Have You Tried Less Tiresome Music?
I have questions, dear reader. Important, probing questions. Are you unenthused by hip-hop tracks about “police brutality and racialised oppression”? Does rapping about poverty and “the woes of Black Americans as artists” not render you giddy and enthralled? Do you not delight in endless repetition of the word nigga?
I ask because we’re told, by Dr Jeremy McCool and Dr Tyrone Smith, two devotees of “critical race theory,” that a failure to gush with enthusiasm is a result of “systemic bias and inherent prejudice,” and is suppressing such innovation. It is, they say,
The silencing of intellectuals in music.
This profound and damning revelation was uncovered by means of a “notional study” in which 310 participants, young adults, half of whom “self-identified” as black and the other half as white, were invited to listen to various tracks and read selected lyrics, before being asked whether they would be likely to skip said track if heard in the car, or would instead continue listening, mesmerised and ready to be educated.
In each instance, the white participants in the experiment rejected the messaging at a higher frequency than the Black participants.
Extrapolating with gusto – one might say wildly – our scholars promptly invoke “the silencing of Black narratives and perspectives.” It turns out that if a hundred or so white people are slightly less interested in rote racial narcissism expressed via the medium of rap, this could result in “artists who typically make thought-provoking music being shunned by the industry.” It’s all terribly unfair, you see. If true.
It remains unclear whether our mighty scholars considered the quality of the music as music, i.e., beyond any supposedly radical and “thought-provoking” content, those “deeper political implications.” Nor is it clear whether lyrical monotony, generic braggadocio and crass sexual references may have played a part in boring some more than others. To say nothing of many rappers’ own reliance on cartoonish racial stereotypes. Readers are, however, invited to ponder the intellectual heft of the following extract from one of the selected tracks, Da Baby’s Rockstar:
Brand new Lamborghini, fuck a cop car
With the pistol on my hip like I’m a cop (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Have you ever met a real nigga rockstar?
This ain’t no guitar, bitch, this a Glock (woo)
My Glock told me to promise you gon’ squeeze me (woo)
You better let me go the day you need me (woo)
Soon as you up me on that nigga, get to bustin’ (woo)
And if I ain’t enough, go get the chop
If you’ve somehow remained unmoved and have been so inadequate as to feel no moral and mental elevation, this can only be explained, it seems, by your “bias and cultural cluelessness.” How dare you silence this downtrodden intellectual, whose insights include, “I don’t even listen to [other] people’s music… I listen to me all day long,” and, “I definitely am the best rapper alive.” And whose estimated wealth is a mere $3 million.
Update, via the comments:
It occurs to me that if you’re getting your political consciousness from Da Baby, whose deep thoughts are quoted above, or Lil Baby, or J Cole, or Meek Mill, all “thought-provoking” artists selected by our scholars – if this is your measure of suppressed intellectuals – then there’s a fairly good chance that you’re a poseur, or an idiot, and your standards may require some drastic recalibration.
It’s also worth noting how one of the most hazardous of words to use – one that may result in a kicking or sudden unemployment, and from which All Decent Non-Racist People are expected to recoil – is simultaneously one to which All Decent Non-Racist People are supposed to be drawn, or at least happy to tolerate. Provided it’s being mouthed, endlessly, by idiots of a certain hue. And failing to have a taste for this experience is, we’re now told, evidence of racism.
Nor is it clear whether lyrical monotony, generic braggadocio and crass sexual references may have played a part in boring some more than others.
That.
a result of “systemic bias and inherent prejudice,
And not simply because it is shit non-music?
Then there are the spirited rivalries.
I try to imagine what would’ve become of rock music if the Stones and the Beatles had done multiple drive-by shootings at each other…or here in the States, if the west-coast Beach Boys gunned down east-coast Elvis.
All because of insufficient props. Or whatever the hell reason they keep killing each other.
Hip-hop “musicians”: Conspiring to persuade normal human beings that black people might really be inferior and dangerous.
Dr Jeremy McCool and Dr Tyrone Smith: Conspiring to persuade normal human beings that helicopters might be the only solutions to some problems.
Normal black people who loathe hip-hop: “Hey, what about us?”
