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Originally Posted by billege
Let’s just say I disagree with, and resent, at least some of what you’ve offered.
I’m going to say that:
Not one line of my post is designed to bait anyone.
I know this, because at no point was that remotely my intention.
I resent like hell you decided to place the racist label on me.
I’m also confident that I treat anyone I run into with equal respect and consideration.
I detest bigotry in all it’s forms; you have no idea how wrong you are.
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As for your post not being race bait, and decrying the racist label, hating bigotry, etc. I can't say one way or the other. But I usually base things like that more on actions that would show racism rather than statements against it.
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I don’t think it’s wrong to ask a question based on observable facts. I never tried to apply the question to overwhelmingly large sections of a population, because that’s outside the scope of the question, and does not apply. You can’t take what I’m asking about a sub-segment of a population, and apply it to the whole group. I didn’t do that. Nor did I say that any other group being misogynist was somehow okay. If I was examining why rock stars in the 80’s were displaying such negativity towards women, I’d put forward different reasons for that behavior, don’t you think? I bet if I *had* postulated that white men in hair bands objectified women because they were angry about women’s financial power, no one would call “racist.”
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The problem comes when your "observable facts" consist of marketing you casually saw on MTV, and not actual real-life situations. You could've asked/thought instead why does such misogynistic music get airtime, but instead choose to think that because some of the performers are black, that rap-pop on MTV somehow represents black culture as a whole (ignoring the fact that you totally missed the point of the song which you say started this train of though).
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I think that being poor is the worst thing you can be in America, by America’s standards. I really think American culture believes poverty to be the worst thing anyone can be, the worst sin in our culture is to have no money.
I also think that America still hasn’t made nearly as much racial progress as we think we have, and on top of that, white people don’t want to hear it. The hardest thing in America is to be poor, and of color.
American’s have a hard time acknowledging that we have cities like Detroit, where a good 70% of the population in the city limits is black, and overwhelmingly poor. Or like what was New Orleans, where the numbers were only slightly less astonishing. American culture has no major voices screaming about the situations in our own yard. The hundreds of thousands of children growing up in poverty. They go to cheap, poorly funded schools, and repeat an awful cycle of poverty. Where’s the public outcry about that? White America turned its back on that, and moved out. That’s a fact, and it is pretty sad.
My point being that we’ve made precious little progress since the last major movements in the 60’s. We do *not* want to hear about that though.
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I agree with all this, however these were not the sentiments of your original post. This seems little more than backpedalling. Your initial post was about why the black savages hate the far superior black women.
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One of the questions on my mind, and the impetus of my post, was “Do I see all the negative images of Black women in Black men’s art because of intracultural anger/jealousy?”
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Again, because you see a black person performing, you assume it's "Black" art. That is a faulty assumption. You want to decry racism, but you are hung up on the skin color of some (admitteldy the majority) of the performers.
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From what I’m reading in the responses, it’s far more likely that the causes are more general sexism than my postulate. I think there’s some strong reasoning to support that, in fact.
I will take a relisten to BEP’s song, and consider the lyrics through the lens suggested. My initial disgust at the lyrical content likely did prevent me from considering it for what it is. I appreciate the heads up on that. Does most of the BEP’s music contain commentary of this type? Yeah, I did know Fergie is white.
Thanks also for the book link, I will check that out. I expect it will be deeper. Especially considering I didn’t write a book, I asked a question based on some thoughts I had after watching some TV and listening to the radio the past couple days.
I guess one of the things I’m taking from this here is my lack of exposure to what Black culture does value, vs. what it appears to value in popular media. Media is not the best spoksmedia for any culture, but it can provoke questions. In addition to the one I asked, another one has been prompted through this discussion.
It’s been put forth by some posters in this thread, that white people are the biggest purchasing audience for Black musical art, specifically of the negative type under discussion. That begs the question: Why do white people like such images and concepts so much? Now *that* is an interesting question.
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This is a much better question, but yet you still focus on gansta rap being some sort of "Black" art. A more reasonable approach would be to understand that because gangsta rap is what sells, more performers would turn their music in that direction to make money, and not assume it's a natural cultural expression. But to do that, you would have to attribute at least a little understanding of economics to blacks, which obviously doesn't fit into your scenario of blacks having "no education, no real societal power".
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There are no Black TV shows anymore. Well, there’s basically no Black TV shows on that don’t continue some really shitty stereotypes. The shows are bad enough to prompt commentary and parody on the role’s black people play on TV and in movies. Not that *most* “white” shows don’t do the same with white stereotypes, but there are always a few shows out there that take an honest look at a population segment. Where are those shows?
Rosanne took a hard look at working poor/almost poor white people.
The Cosby Show showed a successful black American family.
There’s also nothing like A Different World on TV; no shows about Black people in college on TV these days. There’s nothing out there showing what I’m sure is a multifaceted culture, which I obviously aren’t exposed to very much. So why not?
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The shows you mention were exceptions. The Cosby show wasn't popular because it showed a prosperous black family, it was popular because of Bill Cosby, who had managed to overcome his race. And A Different World was popular because it's lead-in was the Cosby Show, which it was a spinoff of. And I also don't see many shows that take "honest" looks at the population segment. The closest I can think of is Everybody Loves Raymond, which just went off the air (and had it's share of implausibility). And there has been no similar show to Roseanne since it went off the air, either. And all those shows had one thing in common-extremely popular comedians as leads, who pretty much serialized their acts for television.
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Bill Cosby said what he thought were the reasons for his people’s failure, by his measures, to succeed. The man got shouted down pretty hard. No one wanted to hear what he’s saying. I don’t know what Black culture really is, as there’s what you see on TV, and there’s reality. I don’t know what the reality is, as I’m a white guy who lives in the ‘burbs of Ohio. It’s not a hotbed of cultural diversity here, although I have met some really neat Somalian people here. Did you know that Columbus has the largest population in America, of Somali refugees? It does, but that’s a random thought for today.
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If you yourself claim not to know about the reality of black culture, how do you think you can make sweeping claims about that culture? Especially when what little info you have comes from nothing but television and music.