Rap is the culprit in killing of black men

The Baltimore Sun ^ | January 6, 2007 | Gregory Kane

[neverdem]

The 800-pound gorilla is back, and as usual folks are pretending the critter ain't in the room.

We'll call this particular 800-pound gorilla Joey, in tribute to that 1940s film about the giant ape called Mighty Joe Young. I think it's time Joey got his props. I think it's time we acknowledge Joey.

Joey, meet the guys.

Guys, shake hands with Joey.

"The guys" in this case are those Baltimoreans who, for the past week, have expressed angst and dismay about the appalling way some young black men in this city, addicted to the thug life, dispatch each other with such chilling ease. Of Baltimore's nearly 300 homicide victims each year, the overwhelming majority of victims and killers are young black men.

Everybody and everything has been mentioned as enablers to Bodymore, Murderland's culture of death: lack of jobs, lack of recreational facilities, lack of music and art programs in schools, lack of mentors. Everybody's been mentioned, that is, except Joey, who's standing in the middle of the room with a Bloods bandana on his head, a Crips scarf tied around his neck, "grillz" on his teeth and holding a Glock in his hand.

Oh, and Joey's holding a copy of The Source magazine in the other hand with a picture of rapper The Game on the cover. Get where I'm going here?

Joey represents the entertainment industry and, to a lesser extent, my profession, which some folks call "the media." If I may be permitted to use a Bill Cosbyism, the entertainment industry and the media aren't holding up our end of the bargain when it comes to reducing violence. We just don't get the link between rap music and the carnage that's going on not only on Baltimore's streets, but America's streets.

Now before I hear from hard-core...

[neverdem]

greg.kane@baltsun.com

[MovementConservative]

This is a cultural problem they will have to solve themselves. They will not listen to anyone who they don't identify with. If they choose to live this way, then death, jail, and out-of-wedlock births will be the future. Not much of a hopeful legacy being passed down.

[dfwgator]

Rap is the culprit in killing music.

[Jaysun]

Rap isn't the culprit in my view. Sure, rap isn't helping, but the rappers are recounting what they did in the past - long before rap music.

[endthematrix]

It's a lack of desire.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Our problem is that individual liberty, in general, is suffering, due to the dysfunctional behavior of this minority. Even worse, people who should know better actually boast, of "making the streets safer", by restricting the constitutional liberties of us all.

[ansel12]

" the overwhelming majority of victims and killers are young black men."






They kill a lot of everybody, and as someone that is not black I feel very uncomfortable about all the focus being about black on black crime, it implies support of the very racism that leads blacks to commit so much rape and murder against the other races.

Of course most of their victims are black, because that is who they mostly live among, but they include incredible numbers of non blacks in their violence.

[CANBFORGIVEN]

It is sin! Out of wedlock births, sexual dysfunctions, laziness (unwillingness to work), idols other than God, worship other than God, discontentment, absent fathers, promiscous women, lack of family values.......shall I continue? Until this community of lost souls wakes up and seeks repentance real change will not happen.

The good news is that Jesus loves to save people just like all of them.

[CarrotAndStick]

This is spreading to the Muzzies too:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1720092/posts


Pakistani Muslims bash Bollywood


FRANKFURT: Bollywood may wear its multi-religious pluralism as a badge of honour, but for the angry young British Muslims of Pakistani denomination, it’s all a sham and therefore a matter of extreme discomfort.

As India's oversized filmdom stampedes across the world winning accolades, a group of British Muslim youth is trashing the Bollywood genre, warning that the "cheesy second-rate imitation of Hollywood...is overrunning Pakistan and brainwashing musalmaans".

In a rap-video posted on youtube.com that is being widely circulated in Pakistani circles, the group reserves much of its venom for Bollywood’s reigning stars, many of who happen to be Muslims.

"What do you want to give your kids?/Is it Salman Khan or Islam?/Is it Shah Rukh Khan or Allah’s book?/ Is it Bobby Deol or save their souls?/ Is it Amir Khan or imaan?" intones a singer, preferring a hip-hop style to convey the message.