Dr Jeremy McCool and Dr Tyrone Smith: “You’re not black. You’re race-traitor oreos.”
It occurs to me that if you’re getting your political consciousness from Lil Baby, or Da Baby, whose insights are quoted above, or J Cole, or Meek Mill – if this is your measure of suppressed intellectuals – then there’s a fairly good chance you’re a tiresome poseur and, more to the point, a fucking idiot.
Pardon my French.
“east-coast Elvis.” ???
Sinatra was East Side. Elvis was “flyover”. At least until Vegas…
a tiresome poseur and, more to the point, a fucking idiot.
How about dangerous, depraved, and disposable?
What, no Bryson Gray?
McCool earned his PhD at Indiana University of PA, a notorious party school of little repute. I tutored a second semester senior economics major from IUP who didn’t know what a demand curve is and didn’t know how to plot intercepts on an x-y coordinate system.
If you look at his LinkedIn page, before landing at West Chester University, another beer-swilling forgettable 13th grade that admits everyone who breathes, McCool put in some important hours as an intern at “Smokin’ 99.1” and “88.3 The Dog”, where he probably did his quantitative research on the intersectional neo-colonial racism of wacky “morning zoo” radio programs.
This is a very important scholar who should be taken VERY seriously.
“It would seem from my observations over a lifetime, that the negro race is working through an earlier period of human evolution.”
Come live in Philadelphia. The white population isn’t that dramatically ahead. Most of their kids have taken the lead from their darker fellow citizens when it comes to intellect and taste in anything above the most crass, feral, lowest-rung on the evolutionary scale pursuits in life.
The silencing of…
You’re oppressing us, leave us alone. How dare you leave us alone, how dare you just switch off our music, we demand your attention and esteem, we demand that our music fill your spaces. You must Do The Work to understand us. You’ll never understand us, you don’t have the Soul or the Lived Experience. When we’re in your spaces, you make us feel like you’re in our spaces. You’re oppressing us, leave us alone…
… intellectuals in music
I take popular music seriously by seeing it for what it is and not intellectualizing it. A young man with a guitar who’s singing about finding a girl to hold hands with who’ll love him for who he is isn’t allegorizing about attaining a closer love of God, he’s saying that in his innermost soul he wants a girlfriend. To the extent that he’s listened to avidly it’s because the music amplifies and shapes latent wishes in young men’s souls. If they hadn’t listened to 10000 hours of ice cream chords during their teenage years, they might have a different idea of what a girlfriend is. Similarly, if you’re singing about the exquisite joy of imposing cruelty on your rivals, degrading the women of the enemy tribe, and raking in the spoils of war, I take that not as a spiritual or political allegory, but as a true representation of what can be in a human heart if it grows in a certain way,
“It would seem from my observations over a lifetime, that the negro race is working through an earlier period of human evolution.”
Where did that quote come from? I don’t see it in any of the above links.
It turns out that if a hundred or so white people are slightly less interested in rote racial narcissism expressed via the medium of rap, this could result in “artists who typically make thought-provoking music being shunned by the industry.”
By the Industry? Are they actually saying that Whyte people make up the biggest proportion of consumers of rap? Especially the less-mainstream, more race-concious rap? I thought black people were exhausted and tired of catering to white people, and black music, stories and such were for black people’s consumption only. So why are these two Walmart PhDs saying that if white people don’t like the rap the artists will get canceled? Since when do white people cancel rap artists! They do that to each other, with lead.
Wasn’t there a post recently about someone complaining about white people crashing college parties and lack of rap, or the white people weren’t supposed to enjoy it…or I may be confused. I have no doubt that white people make up a large portion of the rap-loving audience, for the braggadocio and the coolness aspect. Thug Life and all that. So these rappers probably do get their millions in large part from white kids. And that likely isn’t something they would like to admit or talk about. But I still don’t think white people would be able to get some tedious social justice rapper canceled. I suspect there is a limited black audience as well for such dreck.
In each instance, the white participants in the experiment rejected the messaging at a higher frequency than the Black participants.
Well if you enjoy singing along with your music – as many people do – then it is ill advised for people of pallor to listen to much of “black people’s music”. Examples abound.
And the problem with that is?
