Oh yeah. I am bored, so I feel like bringing up a racially charged question and seeing where it goes. It's a documented fact that African Americans score lower on average than White Americans on standardized tests. (And... interestingly enough.... it's also a documented fact that East Asian Americans score higher than White Americans, so KKK types might want to be careful what they say...) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence In the great Race-IQ debate, there only two factors that are seriously considered to be possible causes for the disparity: 1) - genetics, and 2)- environment. If we adhere to #2 as being the dominant cause, then the question arises of which environmental factors are the most important? Would the elimination of Rap Culture enable a larger percentage of African American children to graduate from college, and study academically challenging fields such as engineering? On a more fundamental level: Is our fear of discussing politically taboo topics crippling our ability to address issues that affect children? I think maybe a lot of bad cultural trends are going unchecked simply because they are cultural in nature (and adding to our "diversity"), and therefore above criticism. (Especially if they can claim to be both cultural and racial.)
i think there's good and bad music, and good and bad messages in all genres. you can't single out rap. pop's got 12 year old little girl's dressing like hookers, and rock is known for it's sex and drugs. disco raged at a time when people were enjoying their sexual liberation and doing a lot of cocaine. and you can't tell me that country or bluegrass make you want to run out and get a degree in engineering.
If rap were the cause, we should be able to see a downward trend during the period rap became part of American culture. That would only be correlation, but it would be a start. And I doubt it. Rap makes kids focus on language, try to arrange it in rhythms and rhyme and involves all the various tropes found in other creative language. The pressure to focus on the lyrics is much more present than in pop. Has pop made white people stupider than the Asians? Oh, dear and we must do some sort of study of the effects of country music. Does it make people hopeless and politically simplistic?
Well, from what I could tell at school, those who do listen to rap don't seem to be very well articulated, and are often very mouthy, short-tempered, and just upright obnoxious. Not very pleasant people. Correlation? I don't know, those are just my observations. Has anyone else noticed this? And by the by, I'm not talking about the casual listener. I like tik tok, but I'm talking about the more serious genre-listener. And it doesn't seem to be that bad, comparatively speaking.
A complicated issue The specific question is a bit muddy. That is, it implies, likely accidentally, that whites are somehow immune to the theoretical nrgative effects of rap culture. Setting that aside, I would look at how language relates to inclusion and exclusion in the context of socialization. It is at least arguable that subcultural dialect contributes to social alienation. That is, there comes a point when jiving or going gangsta makes one hard to understand, much like it is difficult to remember what 80s goths were talking about when every other word was "like" or "you know". Many subcultural identifiers are specifically exclusionary or belligerent. Punks often relished how their ratty leather and bad haircuts unsettled the cultural majority. Many would-be gangstas try to look and sound intimidating. But for the white punk or goth, reconciliation is easier. They simply sharpen up thei speech, change their clothes, and get a decent haircut, and they are back within the bounds of acceptability. But if a black gangsta does the same, he is still black, which is, practically speaking, still a strike against them in American culture. And those who doubt that last should remember how rarely a violent goth or punk leads to denunciation of white people in the same way a minority criminal is often held to represent his entire race or ethnicity. Rap culture undoubtedly contributes to experiences and outcomes in the lives of its devotees, but a question of degrees remains. For in addition to that contribution is the underlying question of the effect of racism within a given environment. All of the rap subculture's effects occur within a larger social context, and any answer to statistical disparities between ethnicities and races must necessarily attend that context.
Excellent point. How is rap affecting all those white, middle class suburban wannabe ganstas? Should be too hard to study either. Find out how these white kids grades change as they age and get into different music. Who improves, stays the same, or gets lower grades? The kids who get into death metal, rap, pop.....etc.?
I currently reside in the SF-Bay Area. I can say with complete confidence that we have the largest concentration of Asians in the entire world outside of their native countries. The music of choice for Asian teens is Rap Music. It's obvious that you're not cultured at all, if you were, you wouldn't embarrass yourself by uttering such a moronic question.
The rebellious nature of rap music is a product of multi-generational poverty, with all the negative consequences associated with that, such as poor educational opportunities and continuing discrimination. It is not the cause.
Education has everything to do with the culture. There's currently a documentary on HBO right now(can't recall the name, so feel free to help me out) where they're following students who reside in poor African villages. These students are fiercely competing for the few educational scholarships that will provide the means for them to escape from their current economic conditions. Their entire lives revolves around studying English, Science and Mathematics. That's because they know it's the only way out. Unlike in America, where Sports and Entertainment is seen as the pathway to success. http://www.ivyhorsemen.com/2009/08/immigrant-blacks-outperform-native-born.html
