USA Politics (redux)

Started by bhodges, November 10, 2020, 01:09:34 PM

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DizzyD

Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 03:18:33 PM
It's pretty fucking obvious that if BLACK PEOPLE thought this rapper was any good, then he wouldn't be going from car to car on the subway.

So bringing him up is pointless. Right? He doesn't mean ANYTHING about anyone other than himself.

At which point the whole narrative collapses into an irrelevancy of one white guy who didn't like the rap of one black guy. Only the white guy has a bigger platform and can get you to quote him.

You keep asking for literal quotes, where does he say X. The question is rather the purpose of saying ANY of it.
Uh, yeah. You apparently didn't get past the first couple of paragraphs.

By the way, the author, John McWhorter, is a black academic.

Madiel

I stand corrected on his race. That doesn't alter the problem with the narrative.

Tell me, what is the point of mentioning the rapper?
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DizzyD

Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 03:29:52 PM
I stand corrected on his race. That doesn't alter the problem with the narrative.

Tell me, what is the point of mentioning the rapper?
Read the article. And watch that short video someone else posted.

Madiel

Quote from: DizzyD on July 06, 2022, 03:31:08 PM
Read the article. And watch that short video someone else posted.

You must think there a point. You quoted it.
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DizzyD

Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 03:34:00 PM
You must think there a point. You quoted it.
And it should be read, which is why I also included a link.

milk

Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 03:34:00 PM
You must think there a point. You quoted it.
You don't do your homework. And then you say you don't have the time and no one understand your point. It's a hard knock life.

DizzyD

Quote from: milk on July 06, 2022, 03:37:06 PM
You don't do your homework. And then you say you don't have the time and no one understand your point. It's a hard knock life.
Well you see, I'm not at all suggesting that Madiel is racist at all, but this illustrates a racist or at least racialist view of reality. If someone expresses disdain for hip hop, they must be white, because surely a black person is going to love hip hop.

Madiel

Quote from: DizzyD on July 06, 2022, 03:34:47 PM
And it should be read, which is why I also included a link.

You misunderstand what I'm asking. It's not as if I don't have a view as to the point, but every time I or Simon express a view as to the point of the narrative about a black rapper and hip hop, you reject our view.

Reading the article will not tell me YOUR VIEW of the point of those paragraphs. And surely you think they have a point, otherwise your decision to quote them is exceptionally mysterious.
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DizzyD

#3948
Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 04:10:11 PM
...
Reading the article will not tell me YOUR VIEW of the point of those paragraphs. And surely you think they have a point, otherwise your decision to quote them is exceptionally mysterious.
Read the article first and we'll discuss it. Why did you and SimonNZ comment negatively on a video and article which neither of you gave much more than a quick glance? What do I think of the article? I find a lot of it makes sense, which is obviously why I quoted and linked it. Now am I supposed to condemn 80s hair bands and Tarantino films, Lady Gaga and death metal along with it? I'm cool with that.

SimonNZ

#3949
I was responding to the quote, which you chose to have stand alone or represent the article.

I've read the article now and find it another reheating I've been hearing since the PMRC days. The rest is the standard fear of youth culture and bebellion that could have been copy and pasted from the first month's of Elvis.

The only remarkable thing about it is that it's a black writer nostalgic for the pre civil rights days when black culture was all happy smiles, before nasty MalcolmX and Black Panthers came along and turned everyone angry.

This paragraph is a total facepalm:

"The idea that rap is an authentic cry against oppression is all the sillier when you recall that black Americans had lots more to be frustrated about in the past but never produced or enjoyed music as nihilistic as 50 Cent or N.W.A. On the contrary, black popular music was almost always affirmative and hopeful. Nor do we discover music of such violence in places of great misery like Ethiopia or the Congo—unless it's imported American hip-hop."

milk

Quote from: SimonNZ on July 06, 2022, 07:32:40 PM
I was responding to the quote, which you chose to have stand alone or represent the article.