Hip-hop is an African-American influenced musical and cultural movement that has itself attracted criticism for its language. YouTube is a social networking website that allows users to upload, view and share videoclips and it too has attracted criticism for encouraging violence and copyright infringement.

But for the extremist Brit-Pak brigade, Bollywood bashing comes first. "Everywhere you look/It’s that kufr Bollywood/Video stores selling whores/Semi-gay actors with Muslim sounding names/With Hindu propaganda designed to create chains," goes one rant.

The unnamed group, which has produced the video from a collage of Hindi film clips and posters, says Bollywood movies are officially banned in Pakistan but it is freely available on video and DVD by piracy, which it says is "a conspiracy to allow Hindu culture thorough the backdoor."

Reports from Pakistan speak of the movie Fanaa being a big hit in the country’s underground circuit. Songs from Fanaa and other new Bollywood blockbusters are played openly in taxis and private transport.

The Pakistani elite and the ruling class lead the ranks of Bollywood aficionados, a fact that seems to rankle the British Pakistani youth who are in the limelight for their extremist views and fondness for madrassas.

"They kill Kashmiris but you still watch Mission Kashmir,’’ they admonish Pakistanis in one passage.

Another rap passage wonders: "Bollywood Bollywood what’s the future hold/ As film by film you get ever so bold/ Stories of lesbianism enter the fold/ Now you have to heat it up as it starts going cold/ Topless movies or is it incest next/ All the time it is sex sex sex."


Muslim rappers worry Western intelligence

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1737187/posts

[Tarantulas]

I clicked on the link and received this message:

"Please register or log in The feature you requested is available only to registered members."

So we can't read the entire article. But I'm surprised that this guy doesn't blame video games as well as music for the violent behavior of young adults, i.e., he's coming to the wrong conclusion. Maybe it would be good to step back and look at parental responsibility and see how much ethical training these kids were given before being set loose on the streets.

Any time a kid does something horrific, I always ask "Where were the parents?" And generally they were nowhere to be found. Get the parents to turn out good kids and there won't be so many killings. It's just common sense.

[new cruelty]

Everybody and everything has been mentioned as enablers to Bodymore, Murderland's culture of death: lack of jobs, lack of recreational facilities, lack of music and art programs in schools, lack of mentors. Everybody's been mentioned, that is, except Joey,...

And Joey's parents.

[neverdem]

So we can't read the entire article.

You can register for free or use http://www.bugmenot.com/.

[endthematrix]

Kids? The culture of gangs (orgininzed crime) necessitate a lifetime service requirement. The parents are the previous generations foot soldiers that survived the streets. Of course this is a more recent occurrence. But some grandparents are in their forties now, and are in gangs too. They may no push rock on the corner, but have a stake in a convenient store or car dealership, but still pay tribute and offer support to the crime syndicate.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Of Baltimore's nearly 300 homicide victims each year, the overwhelming majority of victims and killers are young black men.

However, the overwhelming majority of listeners of rap music are not. Blaming social ills on a form of music is ridiculous.

[Smokin' Joe]

There are fourty years of media desensitization to violence, physical and sexual, along the road behind rap. From Sam Peckinpaugh's Billy the Kid onward, splatter flicks, and increasingly realistic and deadly film fare to Jimi Hendrix singing "Hey Joe...", the body count has been rising, and the blood runs deeper.

The liberals took a few decades to villify weapons, rather than the wielders, black culture took a pass from the sociologists and embraced the excuse of 'victimhood', womyn got their 'rights', but a castrated culture sought empowerment in the only thing it felt was left.

The culture will have to set new priorities and heal itself.

The media can help, but will it? Doubtful, as the focus has been in lockstep with the communist's goals all along.

[L.N. Smithee]

Of Baltimore's nearly 300 homicide victims each year, the overwhelming majority of victims and killers are young black men.

Holy crap...three hundred?! Is that an accurate number?

[thefactor]

rap does encourage, but the fact of the matter is you have lots and lots of young black men trying to get rich in businesses that can only support a few. music, drugs, pro sports, it's all the same. it's all a hustle. the weak fall by the wayside. sad but true.

