Finally!
I can’t believe it took two whole weeks for a cranky op-ed writer to blame the French riots on Hip-Hop! Bill O’Reilly, you need to step up your game!
As David Brooks writes in this morning’s New York Times:
After 9/11, everyone knew there was going to be a debate about the future of Islam. We just didn’t know the debate would be between Osama bin Laden and Tupac Shakur.
…of course Tupac wasn’t Muslim, but, hey the guy’s on a roll…I mean, I doubt *I* could have linked European Muslims, Tupac and 9/11 all in two sentences. Then again, I know what the hell I’m talking about, so I guess I’m at a bit of a disadvantage.
The weird part is that I kind of agree with his assessment of the situation; I’m just mystified by his "analysis":
In other words, what we are seeing in France will be familiar to anyone who watched gangsta culture rise in this country. You take a population of young men who are oppressed by racism and who face limited opportunities, and you present them with a culture that encourages them to become exactly the sort of people the bigots think they are – and you call this proud self-assertion and empowerment. You take men who are already suspected by the police because of their color, and you romanticize and encourage criminality so they will be really despised and mistreated. You tell them to defy oppression by embracing self-destruction.
So basically he’s saying, "sure these people are the victims of racism, economic oppression, limited life options and police harassment, but the real problem is that they have a bad attitude about it."
As a Doctor of Philosophy, my response can be summed up in a single word:
"Huh?"
Also, I’ve noticed that Brooks, like many people I will graciously refer to as "non-progressives", tend to use the word "bigot" a lot when discussing racism. Just FYI, this is because that word, which refers to someone who just hates people of another background for no reason, avoids all of the cultural and institutional aspects of racism.
It implies that racism is simply the result of people who hate other people, as opposed to, for example, patterns of segregation, lack of economic equity, unequal access to health care, unequal access to education or deeply embedded cultural prejudices that people don’t even know they have (e.g. "Black English is inferior to Standard English"). None of that stuff matters. All you have to do is not hate people. Done! That was easy – what’s next?
As David Brooks writes in this morning’s New York Times:
After 9/11, everyone knew there was going to be a debate about the future of Islam. We just didn’t know the debate would be between Osama bin Laden and Tupac Shakur.
…of course Tupac wasn’t Muslim, but, hey the guy’s on a roll…I mean, I doubt *I* could have linked European Muslims, Tupac and 9/11 all in two sentences. Then again, I know what the hell I’m talking about, so I guess I’m at a bit of a disadvantage.
The weird part is that I kind of agree with his assessment of the situation; I’m just mystified by his "analysis":
In other words, what we are seeing in France will be familiar to anyone who watched gangsta culture rise in this country. You take a population of young men who are oppressed by racism and who face limited opportunities, and you present them with a culture that encourages them to become exactly the sort of people the bigots think they are – and you call this proud self-assertion and empowerment. You take men who are already suspected by the police because of their color, and you romanticize and encourage criminality so they will be really despised and mistreated. You tell them to defy oppression by embracing self-destruction.
So basically he’s saying, "sure these people are the victims of racism, economic oppression, limited life options and police harassment, but the real problem is that they have a bad attitude about it."
As a Doctor of Philosophy, my response can be summed up in a single word:
"Huh?"
Also, I’ve noticed that Brooks, like many people I will graciously refer to as "non-progressives", tend to use the word "bigot" a lot when discussing racism. Just FYI, this is because that word, which refers to someone who just hates people of another background for no reason, avoids all of the cultural and institutional aspects of racism.
It implies that racism is simply the result of people who hate other people, as opposed to, for example, patterns of segregation, lack of economic equity, unequal access to health care, unequal access to education or deeply embedded cultural prejudices that people don’t even know they have (e.g. "Black English is inferior to Standard English"). None of that stuff matters. All you have to do is not hate people. Done! That was easy – what’s next?
posted by Joe Twist at 11:32 AM
2 Comments:
It's really really sad to see people trippin like this
We need a movement to change this policy and this facts media comes with
and it really isn't hard NOT to hate people...is as easy as they hate, but what we need for that change?
I found this line in a CNN story about Tookie Williams...
"The old Crips see gangs that have only grown more menacing since their days, even as rap music has glorified the culture that surrounds them."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/03/old.crips.ap/index.html
Once again, the media seems to be blaming hip-hop for creating shit.
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