I've read the article now and find it another reheating I've been hearing since the PMRC days. The rest is the standard fear of youth culture and bebellion that could have been copy and pasted from the first month's of Elvis.

The only remarkable thing about it is that it's a black writer nostalgic for the pre civil rights days when black culture was all happy smiles, before nasty MalcolmX and Black Panthers came along and turned everyone angry.
Nostalgic for the pre civil rights days?
John McWhorter? That's an extremely dishonest reading of the article and a strangely intentional insult. Something makes me laugh at liberals pulling this king of thing (not that I'm not a liberal, I, like McWhorter, supported Obama twice). Next you'll be calling him an Uncle Tom. Well, that's really what you're doing. It's hard to take you seriously.

SimonNZ

No, its right there repeatedly in the text - like the bit I quoted above.

He seems to actually believe that happier black music was the product of a happier society. Not a hint that there was no means of putting their actual rage into commercial music at the time, without hiding it behind various forms of coded language, if even then. No way of having it produced, no way of having it heard. No way of performing it without risking harm.

From the article:

"The venom that suffuses rap had little place in black popular culture—indeed, in black attitudes—before the 1960s. The hip-hop ethos can trace its genealogy to the emergence in that decade of a black ideology that equated black strength and authentic black identity with a militantly adversarial stance toward American society. In the angry new mood, captured by Malcolm X's upraised fist, many blacks (and many more white liberals) began to view black crime and violence as perfectly natural, even appropriate, responses to the supposed dehumanization and poverty inflicted by a racist society. Briefly, this militant spirit, embodied above all in the Black Panthers, infused black popular culture, from the plays of LeRoi Jones to "blaxploitation" movies, like Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which celebrated the black criminal rebel as a hero."

Madiel

#3952
Quote from: DizzyD on July 06, 2022, 05:53:10 PM
Read the article first and we'll discuss it. Why did you and SimonNZ comment negatively on a video and article which neither of you gave much more than a quick glance? What do I think of the article? I find a lot of it makes sense, which is obviously why I quoted and linked it. Now am I supposed to condemn 80s hair bands and Tarantino films, Lady Gaga and death metal along with it? I'm cool with that.

Like Simon, I was responding to the quote. I didn't comment on a video or article, I commented on the material that someone else chose to present.

And no, I don't expect you to condemn any of those things, unless you want to run the argument that they represent white culture and are adversely affecting whites.

Now if you'll excuse me, all of this discussion has reminded me that I haven't listened to Janelle Monae for a while. Black, female, queer, and in my personal opinion a freaking genius. For one thing she keeps making me like rap!
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!

milk

Quote from: SimonNZ on July 06, 2022, 08:26:40 PM
No, its right there repeatedly in the text - like the bit I quoted above.

He seems to actually believe that happier black music was the product of a happier society. Not a hint that there was no means of putting their actual rage into commercial music at the time, without hiding it behind various forms of coded language, if even then. No way of having it produced, no way of having it heard. No way of performing it without risking harm.

From the article:

"The venom that suffuses rap had little place in black popular culture—indeed, in black attitudes—before the 1960s. The hip-hop ethos can trace its genealogy to the emergence in that decade of a black ideology that equated black strength and authentic black identity with a militantly adversarial stance toward American society. In the angry new mood, captured by Malcolm X's upraised fist, many blacks (and many more white liberals) began to view black crime and violence as perfectly natural, even appropriate, responses to the supposed dehumanization and poverty inflicted by a racist society. Briefly, this militant spirit, embodied above all in the Black Panthers, infused black popular culture, from the plays of LeRoi Jones to "blaxploitation" movies, like Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which celebrated the black criminal rebel as a hero."
You feel he omits causes of the supposed lack of venom or expression of anger in pre-60s black music. Therefore he's an Uncle Tom, nostalgic for the happy days of Jim Crow. Got it. You should let Columbia know about this.