Cruel but fair? (Found via The People’s Cube.)
I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things about the American military and “those warmongering Republicans”, but the details now escape me.
It doesn’t seem to rhyme (woo).
“The silencing of intellectuals in music.”
Okay, I laughed. I denounce myself.
“This ain’t no guitar, bitch, this a Glock.”
Austrian company, based in Deutsch-Wagram, founded in 1963 by Gaston Glock, a major donor to the Freedom Party. I don’t think Doctors McCool and Smith would like him much.
Conspiring to persuade normal human beings that helicopters might be the only solutions to some problems.
Sooner or later, everyone comes around to the idea of helicopters.
Are they actually saying that Whyte people make up the biggest proportion of consumers of rap?
They do, and these hustlers know it. It’s simple mathematics; blacks only make up 13% of the US population, and I would wager less than half of that population consumes gangsta rap – you’re looking at teenagers and twentysomethings of both sexes and adult men under 50, I think – and 6% of the US population simply isn’t enough to generate the kind of money in that musical genre.
If only black people bought gangsta rap, the genre would be completely unknown outside of radio stations broadcasting to majority-black inner-city boroughs. It would be like Cuban jazz – everywhere in Miami, no one’s heard of it anywhere else.
All this needs is a backing track.
pst314, I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things.
Cruel but fair
The years had not been kind to Ellen.
Roughly 6000 humanity PhDs are awarded every year in the U.S., and this number has been rising over the last 15 years. And they all want a job as a professor, ultimately leading to tenure. Yet the number of undergraduates in the humanities keeps falling. Further, universities have increasingly relied on adjuncts and lecturers rather than tenure-track professors. It’s cheaper that way.
This means there’s a lot of competition for those tenure-trace position, so these PhDs have to outdo each other in their brave and transgressive publications. That their insights make little sense outside of their narrow fields, much less have any relation to reality, is of no import. Academic and career success is the ultimate goal here, nothing else.
Apropos of nothing, BritBox has restored episodes of all of classic Doctor Who. It’s amazing how much more watchable it is before it disappears up its own arse trying to be twee and clever. Also the First Doctor is a giant *sshole, so that’s fun.
There’s always DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, or Eminem, who are among the very few rap artists I’ve heard who possess both genuine cleverness and a sense of humour (granted, Eminem’s jokes are pretty darn black — no pun intended).
Of course, the real irony is that Eminem, a.k.a. Mr. Marshall Mathers, is in fact Caucasian. If rap is not the first time a new mode of, well, call it rhythmic sonic entertainment if not quite music has come out of the Black subcultures in the West (cf. African-inspired blues leading into ’50s and ’60s rock’n’roll), it is also not the first time non-Black artists have picked it up and run with it to highly expanded result.
Also the First Doctor is a giant *sshole, so that’s fun.
Yes, there was the distinct possibility that, given a particularly bad mood, he might beat you to death with a rock or abandon you on some godforsaken planet with a corrosive atmosphere.
You know, for kids.
One should also bear in mind obstacles of dialect. Take for example the immortal line quoted above, “Soon as you up me on that (n-word), get to bustin'”. I genuinely have no idea what this is meant to convey. What does “up” mean when used as a verb in this context? Is “bustin'” indicative of violence, or sexual activity? (I’ve heard it used both ways.) And is this a command to the listener, or a brag about what the speaker will do?
If Black artists want rap to be more popular with non-Black audiences they might consider making at least a nod to basic comprehensibility (though that would probably cost them audiences who value “keeping it real”).
Which is why I appreciate Eminem’s collaboration with the Charlie Daniels band.
There’s always DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, or Eminem, who are among the very few rap artists I’ve heard who possess both genuine cleverness and a sense of humour
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince are rappers who I can actually say I have heard and liked. The “I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie” song/rap (I don’t know the rapper who does it) was also kind of fun – again, sense of humor. And I actually like Gangsta’s Paradise (although I heard and liked Weird Al’s Amish Paradise first). But I guess that one was for some feel-good movie, and doesn’t count as proper rap to these race hustlers.
