Let me just set the record straight: Hip-hop is responsible for a lot of things, but violence in sports isn’t one of them. I can’t believe that The Jacko Report (and I dig me some Jacko) and other local media reports made a blind attempt to blame hip-hop for the violence in sports, since rapper Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers was involved in a fight with fans during a pro basketball game.
Violence in sports was a fact long before hip-hop came along. And let’s not even talk about the intrinsic fighting in the sport of hockey. As if it wasn’t enough to implicate hip-hop, Jacko said that white middle class men are afraid of black men in hip-hop. Isn’t that a flip? Black men have been afraid of white men for their evil deeds for centuries, deeds that created a deep-seated fear and repressed anger. Black men were systemically terrified against taking retaliation against white men who brutalized and killed them, their children, wives and friends. Nah, I don’t know what music those white men listened to, but I do believe that, like now, their acts influenced the music, not the reverse. What does that have to do with today? Well, America has created some monsters and America wants the monsters to just go away. But America refuses to come up with an effective or humane antidote. Meanwhile Black America’s poor and, thus criminal-minded, rappers are spitting their reality and selling the art to make a better life. That’s better than no antidote. What are many white men doing these days? Glorifying murder, greed and tyranny in the euphemistic name of war on terrorism, and walking around talking about they served their country. No, you served the devil by declaring war and murdering more people in the history of the world than any group of people. And that’s supposed to be a noble and an effective platform to run a presidential campaign on? Conquering and murdering people who are minding their own business? Nah, that’s something to be scared of. And, mind you, these are some of the topics that hip-hop addresses. So it isn’t all-bad, depending on who you are. I wonder what music is preferred by the white fan who threw beer on Ron, and if that had anything to do with his antics?