed hos". Imus had undergone a massive amount of criticism and was eventually fired from his over-the-air jobs.
To start off, I have no problem with CBS or NBC firing Don Imus. Those companies have an interest in distancing themselves from bad press and no longer want ties with Imus. Fair enough. And naturally I can agree that there are people with opinions and certain distastes for what he said over the air. I can even agree with Russell Simmons in his call for these companies to adhere to a long overdue standard of language control over the airwaves.
However, what I cannot stand is the people who are belittling Simmons' attempts to clean up the language. These critics are saying that any ban of single words will never rid the hip-hop "culture" of its misogynistic, sexist and racially charged arteries. These critics claim that these record labels and corporations have a social responsibility.
When I read that line, I stopped for a second. Corporate...social...responsibility. It doesn't seem so strange at first when you think of pollution taxes, safety regulations, and fair enterprise; but when it comes down to actual social and moral values in society I'm a little apprehensive to throw my arms open and embrace the moral values of my local Starbucks.
At the risk of sounding like a traditionalist (not to mention a broken record), I think that the responsibility of moral values should be placed at home, from the parents. A companies responsibility lies in the substance and objective purposes of their products, NOT in what people might POSSIBLY infer.
Now, I know that it's a far stretch for me to be comparing what someone might infer with a cup of Starbucks coffee and with what someone might be able to infer from an average rap song. However, if "bitch", "ho", "nigger", and any other controversial lyrics didn't make money, then the hip-hop industry wouldn't produce it.
Starbucks would serve you pig shit in a cup if it sold. And if someone had a moral stance against the consumption of pig shit, we wouldn't suddenly chain ourselves around Starbucks and demand that they stop selling their "Oinky Ovaltine". That person would just need to pack up his anti-pig-shit ass and get out of Starbucks.
The fact that we're adding children into the mix all of a sudden makes this the corporations' social responsibility. And while I agree, that obvious swear words should be curtailed in order to protect children, we cannot sterilize our children from the idea that we are a free country and we are given the right to free speech.
And I know, it seems strange that I'm actually defending the hip-hop culture when I so vehemently despise it, but my opinions are simply that, OPINIONS. I can tell anyone whatever I feel like, and for the same reason I cannot ask that others be limited in their ability to say what they want.
And if rappers are misogynistic, racist, sexist, and violent, then more power to them for finding a formula for making money. It's up to the listeners to take away from it what they want. And if those listeners are as impressionable as children, then it's up to whoever is responsible for them to inform them about what their values are. Thus the phrase "responsible for".
"Family watchdogs" are only concerned about this because it makes their job harder when their under-appreciated and over-drugged children stray away from their astigmatic and inattentive eyesight.
Because all their lives these parents were told that parenting was the easiest job in the world. And that all they had to do was plop their children in front of the TV and inject them full of downers and those kids would turn out to be the future generation of leaders and thinkers.
Fuck these people. It's their stupidity and refusal to admit their stupidity which are breeding the future bigots of the world. It's about time someone dickslapped them hard enough to wake themselves from their irresponsible, self-congratulatory wet dream.
This story of course stemming from the Don Imus controversy when he called female basketball players "nappy-headed hos". Imus had undergone a massive amount of criticism and was eventually fired from his over-the-air jobs.
To start off, I have no problem with CBS or NBC firing Don Imus. Those companies have an interest in distancing themselves from bad press and no longer want ties with Imus. Fair enough. And naturally I can agree that there are people with opinions and certain distastes for what he said over the air. I can even agree with Russell Simmons in his call for these companies to adhere to a long overdue standard of language control over the airwaves.
However, what I cannot stand is the people who are belittling Simmons' attempts to clean up the language. These critics are saying that any ban of single words will never rid the hip-hop "culture" of its misogynistic, sexist and racially charged arteries. These critics claim that these record labels and corporations have a social responsibility.
When I read that line, I stopped for a second. Corporate...social...responsibility. It doesn't seem so strange at first when you think of pollution taxes, safety regulations, and fair enterprise; but when it comes down to actual social and moral values in society I'm a little apprehensive to throw my arms open and embrace the moral values of my local Starbucks.
At the risk of sounding like a traditionalist (not to mention a broken record), I think that the responsibility of moral values should be placed at home, from the parents. A companies responsibility lies in the substance and objective purposes of their products, NOT in what people might POSSIBLY infer.
Now, I know that it's a far stretch for me to be comparing what someone might infer with a cup of Starbucks coffee and with what someone might be able to infer from an average rap song. However, if "bitch", "ho", "nigger", and any other controversial lyrics didn't make money, then the hip-hop industry wouldn't produce it.
Starbucks would serve you pig shit in a cup if it sold. And if someone had a moral stance against the consumption of pig shit, we wouldn't suddenly chain ourselves around Starbucks and demand that they stop selling their "Oinky Ovaltine". That person would just need to pack up his anti-pig-shit ass and get out of Starbucks.
The fact that we're adding children into the mix all of a sudden makes this the corporations' social responsibility. And while I agree, that obvious swear words should be curtailed in order to protect children, we cannot sterilize our children from the idea that we are a free country and we are given the right to free speech.
And I know, it seems strange that I'm actually defending the hip-hop culture when I so vehemently despise it, but my opinions are simply that, OPINIONS. I can tell anyone whatever I feel like, and for the same reason I cannot ask that others be limited in their ability to say what they want.
And if rappers are misogynistic, racist, sexist, and violent, then more power to them for finding a formula for making money. It's up to the listeners to take away from it what they want. And if those listeners are as impressionable as children, then it's up to whoever is responsible for them to inform them about what their values are. Thus the phrase "responsible for".
"Family watchdogs" are only concerned about this because it makes their job harder when their under-appreciated and over-drugged children stray away from their astigmatic and inattentive eyesight.
Because all their lives these parents were told that parenting was the easiest job in the world. And that all they had to do was plop their children in front of the TV and inject them full of downers and those kids would turn out to be the future generation of leaders and thinkers.
Fuck these people. It's their stupidity and refusal to admit their stupidity which are breeding the future bigots of the world. It's about time someone dickslapped them hard enough to wake themselves from their irresponsible, self-congratulatory wet dream.
posted by Daltonius at 10:10 PM
4 comments