This discussion of rap made me look up the original song that Weird Al parodied for “White and Nerdy” and I have to say it’s kind of catchy. I can’t understand half of it, but I’m guessing there’s braggadocio and getting one over on the popo. There’s even white people in the video, so this one probably wouldn’t count as social justice rap according the illustrious profs in the OP.
I still think hip-hop tracks about “racialised oppression” would not appeal very much to Gangsta types in the ‘Hood. They may mouth the words when one of their own gets shot by non-gangsters during the commission of a crime, but “poor me I’m so oppressed” doesn’t sound very Gangsta to my white and nerdy ears. And while race hustlers, both black and white, would loudly profess to love such “music” I am willing to bet that is not what they listen to when they are at home.
The odd thing about mashup music (which I indulge in) is that I’ve been listening to rap singers without their backing tracks, and some of them show an interesting turn of phrase and acidic commentary. Biggie Smalls, in particular.
My preferred source is Bootie Mashup, which pumps out a monthly best of collection.
Of course, I also immediately dump any track that uses that excrable “WAP” so I’m still an oppressor.
they might consider making at least a nod to basic comprehensibility
Or provide translations into English…
Or provide translations into English…
Thank you for that much-needed laugh! Those were hilarious.
“The “I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie” song/rap (I don’t know the rapper who does it) was also kind of fun – again, sense of humor.”
Sir Mix-A-Lot, “Baby Got Back”. I prefer Jonathan Coulton’s rather more tuneful cover.
So… rapping, is it? I’m a Gen-X computer nerd. This is my culture.
It is interesting to see people actually giddy over Putin’s invasion, especially as another opportunity to call “white people” racist.
I like the loungy Richard Cheese cover of Baby Got Back.
…especially as another opportunity to call “white people” racist.
It’s as if they have themselves accomplished nothing to be proud of, and so instead must continue to run down those who have.
pst314, I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things.
Most artists would do well to STFU.
some of them show an interesting turn of phrase and acidic commentary
Thomas Sowell has pointed out that urban black culture is similar to and derived from Southern redneck culture. Remove race from it, and it’s easy to see that both communities share the same (often self-inflicted) social ills, from which many trenchant observations can arise.
One of the reasons I liked Justified was the fusion of the musical styles in the theme as well as the scripts.
BTW … “rap” has its beginnings in the 1970s. Didn’t like it then, don’t like it now. Not the least of which, I believe, is the deliberate obscuring of words. If your song has lyrics, I would rather hear them clearly instead of hunting down liner notes to follow along. Too many rock bands had/have that issue, and whenever the rap mobiles roll by me on the street or at red lights, voices sound like little more than percussive instruments.
Which amuses me when I watch young black reaction videos hearing for the first time Frank Sinatra, Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones, Karen Carpenter, or many other artists of the 50s, 60s, 70s and being amazed at clarity of their voices.
Oh my dears, what’s the point of singing lyrics if you can’t understand them?
Jonathan Coulton – he did the Code Monkey song! That one reminds me of a couple guys I have known and think of fondly. One of which got me hooked on Richard Cheese and burned several CDs of his music for me. Ah – Gen-X computer nerds – my people.
That their insights make little sense outside of their narrow fields, much less have any relation to reality, is of no import.
This comment, on the excretions of the 6000 humanities PhDs minted every year, I think nails this tempest in a teacup. Race grifters gonna race grift. Even if some rappers went all-in on social justice and systemic oppression on some of their songs, the majority of their output is going to appeal to the vast majority of their audience, to keep the big bucks rolling in. If some audience members, of any color, tune out the race grift songs, no biggie. The rapper gets to keep it real and stay rich. White people are not canceling rappers because few rappers are stupid enough to completely alienate the majority of their audience. And outside academia, I don’t think the black audience for such songs is very large, either.
“the silencing of Black narratives and perspectives.”
As far as I can see (or hear) there is no silencing of anything. The makers of such music–and I use the word advisedly–are free to make whatever noises they wish and utter whatever rhymes they can think of, so good for them. However, I am unlikely to be listening because, well, I don’t like either the noise or the silly little lyrics. Sorry, chaps, but please carry on with your narratives.
Professional racial victimhood spokespeople jump the shark (again).
