Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The Impact of Rap Music on Young Black Americans

Ed Gordon Reports on a new study that shows link between rap and alcohol & violence.

More on the negative impact of rap music. More indications of how devastating this stuff is for the so-called "Black Community".
Should this really be a surprise to anyone? Certainly not surprising to me... I have been saying this for years.

I personally hate rap and the sub-culture that it has created.

This is yet another reason why Black Youth should avoid this poison. Every week it seems that we hear about one of these rap music thugs being shot, stabbed, arrested, committing some stupid or disgusting crime, or making a fool out of black folks. Yet, more and more Black youth want to become what?...you guessed it... they want to be rappers. And the young women in particular want to emulate the lifestyle of Hip Hop women- the women in the videos degrading themselves, etc.

Unfortunately I think it is too late for "Black America".... You have a situation now where you have Parents who either don't know how to raise kids, are unable to control their children because the kids are already brainwashed, or for whatever reason the parents just don't give a damn. Black "parents" have basically turned over parenting responsibilities to Hollywood, MTV, BET, and the Hip Hop culture. This is really the case for America across the board, but this is especially the case for Black folks. This situation combined with the pressures from rap culture are leading to all sorts of problems.

These rappers (modern day 'Amos and Andy's') are doing more damage to young Blacks than any Klansman could possibly do at this point. Yet Black folks celebrate this garbage called rap culture. It's a damn shame. And for me... it's really embarassing.

Ed Gordon discusses the report on his public radio program.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

You're hitting the nail right on the head. Not too many people will appreciate such honesty (look at the anger and rejection flung at Bill Cosby for his comments regarding the choice between $200 sneakers and $200 for "Hooked on Phonics" (Nike gets rich and our kids remain illiterate)

People refuse to see things as being so stark. They'll say that there is positive rap music or that Master P has donated millions to his community, etc... No one wants to say that Rap music as it exists today would be the ultimate weapon of choice in the hands of the KKK or those behind COINTELPRO.

Anonymous said...

people said the same thing about Jazz music. It was seen as savage tribal music that stirred violence and sexuality and degraded good "negroes". Now Jazz is considered the only true American art form.

Anonymous said...

I THINK YOU ARE RIGHT. YES IT IS TRUE THAT THEY SAID THE SAME THING ABOUT JAZZ. HOWEVER, JAZZ DID NOT HAVE SUCH A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON PEOPLE. IT DID NOT GLORIFY CRIME, DRUGS AND THE DEGRATION OF WOMEN. THUS, RAP IS A GENRE THAT DESTROYING THE FURTURE ARICAN AMERICANS.

concerned american said...

I agree that Rap Music negatively affects the black community...what we have here is a group of people who see a means of obtaining a better "lifestyle" by exploiting their own people...such ignorance.

I am deeply saddened by the lack of growth and maturity of black people over the last 80 years. I think part of the blame lies in a replacement of leaders like W.E. DuBois and Martin Luther King Jr.'s to Tupac's, Jay-Z's, Lil'Waynes, Gangster's, Hustler's, and Drugs...what a road to success we're on...one more thing...I am absolutely sick and tired of hearing my fellow blacks defend this crap..the seduced one's...leads me to believe that genes may have something to do with the behavior of many black people, not all...I believe a
reverse engineering in the black race is needed...more money needs to be placed in building our race up and not tearing each other down and destroying our generation and the next. KKK doesn't have to destroy us, we destroy ourselves and defend our right to do it...what insanity!!!

Unknown said...

I think that, while rap does further perpetuate negative aspects of the black community, it is ignorant and short sided to name it as the cause. It's kind of like which came first the chicken or the egg. Only, in this instance, we don't have to get into a theological discussion about the true answer. Misogyny, crime, drugs, and the like existed decades before rap came into existence; and putting the blame on it's continued existence on any form of media is short sided and does very little to solve the real problem, environment. The average consumer of rap music are middle class white kids who don't re-create any of the vices exhibited in the music they follow as avidly as their poorer, black counterparts. Why is this? It's because the subject matter that they're bombarded with through this genre isn't what they encounter in their homes and their communities. So, yes, rap can have a positive impact on youth if those involved chose to be more positive; but putting the burden of uplifting a people on the back of downtrodden individuals who never had a positive influence themselves is our plan then I think we are doomed. Let's attack the underlying issues instead of making scapegoats out of the results of bad parenting and environments.