When your teen DS listens to vile rap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I responded early about the dehumanization aspect of the word. I don’t think it’s racist but I do believe the word should be eliminated it has no redeeming value and it’s harsh history will never be negated.

I meant a black persons who uses it is not racist but I believe the word should be eliminated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember the Who sang "I want to be your backdoor man" and Roxanne by the Police is about a prostitute.

I listens to it with them and then say... next when I can't stand it. haha, the kids get to the point where they say... okay this one you won't like, and this one, okay this one is good.

Please. There is a tremendous difference between a song "about a prostitute" and the crude, racist, violent, misogynistic actual language in the raps songs kids listen to today.

If you don't see that, you are hopelessly out of touch.

+1

Omg. When I read posts like the top PP I just shake my head. The rap music today is absolutely disgusting. It's art in its own way, but it's doing our kids no favors with repeated consumption. I tell my kids to listen in moderation just like if they're eating junk food.

It’s not much more vulgar than what we listened to (NWA, Public Enemy, etc.) but it lacks the social consciousness and art of the 80s rap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ OP here and, sorry, but I disagree with the two previous PPs. Adult women listening to rap is one thing - you do you. It's not my cup of tea, but whatever.

It's very different when 15 year old boys, who have no life experience, no perspective, no frame of reference about women, no real experience in dealing with racism, etc etc, are enamored with this music that glorifies violence, misogyny and racism. Another PP mentioned the importance of making sure that he knows it's only "art," and that the message is to stop when he turns the music off.

I think that's a hell of a lot to expect from kids.

Um, are your kids listening to some kind of alt-right hip hop? Because if not and you are talking about black artists using the n-word in their lyrics, that's not racism. If you think it is, then I think you don't know many black teenagers. I'm no authority, but in my limited experience as a middle aged white Jew (but parent of a kid that's in a majority black school and whose friends are mostly black), it seems like black young people using the n-word is about identity and unity and standing up to racism.

It's not really a good analogy, but growing up in the south, my Jewish friends and I would use certain particularly ridiculous epithets for Jews toward each other, but we would fight any non-Jew that said something overtly anti-Semitic. It was a way of sharing some unity in an environment where anti-Semitism was pretty common and considered acceptable.

Nice try, but sorry. It's extremely racist.

Different poster, no it isn’t racist when black people use the word. It’s racist when anyone else uses the word.

What if it’s the white racist media that wants it that way? That they are normalizing the world so that minorities continue to feel no better than the n-word? Ever wonder why no other culture in America degrades their own?

Did you not read the entire string you replied to? Us Jews do this all the time. Hell, Seinfeld had an entire episode about this

[Anonymous]

I agree with the posters who say - tell your kid to put on ear phones, and to frame it as a "junk food" kind of thing. Don't listen to it 24/7, just some of the time. But that's hard to enforce. The one thing I do say to my DD who loves this stuff is that it's the misogyny that bugs me. I don't care about the cursing or whatever, but the "get down on your knees bitch" stuff is truly awful. When she got into it at first, I would say - YOU wouldn't do that, but some girl who maybe doesn't have a stable home life might feel like she has to do stuff like that for guys, and that sort of made her listen... IDK, though, I'm following this thread and hoping someone comes up with a good suggestion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was raised on a steady diet of vile rap, woman-objectifying glam rock, depressive and suicidal heavy metal, and Nine Inch Nails (industrial? I don't know Trent Reznor's in a class by himself). Never, even as a dumbass teenager, did I think that the lyrics were some sort of inspired mantra for how I should live my life. Most of this music still resides in my master playlist, and I listen to some subset of it every day. It's art, and art is provocative and objectionable and varies widely in quality.

Despite this, I am a functional adult with a good job, health insurance, my own home, and several degrees. I've even managed to avoid being arrested! I manage not to get into altercations with authority, use the lyrics to inform my relationships with women or men, or take the amount of drugs suggested by some of the songs. Just like my parents did not drop out of society despite very much enjoying hippy, free-love, and folk music.

If you sit down and listen to the actual lyrics of nearly any genre of music, you're going to find something offensive. I laugh at the idea of country music being so clean - it's got misogyny, running out on your family, and, though I make an exception and do love Willie Nelson, drug and alcohol use. But it's a bunch of white guys singing it, so it's not "vile", right? So many others.... The Police? Prostitution and pedophilia. Aerosmith, good lord, where to start. Jimmy Buffett literally has a song called "Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw)?".

Long story short, the majority of non-classical music is going to have something that someone objects to, going waaaaayyyy back to the provocative music of Elvis, and the goal should be to raise a kid who doesn't hear a catchy tune and not have the mental prowess to think that it's an instruction manual for life.

And don't be such a pearl-clutcher.

Well said, PP, though I feel kind of sad that you need to spell this out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was raised on a steady diet of vile rap, woman-objectifying glam rock, depressive and suicidal heavy metal, and Nine Inch Nails (industrial? I don't know Trent Reznor's in a class by himself). Never, even as a dumbass teenager, did I think that the lyrics were some sort of inspired mantra for how I should live my life. Most of this music still resides in my master playlist, and I listen to some subset of it every day. It's art, and art is provocative and objectionable and varies widely in quality.

Despite this, I am a functional adult with a good job, health insurance, my own home, and several degrees. I've even managed to avoid being arrested! I manage not to get into altercations with authority, use the lyrics to inform my relationships with women or men, or take the amount of drugs suggested by some of the songs. Just like my parents did not drop out of society despite very much enjoying hippy, free-love, and folk music.

If you sit down and listen to the actual lyrics of nearly any genre of music, you're going to find something offensive. I laugh at the idea of country music being so clean - it's got misogyny, running out on your family, and, though I make an exception and do love Willie Nelson, drug and alcohol use. But it's a bunch of white guys singing it, so it's not "vile", right? So many others.... The Police? Prostitution and pedophilia. Aerosmith, good lord, where to start. Jimmy Buffett literally has a song called "Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw)?".

Long story short, the majority of non-classical music is going to have something that someone objects to, going waaaaayyyy back to the provocative music of Elvis, and the goal should be to raise a kid who doesn't hear a catchy tune and not have the mental prowess to think that it's an instruction manual for life.

And don't be such a pearl-clutcher.

'

Nine Inch Nails??? LOL. The lyrics in their songs are nursery rhymes, compared to the things that OP is talking about.

You are really dating yourself here, PP.