Do they realize how stupid and inane they actually sound when they say things like this? While I don’t believe that there is any institutionalized racism left, this almost makes me think we ought to bring some of it back. Makes one pine for the bad old days of segregation. I really don’t care about their whining and complaining. I don’t care about their horrible music. Just stay the f*** away from me and out of earshot.
If this keeps up very much longer, I’m going to demand reparations for having to be exposed to this ultimate stupidity.
His name is Dick Cheese? What were his parents thinking?
“It’s simple mathematics;”
Indeed. The number of people in the various record houses live in a restricted bubble of lemmings, all of whom headed over the cliff into “rap” (same as disco – wasn’t really as popular as media believed)
Why is 4+ decade old “popular” music still so…popular?
Quintez Brown, the black racist who tried to murder a Jewish mayoral candidate, was one of the BBC’s go-to BLM talking heads.
To be honest, I didn’t realize this nut was still alive.
Their lyrical monotony, generic braggadocio and crass sexual references have absolutely nothing on Steel Panther.
Don’t they know? That’s What Girls Are For
“intellectuals in music” objection! Facts not in evidence. Rappers: turning white people into racists since 1978.
The number of people in the various record houses live in a restricted bubble of lemmings, all of whom headed over the cliff into “rap”…
I vaguely recall that the big record houses initially shunned rap for celebrating criminality and for being highly pornographic. (I suppose much as certain LP collections of dirty songs like the unexpurgated Barnacle Bill the Sailor and The Good Ship Venus had to be brought out on small record labels.) But then those record labels noticed that rap was selling well, and they changed their minds. Am I wrong?
To be honest, I didn’t realize this nut was still alive.
Another nut, just for “balance”:
Another nut
TBF that’s no crazier than some of the shite being spread by Globull Warming Nuts.
“Quintez Brown, the black racist who tried to murder a Jewish mayoral candidate, was one of the BBC’s go-to BLM talking heads.”
That would be the bloke who was bailed out by BLM less than three days after he was charged.
Y’know… nice people.
Tamara Lich, one of the organisers of the Canadian Freedom Convoy, during which no lives were lost, was denied bail on the grounds that she represents “a danger to public safety”. The judge is a former Liberal parliamentary candidate.
Ain’t life grand?
same as disco – wasn’t really as popular as media believed
I had to explain to someone the other day that Top 40 song lists were not based on sales but on radio play, and that radio stations are paid by labels to play their songs to pump up sales. So a Top 40 list is just “here’s what the labels are pushing this week”.
Similarly, it’s nowhere near as hard to earn a “gold record” as you might think.
@Darleen
…whenever the rap mobiles roll by me on the street or at red lights…
I wish I could credit the guy who said “I listen to rap one stop light at a time”.
I had to explain to someone the other day that Top 40 song lists were not based on sales but on radio play, and that radio stations are paid by labels to play their songs to pump up sales. So a Top 40 list is just “here’s what the labels are pushing this week”.
Maybe. But the success of Disco Duck was totes legit.
pst314,
Perhaps this is the sort of recording you have in mind:
https://www.discogs.com/master/616772-Ed-McCurdy-Erik-Darling-Alan-Arkin-When-Dalliance-Was-In-Flower
In his autobiography, And Now…Here’s Max, former CBC announcer Max Ferguson recalled Ed McCurdy sitting “in a corner, filing his nails while he filled the canteen with his magnificent voice. The melodies were usually esoteric Elizabethan airs and the lyrics were always filthy. Generally, he directed his unsolicited serenade toward a table of young CBC secretaries, who would abandon half-drunk cups of coffee and rush crimson-faced back to the sanctuary of their offices….When McCurdy later drew from his gamey repertoire and made an LP called When Dalliance Was In Flower one of the first buyers was HRH Prince Philip. I often wonder if HM’s morning coffee is periodically ruined, or whether, perhaps, she’s made of sterner stuff than CBC secretaries.”
Perhaps this is the sort of recording you have in mind:
🙂 I haven’t heard those particular songs, and most of the ones I’ve heard or seen the lyrics for (like the titles I mentioned) had lyrics less subtle to the modern ear.
