The Glorification of Violence.

by Staff November 19, 2012 3 Comments Ent. News Opinion Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) I find it funny how people are always so quick to blame hip-hop particularly gangster rap music for how the youth act but never recognize the real root of the problem. Gangster rap is just a branch of a tree called violence which was grown by America before music was even thought about.

Exhibit A: Christopher Columbus, I find it weird how everyone has an issue with a 3 minute song but when Christopher Columbus came to America and raped, killed and destroyed the Native Americans and took credit for finding their land (America) he gets a national holiday named after him. But everybody has issues with a 3 minute song that their children might be listening to right?

Alright another point I want to make is if everybody is so concerned about what their kids are listening to then maybe they should buy their kids the clean versions of songs. Besides at least in my personal opinion if parents would put as much energy into raising their kids as they do into having kids then we wouldn’t have such a high crime rate or prison rate or dropout rate. But let’s move on shall we.

Exhibit B: Andrew Jackson had basically kicked the Native Americans off of their own land which caused most if not all of them to die off or be forced to live in reservations. But what does America do in response to such behavior? America rewards him by putting his face on the twenty dollar bill. Funny isn’t it?

Last but not least I present to you Exhibit C: Boardwalk Empire. Now this happens to be one of my favorite shows which is why it’s going to be used to make my final point about how America has planted the seed of violence and now regrets its effects. Now on any given episode of this show someone can either be having sex, being murdered or being assaulted viciously. But if you read the reviews of the shows none of them criticize the show for its violence and sexual content but every week I visit thyblackman.com I see nothing but comments bad-mouthing hip-hop but never say anything negative about television.

It’s sad that we’ll blame black artist for promoting violence and ignorance when parents aren’t providing the proper supervision that children need. The same way when you go to a movie theater there’s a rating system that tells you what movies are suitable for each age the same thing is said for music with the parental advisory sticker. I find it funny when people expect artist to raise their kids because their too lazy to do it their damn selves………….

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Staff Writer; Shawn Hudson

Feel free to connect with this brother via Facebook; Sha.Dimes.

3 Comments

Yocheved says:

March 12, 2014 at 12:47 am

PREACH! No TV in my house, and no commercial radio either. Any movies that we stream online, I watch before my kid does. NO unsupervised Facebook chatting, either.

Andrew Jackson is a whole ‘nother rant. He is pretty universally considered the worst president to ever have set foot in office. His human rights record makes China look moderate. If I had the power, I’d take him off all our money with a snap of my fingers. Maybe I’ll put Will Smith’s face on there instead. Now THERE is a clean rapper I can support!

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Shawn Hudson says:

November 21, 2012 at 7:07 pm

I respectfully disagree because as someone who’s listened to hip hop since the 3rd grade with explicit lyrics it hasn’t influenced me to do anything wrong and that’s becuase my parents raised me right and told me what life on the streets is like. Which is something most parents don’t want to do instead they shelter their kids and do what you do and limit them from hearing certain things that they will eventually hear at some point.

All I was trying to say with this article is that you shouldn’t put all the blame on the rappers but put it on the labels that push the artist to put the type of music out that you dont like. Also their has to be an issues with the child before they even put the song on to begin with. No one wakes up puts a rap song on and instantly says i wanna kill someone just because of it.

Last but not least the blame lies upon the people who support the msuic me myself I listen to hardcore/ gangster rap and concsious rap but if I found soemthing offensive then I wouldn’t go to the club and dance to it. I wouldn’t download it, I wouldn’t play it in my car eithier. I’m sorry parents gotta step their game up. #HIPHOPFREDDOMOFSPEECHFOREVER!

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Joey says:

November 21, 2012 at 11:31 am

As a father and 30-something year-old hip-hop junkie I have to strongly disagree with your stance. There is no doubt that Christopher Columbus “discovered” land that was already inhabited which means he didn’t discover a dag-on thing. The way Andrew Jackson and America treated and still treat the Native Americans is horrible. I too am a huge fan of Boardwalk Empire and the violence and sex on the show is clearly for adults, so no child on the planet should even know the show exists much less have actually viewed an episode. But the difference in Boardwalk Empire and hip-hop is that one is a show and everyone who sees it knows it’s fictional. Rappers spend an enormous amount of time trying to let people know that what they rap about is their real life. That they shot all those people, and sold all those drugs they rap about. See Christopher Columbus was doing what he always did…travel to other lands and claim them by using religion, cheating tactics and violence. Andrew Jackson was treating the Native Americans in the same manner as every other cowboy in the west. Rappers are selling this to young people and giving the impression that it is the only way to be cool. Boardwalk Empire doesn’t say start selling drugs on 3rd street and transport it across state lines. Crhistopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson don’t represent the way to kill people and leave them with uninhabital lands.

Rappers send an actual message. We as older hip-hop heads can’t keep giving rappers a pass and equate what they do to a time when people lived a different way. They are resposnible for the music they put out, and whether we like it or not children follow what they do. The radio and labels market to the youth and bad parents let their children be influenced by what they hear. I don’t and my daughters are limited to what they hear and I attempt to keep it at age appropriate music, which quite often is not the local black radio stations. Sorry, the blame still lies on the marriage of bad parenting and the rappers.

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