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so you're saying that if a black person doesn't shuck and jive to try to fit into your image of what a black man should be, he's a nigger?

You know what they call black people that try to look down on lower-class blacks with their whole "there's a difference between niggers and black people!" shtick?  We call them House Niggers

oh, and I live in South Carolina

you think me just going around saying "oh, but I don't adhere to any of the sterotypes!" is going to stop someone from calling me a nigger?

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Are you serious? Re read what I wrote, I said black people wear what they want to wear, listen to what they want to listen to, and act how they want to act. But they do not find it fun to bark at old ladies, disrespect anyone different, they don't look up to gang-bangers and drug dealers. They are people, and they happen to be black.

You know what I call black people who look down on these gangsters and thugs? The start of a wonderful change where the stereotypes no longer exist.
What is it with defending these gangsters and thugs and their life-style by saying "You people just can't accept anything different." Bull shit!
Do you know who would be one of those "House Niggers?" Martin Luther King Jr. would be a "House Nigger". He wanted equality and all that, sure, but what he did not want was for "the white folks to stop asking the blackies to stop gang bangin' and let them live their own poor, gangster, crime-ridden lives"
He wanted equality of PEOPLE, not animals.

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wrong

There are just as many rap songs that "glorify being gangster" as there are politically/socially conscious rap songs

*and don't think I can't back that up

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Back it up.
If you show me 1000 mainstream rap songs [and more likely the underground stuff] and I'll show you 900 songs that glorify just what I was saying. NOW, Rap music is starting to get into more educated stuff. [Jay Z has had a lot of politico-activism stuff in his rhymes, Lupe, though young, also has a lot of intelligent lyrics, a whole mess of artists are now showing that rap can be about real life, and not gangster life, popping niggas, and ho's turning tricks on the corner.

The underground shit tends to be more violent and more about killing and gang-banging and drugs, but it also holds some of the best politico-activist artists today. Hell, Immortal Technique [though very violent and full of rage] has some of the best raps, with some of the most impressive messages I've seen. But that does not change the image of Rap, and the explicit glorification of the gangster life, as the only way to do well as a young black male.

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Now, if there are just as many "good" songs as there are "bad" songs, shouldn't the "good" songs have just as much of an influence on black culture as the "bad" songs do?

so now the response you're probably cooking up now is: well, even if they are just as many, they still don't get the same attention the "bad" songs do!

If that's your argument, then I would say that you should blame white people for the conditions in the black community you're railing about in here.

See, if there are just as many "bad" songs as there are "good" songs, and the only thing keeping the "good" songs from having the same tremendous effect on black culture as you say the "bad" songs do is that the mainstream ignores the "good" songs because they don't sell, wouldn't it be fair to blame White America for this problem, seeing as they dictate what sells (seeing as they make up 70% of the people that buy rap records)?

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1.That's not my argument at all, the good songs only get attention when they are good songs. Its tough in today's market to make a politico-activist rap and have the young black community accept it as good. If I like 50 cent. I'm talking I have every record, every T-shirt, I belong to the G-unit fan club, all that. And then he goes out and makes a CD about working hard in school, respecting everyone and getting a good, respectable job, called "White Kolla Man" I'd probably fucking hate it. I liked 50 because he is a gangster, He got shot, he's a muscular, broken in, hard, MAN. And that's the image I like, and that's the image I want to emulate.
Don't you see the problem, it's the fact that if you grow up and try to do good in school, all the other kids think you are weak and pick on you and give you hell -in these ghetto communities. The image of a MAN is shown in these songs so that that is all the kids know. It is weak to be nice, to be accepting. It is strong to be hard, to be cold.

2.I do not disagree with you that white's own most of the industry.
I have to bring up immortal technique, however. He went platinum by making and selling HIS OWN albums. On the streets, through friends, working his way across America.
Don't blame ANYONE.

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and, once again, people act as if materialism, drugs, gangs, incarceration, and the like weren't problems in the black community until rap music came about 30 years ago (and hell, it didn't even hit the mainstream until around 15 years ago)

hell, people act as if materialism, drugs, gangs, incarceration, and the like weren't problems in American in general until rap music came into the mainstream

try again

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And once again, someone saw one point in my topic and blanketed it. Music is one of the influences, sure, but it is not the main one.
Your point is moot.

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You know what constitutes the overwhelming majority of my friends?

class clowns, athletes, drug dealers, players, gang members, wannabees, stoners, lost causes, etc., etc.  

You know what I like listening to?  

Some of the most violent, misogynistic, amoral rappers to ever pick up the microphone

I see my father perhaps 2 hours out of the year, and my mother doesn't care about my grades

and hell, the only motivation I've had for pretty much anything I've ever done is trying to impress girls

and yet, I've never been in trouble with the law, I've never consumed alcohol or done drugs, and I've been near the top of my class since they started telling us our ranks.

try again

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And I'll respond to this again:
You know who my friends are?
High school drop outs, stoner wanderers, class clowns, coke-heads, drug dealers, etc

Whose motivation at these young years is really EVER anything but to impress girls [and in my case some times to better understand nature and the universe, but that is a different matter altogether]?

I've been in trouble with the law on a couple occasions, nothing major. Some petty theft of signs and shit, some drinking charges, marijuana etc.

I was at the top of my class in high school.
I'm getting a 4 year Aerospace engineering degree in 3 years.
I am going to be working for companies that work with dielectrics, or antigravity by use of electric current.
Your credentials and mine mean NOTHING. We are individuals in a world made for the masses. It is the MASSES we are discussing. There will always be us. The anomalies.


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            ...life is good...
...mai ho oni i ka wai lana malie...