Generally, he directed his unsolicited serenade toward a table of young CBC secretaries
I suppose that wouldn’t work nowadays, although one of the most enthusiastic singers of such songs that I recall was in fact a young woman.
Although I am sure rap “music” has real black musicians likes Duke Ellington whirling in their graves like runaway gyroscopes, the misogynistic lyrics are especially hurtful during Woynmx History Month.
Reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin incident, but without a happy ending.
Note, however, that the murder took place in 2019, and presumably none of us have until now heard of it. If the races of the killer and victim had been reversed the killing would have been national news, with riots and protests and regular reminders in the news that America is racist.
Another nut, just for “balance”
Adding context to the question “Did the earth move for you?”
“I listen to rap one stop light at a time”.
THIS.
A “notional experiment”?
I.e. “Existing only in theory, as a suggestion, or in imagination.”
That kind of experiment?
Beats working, I suppose.
Do you not delight in endless repetition of the word nigga?
That.
That.
Well, it’s a little odd. It’s pretty much the most hazardous of words to use – it may result in a kicking or sudden unemployment – and All Decent People are supposed to flinch at the merest whisper or glimpse of it. And yet we’re simultaneously urged to listen to it being used repeatedly, endlessly, and with an utter lack of originality. Provided it’s being mouthed by idiots of a certain hue. And failing to have a taste for it is, we’re now told, evidence of racism.
[ Post updated. ]
In case you were curious.
In case you were curious.
No. I identify as a cat.
Note that the inevitable racist vices are invoked – the alleged “bias” and “silencing” of “black narratives” – simply on grounds that a white person is uninterested in a particular rap track. Not necessarily repelled by it, mind, just not interested, a position also taken by quite a few black people in the same test group. You can’t help but wonder if a similar “study” might be devised in which people of various hues were exposed to Bach, or bluegrass, or opera, and then accused of similar racial prejudice if they failed to enthuse.
Somewhat related: “Who is this Mozart?”
selfheld: “I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things.”
My take entirely, nor do I like his novels. While I enjoyed ‘On Writing’ I never liked the fictional stuff he was writing, though I appear to be alone in that respect as most people can’t get enough of his books. A mate of mine always tells me how much he is enjoying one of his books, after (a) having been told by me I don’t care for them and, (b) I had introduced him to Murakami. You think he’d learn.
They are bringing back Treyvon Martin from the dead, with edited 911 tapes etc that got the media in trouble the first time for fabrication. Once again, they would rather you die than defend yourself (in case you don’t remember, Marin was on top of zimmerman and bashing his head against the sidewalk and also trying to grab zimmerman’s gun when z shot him).
They are bringing back Treyvon Martin from the dead
Yes, I saw something about that just the other day: New York Times republishing the deceitfully edited 911 tape (or transcript). Not sure where I read it, though. My recent browsing history only contains Lthis retrospective.
It’s the 10-year anniversary of Trayvon’s death, so it seems like a good bet that all the establishment news organizations are repeating the same old lies about how Trayvon was “murdered” by a “white racist”.
hey are bringing back Treyvon Martin from the dead, with edited 911 tapes etc
Here is one report about that.
It’s the 10-year anniversary of Trayvon’s death, so it seems like a good bet that all the establishment news organizations are repeating the same old lies about how Trayvon was “murdered” by a “white racist”.
That all going down in an area where I used to work and I traverse quite regularly, it’s a case I have followed closely. It is also a huge wedge between myself and a number of friends. The absurd refusal of people to concede facts, to insist that words have other meanings than the bloody obvious, to bury their heads in the sand rather than acknowledge facts presented in court, to even insist that the case was a miscarriage based on Stand Your Ground law was quite the tell on how far gone most “normal” people are. Especially the great, and not so great, virtue signalers. What little faith I had in those left has been wiped out with their blind faith in the #Science of masks and virus BS. And to this day, these people make excuses for their Pudding President and his vacuous valley girl vp. Bah…I’m the crazy one.
In re rap; if I want to get yelled at by a bunch of thuggish angry Obama voters, I could just drive through my old neighborhood.
““the silencing of Black narratives and perspectives.”
