It’s an old argument that is being repeated again. Whether or not rap music is the cause of the negative behavior of some people in the Black community. The latest person to bring this argument to the forefront is Republican presidential contender Ben Carson. What is surprising is the venue he selected to make his comments: a Black urban radio station.
Carson recently appeared on New York’s WBLS radio station and stated, “We need to re-establish faith in our communities and the values and principles that got us through slavery, that got us through Jim Crow, and segregation, and all kinds of horrible things that were heaped upon us. Why were we able to get through those? Because of our faith, because of our family, because of our values, and as we allow the hip-hop community to destroy those things for us, and as we grasp onto what’s politically correct and not what is correct, we continue to deteriorate.”
But what Dr. Carson fails to mention in his attack on the Black community is the fact that it is White-controlled record companies that set the standards and control the distribution of rap music. Carson does make a point in that the culture of hip-hop is full of examples of drug dealing, violence, misogyny and hypersexuality. But there are many conscious members of the hip-hop community who do not espouse this negativity. Perhaps Ben Carson should listen to Common, Mos Def or Twalib Kweli to get a different vantage point. Black folks are a complex people but yet we are the only people in America who are subjected to stereotypes that indict all Blacks. Ben Carson seems to be taking the easiest and most despicable way to garner votes among his tea party supporters by attacking his own race.