[stumpy]

35 years ago, I was a cop working the western portion of WATTS in L.A... It isn't just rap thats killing them. 35 years ago, I stopped a little 8year old kid on his way to 2nd grade.

The reason I stopped him was because of the serrated steak knife I noticed sticking our of his back pocket. He told me his momma gave it to him and told him to carry it in case any body messes with him.

Now their "mommas" and aunties buy them the gangsta clothing without a clue where the style came from. Hey it came from the California prison system where one size fits all.

I agree "rap" continues the gangster personna, but they are raised to be violent. Thats where it comes from.

[PGalt]

Criminal behavoir is caused by criminal thinking...Samenow - "Inside the Criminal Mind"

[thefactor]

little has canged from the beat you covered 35 years ago to the beat i cover now.

[prophetic]

bump

[sumocide]

In the past, huh? Here's Redman in recent self documentary feature on Smack DVD.

Warning: There's drugs and crude language.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sehE45IWikI&mode=related&search=

[Fresh Wind]

Sure, rap isn't helping, but the rappers are recounting what they did in the past - long before rap music.

Rap has been around longer than most of these rappers have even been alive.

[durasell]

Hey it came from the California prison system where one size fits all.





Much more complicated than that -- how else to explain Timberland and professional sports team jerseys.

[stumpy]

They are following the market. It started with the prison system.

[nopardons]

Wasn't Peckinpaugh's "BONNIE AND CLYDE" his first "splatter" movie?

[durasell]

The pants thing came out of the prison system. The sports thing came out of pop culture and the bling thing came from the Italian American community. Lord knows where the Timberland thing came from.

[mc6809e]

The 60's screwed things up. Looks like recent decline in murder rate was just temporary.

[metesky]

Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip Hop Hustler by Ethan Brown

[Northern Alliance]

Wasn't Peckinpaugh's "BONNIE AND CLYDE" his first "splatter" movie?

First 'splatter' movie ever, by anyone. According to a TV special I saw a long time ago on violence in film, it was the first time the impact of bullets was shown in the same shot with the shooter in any major movie. But the director was Arthur Penn.

It got 5 Oscar nominations!

Hey, your post tweaked me to check Peckinpah at IMDB. I never realized he was a writer for TV shows like Gunsmoke, Have Gun, Will Travel (what a great series!!), The Rifleman, Route 66, and many others.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001603/

[Sprite518]

Facts may sometimes be uncomfortable, but they must said. Ignoring the problem (because your not black) is the reason why this problem has manifest itself and has not gone away.

[Sprite518]

You know this was never a problem in the black community before the 60s. The Liberals have managed to destroy the black community by embracing a culture of death.

[Sprite518]

What is ridiculous is you saying that rap music has no impact on the black community.

[SantosLHalper]

Rap is the culprit in killing of black men....

WRONG!!!!

RAP!
Is just a way for people with no musical talent to make $$$MILLIONS$$$ in the 'music' industry.

OH!

Kind of proves your point;
In a way.

Anything to make money, promote thuggery and sloth.
And they say that conservative whites are evil money grubbers.

[GATOR NAVY]

None of the bugmenot passwords for the Sun worked for me, but google the name of the author (Gregory Kane) and you will get a link to take you right in. I find this often gets me past registration.

[oldenuff2no]

I know areas where there is high white and Hispanic unemployment and yet they do not kill each other in wholesale lots. Having to prove myself in my youth I still remember how absolutely important it was for me in perceiving myself as a man. I did my proving in the military by volunteering for three tours in Viet Nam.
When I travel now I am always legally armed and usually transporting large trained K-9's. Even then I try to do my homework so I know what areas to avoid. I also try and avoid needless confrontations. I have nothing left to prove unless it is the ability to stay alive.
I think the black city cultures are always pushing their young to prove themselves and the only challengers they have to face are each other. It appears to be more about the need to prove their manhood and courage and doing so in the only way they can, fighting each other. This is a learned trait that has been witnessed for many generations. It won't stop until there are other accepted ways for young black men to prove themselves. When you look at young blacks in rural areas they are not creating the same statistics. There are other avenues they can use to establish their masculinity, so the don't end up killing each other.
Other cultures find these defining challenges in other ways and places but it is always a process that young men go through in some way.
As all animals have instincts we men have a need to compete against each other and to claim things and areas as our own. That is just a part of us as the human animal. It seems that many women think they are a few rungs up the evolutionary ladder from that persona but look who the young girls are attracted to. We've always heard that men do not know how women think. That may be true but it is also true that women have no clue that it is in every man to be a warrior.