Oh, that tickles me; here in today’s hip now happening United States of Amnesia you can’t go anywhere in any media without being bombarded with pictures of happy, smart, totally cooler-than-you black people; they’re about 13% of the population, but you would guess the percentage at about 80% from their frequency of media appearances. Which poses an interesting question; if everybody else in the damn country is a horrible racist, wouldn’t the appearance of black people in ads really turn off potential customers of pallor, and cause the people trying to sell something to avoid their images like the plague?
Anyway, back to rap; best known as ‘rock and roll’s idiot child’.
It is also a huge wedge between myself and a number of friends.
Yes indeed. For me, too: Some years ago I started asking myself such questions as “What if a black thug attacked me and I had to use deadly force to save myself? Based on my friends’ opinions, isn’t it likely that they would treat me as the guilty one? And if so, are they really my friends?” There is a whole raft of issues that can be the basis for similar questions.
to bury their heads in the sand rather than acknowledge facts presented in court
There are still blue-check twats calling Rittenhouse a “murderer” who “got away with it” to this day.
There are still blue-check twats calling Rittenhouse a “murderer” who “got away with it” to this day.
Quite a few, I think.
Another awkward question for liberals: “Why did you marry a woman who loudly demands that we ‘believe all women’? That women never lie? That is is virtually a felony to speak up when you know a woman has made false accusations? Are you confident that she will make an exception for you? How about for your male friends?”
A fair number of women have been red-pilled on the “believe all women” issue when they’ve realized their college-aged sons coud be on the receiving end.
It is amazing that any guy who had/has a wife/gf would support “believe all women”–haven’t they ever had a fight with wife/gf and she lied her ass off? Asking for a friend.
Can’t prove it but I bet women lie a lot more than men as a sort of covert aggression.
Can’t prove it but I bet women lie a lot more than men as a sort of covert aggression.
From Jordan Peterson:
“I was interviewed by the Economist and we were talking about aggression…men are on average more physically aggressive than women…
Most boys get socialized out of aggression by age 4, but those that are not remain stably criminal into adolescence and adulthood and you can’t socialize them out of it… That’s the developmental trajectory of aggression. It doesn’t look like it’s learned. … It’s a rage circuit, it’s an old biological…
Women, girls, however, they are more aggressive than males if you measure aggression differently. They use reputation destruction.
So, well, we’ve seen what happens with social media. Physical aggression doesn’t translate to social media, but reputation destruction does. unbelievably well. So maybe it’s time to have a little chat about toxic femininity.“
Link here.
So maybe it’s time to have a little chat about toxic femininity.
Well past time. But those “believe all women” feministas are also the ones who were the leaders of the jr. high mean girl cliques who made reputation destruction an art.
pst314, it may be stretching matters to refer to Stephen King as an artist.
Theodore Dalrymple’s Life At The Bottom & other works demonstrate the similar pathologies of the British white underclass.
Rap music embraces racial stereotypes no less than the minstrel music of a century ago.
When Dalliance Was In Flower was one of my favourite albums to listen to when I was a wee lad & had no idea what the Hell he was singing about.
Watcher In The Dark,
Having read a bit of Stephen King’s fiction I fail to see the attraction.
selfheld: “I seem to recall Stephen King saying some remarkably stupid things.”
“I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s, it’s not as bright. So, that’s my little commercial for that.”
Now, I want to be fair to SK and point out that him posing in a pro-ukraine shirt does not mean he favors military intervention. In fact, it’s been pointed out that if Biden hadn’t canceled the Keystone Pipeline and made decisions that raised the price of gas (and boosted Putin’s coffers), we wouldn’t be in this situation today.
But, in general, SK is a liberal idiot. But I repeat myself.
Let me add that my point to the last comment (shaddup) is that people who want to fight Putin can advocate for a reversal of policies that emboldened him to invade in the first place, without involving U.S. troops.
But, in general, SK is a liberal idiot. But I repeat myself.
A talent for telling stories, or playing music, or painting pictures does NOT correlate with general knowledge and wisdom. I’ve known quite a few writers and artists, and they were NOT smarter or wiser than average. In fact, they tended to be oddballs with odd opinions.
Having read a bit of Stephen King’s fiction I fail to see the attraction.
