Imus Dead - By William F. Buckley »

This Story is Archived and Commenting is Closed

Comments: 20

• 
  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  Hobe

  April 15, 2007, 4:39 p.m.

  Imus is Dead and the Filthy and Degrading lyrics for All Woman of the garbage excuse for Music HIP-HOP lives on, What a disgrace...

  Will the idiot's who support this garbage ever get the message of how degrading and low class Hiphop is???

  Our Woman in all ethnic groups deserve more respectable treatment... They are worth it..

  The Promoters and Low Class so Called Artist of HipHop are a Major DISGRACE with No Talent in Music...

  Do You Really Want to Support this garbage??? Are the woman in your Life more deserving of respective treatment???

  Sincerely,
• 
  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  Haeravon

  April 15, 2007, 6:57 p.m.

  If you dont like it, dont listen to it. If it offends you, dont watch it.

  If somebody farts next to you, do you A) Take a big, deep, breath, and then rant, rave, and complain for the next six hours while writing a letter to your senator complaining how you were offended or do you B) move.

  I dont see what the difficulty is, what America's political-correctness psychosis is about. Maybe it's just as a white male my life is so perfect by default that I dont get offended when people call me 'cracker'. Perhaps my level of intelligence is just high enough to the point where I dont associate myself with a pastry at an intimate level. Maybe I just have more important things to do than care what a sixty year old radio jockey says. He could call the Vols a bunch of cream-skinned cum dumpsters for all I care.

  What ever happened to 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me' ? Tell that to Imus.
• 
  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  crespi

  April 15, 2007, 7:12 p.m.

  PART OF WHAT HAPPENED WITH GANGSTA RAP.

  First of all, I'm caucasian. If that means anything...

  An oppressed people often express it in artistic creation. For instance, oppressed Jews in one region created the soulful joy of Klezmer in response to poor conditions and treatment.

  The thing is the oppressors always try to "absorb" the new form.

  The black spirituals rivaled the traditional white hymns because, well because they were so spirited. So gospel music became a staple of Southern white churches. The concept of making worship fun was a real shocker (and strangely appealing).

  After the emancipation, the black "minstrel show" was immediately appropriated, with white people putting on black face (to try to put the black folks down while at the same time sapping the native vitality of this entertaining form.) Whites in black-face persisted in Hollywood for decades.

  continued-
• 
  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  crespi

  April 15, 2007, 7:12 p.m.

  Black-created Ragtime's popularity waned before it could be significantly ripped off.

  Dixieland jazz. How long before white people wanted in on this? About 2 seconds.

  We all know what happened to the blues. White country western rednecks glommed on to it first in the 1920s, then white crooners of the 30s, and now and forever, white kids "play the blues."

  Jitterbug's history is fascinating. In the 1930s racist pamphlets warning parents and condemning jitterbug as "jungle bunny music" proliferated while 10 years later when morale boosters were needed for the war, white kids were suddenly all doing it (although a much more toned down un-original version) and the hate was forgotten (by whites.)

  DooWop was all black in the beginning. Soon flooded with white vocal groups.

  Soul was harder to imitate but those of us from the seventies remember the white soul attempts.

  continued-
• 
  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  crespi

  April 15, 2007, 7:15 p.m.

  So the black community subconsciously created a poison pill for white America to steal, Gangsta Rap.

  Born out of radical political rap (that angrily questioned,)

  gangsta rap mutated into raw aggression, violence and extreme sexism.

  Legitimate indignation from generations of mistreatment at the hands of the law led to lyrics like "cop kill a ni*g*r kill a cop kill a ni*g*r ni*g*r ni*g*r kill a cop..." that do have an effect on impressionable youth.

  Like the 12 year old white boy who walked up to a car and shot a state trooper in the face like 15 year ago. The kid had in fact been listening to such stuff.

  Not to mention the sexist programming of young minds.

  That of course is an extreme example, but I myself was bolstered in anti-Viet Nam war beliefs by the powerful music of the time like Jefferson Airplane. It did significantly amplify an attitude I already had.

  continued-
• 
  Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)

  crespi

  April 15, 2007, 7:16 p.m.

  The difference is that the 60's music encouraged kids "not to shoot" while the gansta rap encouraged one to shoot folks. The sad thing though at first empowering to the black community, it has turned out to be a destructive liability. What started as a cry of "I own my own streets, whitey," morphed into "If you're on my street, I own you ni*ga." The first empowering, the second victimizing.

  It is interesting that violent rap developed under Reagan.

  Legendary music composer and producer Quincy Jones said of the Republican victory party in 1980, "all these old white men got up there and said "We're taking back America.""

  "Taking it back from who?" Jones asked himself.

  Rap today is shifting to trip hop, soul revival etc.

  Dis-empowerment and disenfranchisement leads to terrorism, in this case musical terrorism.

  Don't like gangsta rap? Fix up the ghettos.

All 20 comments are shown.