[American in Singapore]

It's liberal welfare-state policies since the '60s that have contributed most to the sorry state of inner city blacks, encouraging the break-up of families. And of course a liberal will never say that.

I'm a middle-aged (some say old :-) white guy from the midwest that's listened to rap for 20 years (Geto Boys, N.W.A., Public Enemy...). I use it as inspiration when the chips are down; never for violence.

To blame the sorry state of black youth on rap is utter bullsh*t and a copout.

[Smokin' Joe]

Perhaps The Wild Bunch which came first, but the scenes in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid were in slow motion with close-ups of bullet impacts, etc.

It created a stir because it was particularly gory for the Western genre and because of controversy with the studio.

To my knowledge, he did not direct a version of Bonnie and Clyde.

Filmography (not counting TV) from wikpedia

Filmography 1961 The Deadly Companions

1962 Ride the High Country

1965 Major Dundee

1969 The Wild Bunch

1970 The Ballad of Cable Hogue

1971 Straw Dogs

1972 The Getaway

1972 Junior Bonner

1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

1974 Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

1975 The Killer Elite

1977 Cross of Iron

1978 Convoy

1982 Jinxed! (stunt director)

1983 The Osterman Weekend

[proudofthesouth]

"Rap is the culprit in killing music."

Add hip hop to that and you've got a deal.

[anton]

Sure, rap is the problem just like fishnet stockings cause prostitution and bandaleros create South American dictators. Black men are more likely to commit violent crimes by multiples of their white and Hispanic counterparts.


Is it genetic? Is it cultural? Is it responsive to oppression? Who cares?

[Vaduz]

Rap hip-hop rama lama ding dong none of it has anything to do with a song.

[bdfromlv]

Its all about the 3XL plus size that covers all, weapons drugs or bling. The new infra red viewer will show whats under the gear, Glock or grranimals.

[arthurus]

but the rappers are recounting what they did in the past

and glorifying it for a much wider circle of youth, bringing some white and lots of Spanish youth into the life. It has become the only "authentic" way to be a Black Man and is becoming the mark of "authenticity" for the Spanish youth also. It is Real Life.

[Vote 4 Nixon]

They are killing each other like flies in Savannah Ga. Every time I watch the local news thats all you see anymore. Unfortunately they also kill innocent law abiding citizens. I never drive to Savannah without a gun. Let one of those gangstas try to steal my wheels and I'd blast him and his homeys into the middle of next week.

[bdfromlv]

The decline in the murder rate was because of the mandatory sentencing of a**wipes and not letting the corrupt touchy feelly judges give 4th and 5th plus time outs to criminals. But their children are now growing up and will have to be warehoused soon.

[Vote 4 Nixon]

You sound like a correctional officer.

[YoungSoutherner]

You are correct, it is an issue of manhood. Because rural black men are not like black men in the inner city. I have asked some black men why it is like this and they have said that for many years their manhood was questioned and that is why they go out of the way to prove their manhood. Thank goodness my father was old school and grew up as a rural black man. Although we lived in the suburbs for most of life we also lived in a rural community and the city for a few years. As a black woman I have seen the difference.

[ThunderStruck94]

OK then, why is it that when a white person goes to a black neighborhood, he/she has to worry about their lives? It isn't the other way around. Oh I know, many of you will say "Oh but a black person will be looked upon suspiciously if they come into a white neighborhood"....big deal! I wish that it was only that same problem for a white person in a black neighborhood. I went to the capital one bowl in Orlando last week and parked my car a mile from the stadium and proceeded to walk. A friendly Orlando native pulled over in his car and told me to get in because he was afraid the blacks would kill me because I was in their "Territory". What is up with that?

[bdfromlv]

In a previous life and I voted for Nixon.

[Vote 4 Nixon]

GDC here.