I read The Stand, and was never motivated to read anything else. But I do realize that different styles appeal to different readers. My friends and I do not agree on the enjoyability of many writers.
it may be stretching matters to refer to Stephen King as an artist.
I remember reading a collection of his short stories, Night Shift, when I was about eleven. And I think I read Salem’s Lot about the same time. So, although I vaguely recall enjoying them, I can’t really comment on his literary prowess.
Rap music embraces racial stereotypes no less than the minstrel music of a century ago.
That.
So, although I vaguely recall enjoying them, I can’t really comment on his literary prowess.
About all I can recall about The Stand, after some 40 years, is (1) It seemed to drag; was too long for its subject matter. (2) I didn’t like how King depicted all the STEM field people as being naturally attracted to Satan. (3) I did not enjoy horror stories anyway.
“Too long for its subject matter” seemed to be a failing of other popular writers, too. George R. R. Martin comes to mind: I read a few of his stories back in the late 70’s/early 80’s, and lost all interest. But other readers will say the same thing about The Lord of the Rings or Dune, and I loved those. Shrug.
although I vaguely recall enjoying them, I can’t really comment on his literary prowess
The enjoyability of King’s works varies widely; aside from that being subjective, his works vary widely in subject matter, style and technical skill. I’ve enjoyed most of the King I’ve read; not The Stand, nor most of his novel-length horror books. His 1970’s psychic-SF-as-horror works form an interesting common milieu.
I’ve known quite a few writers and artists, and they were NOT smarter or wiser than average
One of the many reasons I exited con culture in the early 2000s. Listening ro Rob Sawyer say, out loud, to a decent sized audience, that the Wise, Good and Pacifist Neanderthals in his Neanderthal Parallax series were metaphorical Canadians while the Violent, Racist, Stupid humans were allegories for Americans just had me shaking my head in disbelief.
One of the many reasons I exited con culture in the early 2000s. Listening ro Rob Sawyer say, out loud…
Oh God, I’d forgotten about him. Saw him once. Arrogant, pompous fool. And I rolled my eyes when I discovered that he had taken “sfwriter.com” for his personal website. I’ve run into other arrogant pricks and liars (Brin and Gerrold, for example) but Sawyer did seem to think of himself as the Avis Rent-a-Car (“We Try Harder”) of obnoxious twits.
Yes, I agree about con culture. You will meet some intelligent and mature adults, but there are just too many fools, jerks, creeps, and fanatics. Best to stay away.
Having read a bit of Stephen King’s fiction I fail to see the attraction.
Agreed. For someone who calls himself woke, his magical negro in The Green Mile should be vilified by his teammates on the left. But…magical thinking.
Sawyer did seem to think of himself as the Avis Rent-a-Car (“We Try Harder”)
He is very, very good at the business of being a writer. His talk on how he and his editor went about gaming the process so he could win a Hugo was excellent; the man hustles. Aside from his odious personality, he’s not even a good writer. He has no grasp of what humans outside his weird little bubble of fen are actually like, and most of his Big Ideas are neither particularly original or impressive. Sawyer is the epitome of the post-90s SF writer: his audience is entirely college students and the like with no exposure to anything outside the comfortable suburban academic/technology office world they inhabit.
I’ve run into other arrogant pricks and liars (Brin
I used to pay my con fees by being a guest handler, since I don’t drink. Mr. Brin once got staggeringly drunk just before his scheduled appearance and literally cried on my shoulder about how badly Kevin Costner had screwed up The Postman.
Nothing will turn you off of SF writers faster than, well, SF writers (never meet your heroes).
On that note, I’ve just finished Rachel Aaron’s Legend of Eli Monpress series and enjoyed it immensely, primarily because no one in the book is an unsympathetic *sshole except the villain, and the villain is not a cardboard cutout that says “Dark Lord” on it.
I’m now working on Lisa Shearin’s Raine Benares series which is similarly entertaining, being a kind of World-of-Warcraft/Stephanie Plum mashup.
One minor annoyance I find in many newer fantasy works, especially the ones by female writers, is the need by the narrator to explain in detail in the first chapter exactly how the magic in their world works, generally in an obtrusive and awkward manner. It’s like they all went to the same “How to Design a Magic System for Your Fantasy World” seminar.