roundtable: Gangsta Rap and the Public Interest

roundtable: Gangsta Rap and the Public Interest

Gangsta Rap and the Public Interest

Faye M. Anderson (fmanders@CapAccess.org)
Mon, 5 Jun 1995 23:41:21 -0400 

Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 23:41:21 -0400
Message-Id: <199506060341.XAA26151@cap1.CapAccess.org>
From: fmanders@CapAccess.org (Faye M. Anderson)
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Gangsta Rap and the Public Interest


Dear Colleague,

Attached is my current column that I think you will find of interest.
Your comments are welcomed.


Gangsta Rap and the Public Interest

As an aficionado of a musical genre--blues--that was once denounced 
as immoral, I've had to overcome my reluctance to enter the debate 
about gangsta rap, particularly since I had had limited exposure to 
the music.  My initial reaction to critics such as C. Dolores Tucker, 
who chairs the National Political Congress of Black Women, and Rev. 
Calvin Butts III of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, was 
that their priorities were misdirected.  I thought that rather than 
attacking the messengers, they should attack the underlying message 
of family dissolution, despair, hopelessness and dependency.

For the past few months, I've made a concerted effort to listen to 
the lyrics and to watch the music videos before weighing in on the 
debate.  The lyrics do indeed speak to the pain and isolation of 
those for whom the American dream is little more than a pipe dream.  
Art imitates life and, for some, life tragically imitates art.  
Tupac Shakur, whose "Dear Mama" moves me to tears, is currently 
incarcerated for sexual assault.  Nevertheless, I am outraged by 
the unrelenting misogyny, violence and explicit sex to which children 
are exposed.  Gangsta rappers routinely refer to African American 
women as "bitches" and "hos"; in their videos, young, black women 
are depicted as faceless, grinding derrieres.  It is absolutely 
intolerable that this cultural pollution is being broadcast over the 
public airwaves--radio and television stations--whose license holders 
must by law operate in the public interest.

Tucker, Butts and Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas are to 
be commended for their leadership in standing up to the entertainment 
colossus Time Warner Inc. and asking, "Have you no shame?"  It's 
ironic that for months liberal detractors of Republican budget 
proposals have used children as fodder for their specious allegations 
that Republicans were cutting the school lunch program.  Yet they are 
now silent about the harmful effect of impressionable, young minds 
being fed a daily diet of sex and violence.

The African proverb that it takes a whole village to raise a child 
is applicable here.  The village--parents, teachers, ministers, 
concerned adults--need not stand on the sidelines and helplessly 
wait for our so-called leaders to take action.  We must exercise 
our rights as citizens of the communities being "served" by the 
radio and television stations that broadcast debasing and degrading 
programming and mount challenges to renewal of their licenses by the 
Federal Communications Commission.  A few high-profile challenges 
will get the attention of the broadcast industry and instill in 
them a sense of corporate responsibility to the communities they 
are only temporarily licensed to serve.  Let's keep it real.


Faye M. Anderson
President
Douglass Policy Institute

June 5, 1995


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