SimonNZ

Well, do you agree with him in the bit I bolded or the paragraph. I think it's a pretty jaw dropping misreading of all the historical evidence and I'm certainly not going to be seeking out articles by someone so I'll Informed.

Madiel

I don't know whether he's ill informed or not. I do know I found him to be a profoundly irritating podcast host who ruined what had previously been one of my favourite shows... which speaks to his communication skills rather than his knowledge. Though the primary issue was that he consistently came across as very self-satisfied about his level of knowledge.
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milk

#3956
Quote from: SimonNZ on July 06, 2022, 08:48:58 PM
Well, do you agree with him in the bit I bolded or the paragraph. I think it's a pretty jaw dropping misreading of all the historical evidence and I'm certainly not going to be seeking out articles by someone so I'll Informed.
I don't know if I agree. It's not an area I'm interested in much. John McWhorter is smarter than me and you, that's for sure. Is he right about this issue? I've no idea. Rap music does seem nihilistic but I haven't looked into it that deeply. I guess there is a lot of angst in blues but it's not nihilism, maybe not "venom." I would have to spend a lot more time with the article and musicology. It's dense and I'm not going to just dismiss it. I'm not going to speak for people in the black community about such deeply fraught issues. I could speculate that there is a divide here between MLK types and Malcolm X types on ideals and philosophy but I could be totally off on that since I haven't studied it and I would have to ask. That could be part of what's going on here. I wouldn't assume all black people agree on this stuff. This all seems like a diversion; better engage the topic. There are many reasonable public people, with reasonable arguments, that just disagree with the liberal view of race and crime or "woke" politics. Glenn Loury is another academic. Jamil Jivani is a public figure who has been very critical of BLM. So is Brittany King. Coleman Hughes has very strong arguments and he's another good communicator. He's testified before Congress. Roland Fryer's work is controversial, but anything in this area is bound to be.

This is another video that would be a shock to liberals! People of color discussing "race, riots, and the police" from a (non?)critical perspective. They aren't white and they aren't liberals. Fancy that: https://youtu.be/D2vctUezliE
(Jason Riley, Coleman Hughes, Jamil Jivani and Rafael Magual)
Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 09:03:51 PM
he consistently came across as very self-satisfied about his level of knowledge.

Mmmm...one wouldn't want to come across that way 🤔

DizzyD

#3957
Quote from: SimonNZ on July 06, 2022, 08:48:58 PM
Well, do you agree with him in the bit I bolded or the paragraph. I think it's a pretty jaw dropping misreading of all the historical evidence and I'm certainly not going to be seeking out articles by someone so I'll Informed.
Yeah, in part. Are you "well-informed"? I don't sense that sort of "venom" in Duke Ellington or Motown. What you're essentially saying is that to be "really black and free" requires generous doses of venom and hostility. I don't think that's been established.
Quote from: Madiel on July 06, 2022, 09:03:51 PM
Though the primary issue was that he consistently came across as very self-satisfied about his level of knowledge.
Well you and Simon there seem to suffer the same malady. The difference being that McWhorter does have some qualifications.

Madiel

Quote from: DizzyD on July 07, 2022, 04:54:09 AM
The difference being that McWhorter does have some qualifications.

In linguistics. There's been a whole other thread where someone else has been telling me that you have to have the right kind of qualifications, whereas apparently here just having qualifications is enough.

I've got some qualifications. I actually have qualifications in three different fields of study. None of which are relevant to the issue at hand particularly, but hey, I do have some qualifications.
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DizzyD

Quote from: Madiel on July 07, 2022, 05:05:00 AM
In linguistics. There's been a whole other thread where someone else has been telling me that you have to have the right kind of qualifications, whereas apparently here just having qualifications is enough.
Linguistics is about communication. It seems to be fairly germane to the topic.

QuoteI've got some qualifications. I actually have qualifications in three different fields of study. None of which are relevant to the issue at hand particularly, but hey, I do have some qualifications.
Well then you should know better than to comment on and judge an article before actually reading it.