Musical Chicken & Egg

One ironic aspect of the Don Imus brouhaha is the fact that the insulting, racist things he said are almost routine in black culture. James Taranto revealed yesterday there is actually a popular band called Nappy Roots. They warmed up the crowd at a Barack Obama event just last year. So presumably Mr. Obama doesn't find the term racist.

Likewise, the term "ho" ("whore") in reference to black women is common in rap music. So what's the difference? The difference is that Don Imus is a white male. Because of his ethnic background, he is forbidden to use these terms. They are reserved for inner-city youth.

This brings up the question of modern music and its meaning in our culture. Some people think rap and heavy metal music has a perniciously negative effect on the young people who listen to it. Does it? Or it this just another aspect of youthful rebellion? I know that my parents didn't care for the music I liked. I suspect their parents didn't care for the music they liked. And I don't really care for the music my son likes.

Zippy points us to a long, scholarly article from the Hoover Institution that argues it is different this time. Basically, the authors suggest the music isn't a cause of our broken culture. It is a result of our broken culture.

Why, we must ask, do kids like this music that we Baby Boomers find so unpleasant? Answer: because it expresses the deep longings they have for the security of home and family:

If yesterday’s rock was the music of abandon, today’s is that of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage music — the characteristic that most separates it from what has gone before — is its compulsive insistence on the damage wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out parents, and (especially) absent fathers. Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Eminem — these and other singers and bands, all of them award-winning top-40 performers who either are or were among the most popular icons in America, have their own generational answer to what ails the modern teenager. Surprising though it may be to some, that answer is: dysfunctional childhood. Moreover, and just as interesting, many bands and singers explicitly link the most deplored themes in music today — suicide, misogyny, and drugs — with that lack of a quasi-normal, intact-home personal past.

The study goes on to list many specific examples of popular artists pouring out their souls with sad stories of broken homes. A common theme, especially among rappers, is the absence of a father during childhood. This is a perfect reflection of what really happens in the urban black population. The prototypical nuclear family of mom, dad, and kids is almost unknown. Yet the kids somehow know it is the ideal, and they miss it. They sing about it.

This also explains the popularity of "retro" themes among kids today. Consider That 70s Show which was amazingly popular on Fox TV. The Foremans had their share of problems - but they were a family, and other characters were drawn to them because of it. I think many kids today fantasize about living in a such a "normal" family.

Certainly some of the attraction in modern music is simple youthful rebellion, just as our generation experienced in the 60s and 70s. Kids from loving, intact families are still drawn to the latest rap just because they like the beat. Even so:

...there is no escaping the fact that today’s songs are musically and lyrically unlike any before. What distinguishes them most clearly is a the fixation on having been abandoned personally by the adults supposedly in charge, with consequences ranging from bitterness to rage to bad, sick, and violent behavior.

And therein lies a painful truth about an advantage that many teenagers of yesterday enjoyed but their own children often do not. Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents — nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today’s teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents — not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there. This difference in generational experience may not lend itself to statistical measure, but it is as real as the platinum and gold records that continue to capture it. What those records show compared to yesteryear’s rock is emotional downward mobility. Surely if some of the current generation of teenagers and young adults had been better taken care of, then the likes of Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Tupac Shakur, and cer­tain other parental nightmares would have been mere footnotes to recent music history rather than rulers of it.

I have to say this article struck me like a ton of bricks. The music many in my generation find so unpleasant isn't just an attempt by the next generation to annoy us. It is a finger in our faces, reminding us how we failed. It is pain and sadness. It is a cry for help.

Sadly, for many of these kids help is too late. We failed them. We will pay the price.

Girls Gone Wild vs. IRS

Lost in all the Don Imus news this week was the downfall of another cultural icon. Joe Francis, founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video empire, is behind bars. He was initially jailed for contempt of court in a civil case filed by some of his underage photographic subjects. Two days later he was hit with an indictment by the IRS alleging he deducted $20 million in phony business expenses from his 2002 and 2003 tax returns.

The Smoking Gun has Francis' mug shot and a copy of the indictment. It's interesting reading if you are a tax nerd. Among other things, he disguised about $4.7 million in construction expenses for a house in Mexico as "consulting services."

No doubt Francis will hire the best lawyers money can buy, but the IRS is not an organization to be tangled with. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Girls Gone Wild business. Could the IRS end up owning the whole company? Stranger things have happened.

Adios Imus

I've never heard more than a few bits and pieces of Don Imus. Nothing I heard made me want to listen any further. I think the furor over his recent comments which now seem to have ended his radio career says more about the rest of us than it does about Imus.

First of all, who did Imus insult? He did not, as far as I've read, say that all black females are nappy-headed hos. He was referring specifically to the Rutgers ladies basketball team. What he said was ignorant and ugly and he owes those young ladies an apology.

If, however, you are not a member of the Rutgers ladies basketball team, you have no business demanding an apology, because you have not been insulted. Who made Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton the official conscience of black America? Was it black Americans, or was it the media which needs a handy face to put on stories about race?

Second, Imus seems to have a long pattern of saying outrageous things like this. Yet he has not lacked for a wide variety of famous, and generally liberal, people willing to make guest appearances on his show. Why are they all suddenly so outraged with him? This could not be a surprise to his regular audience and guests. This suggests to me their current disgust has more to do with media attention than any principles of propriety.

Third, the cancellation of Imus by MSNBC and CBS Radio was driven totally by money. Advertisers were starting to bail out. No advertisers, no show. It's not at all complicated. I don't believe for a second the faux sensitivity of the network executives. They are protecting their business. Nothing more, nothing less.

I will leave you with a quote from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, placing this story in the context of other recent events.

“Two years ago, Penn Jillette (of the comedy team Penn and Teller) went on Showtime calling Mother Teresa ‘Mother F—king Teresa’ and called the nuns who worked with her ‘f—king c—ts.’ Showtime is owned by Viacom and that is why I wrote to its chief, Sumner Redstone, to register a complaint. He wrote back extolling the merits of ‘artistic freedom’ and ‘tolerance.’ Last year, on Viacom-owned CBS radio, Jillette said Mother Teresa ‘had this weird kink that I think was sexual,’ compared the saintly nun to Charles Manson and said she ‘got her [sexual] kicks watching people suffer and die.’ Again, nothing was done about this.

“In 2005, Bill Maher went on HBO at the time of the death of Pope John Paul II and said, ‘For those who could not make the funeral, the Vatican has asked that in lieu of flowers, just stop touching your d—k.’ He also said that the whole story of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Resurrection was ‘grafted from paganism’; he ended by mocking the death of the pope and the upcoming conclave. The letter I received from HBO said that ‘it’s a free country, and people are free to say silly things—even on HBO.’

“Right before Easter, the Catholic League protested the chocolate Jesus with his genitals exposed that was to be shown in the art gallery of the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan (located on street level, the public was invited to eat him). Air America radio co-host Cenk Uygur, writing on ‘The Huffington Post,’ said, ‘So is the argument that Jesus didn’t have a d—k? Or were people offended because it was too big? Too Small? Too immaculate? Not immaculate enough?’ Regarding Imus’s remark, Uygur called it ‘derogatory and insulting.’

“Similarly, Joan Walsh on Salon.com said the chocolate Jesus was not ‘a big deal,’ and advised people not to go see it if they didn’t like it. She has now called on Imus to be fired. Even New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said ‘don’t pay any attention’ to the chocolate Jesus, but he now finds it necessary to brand Imus’ comments ‘repugnant.’

“In other words, Catholic bashing is humorous and an exercise in liberty. Racism is awful. Bigotry, then, is neither good nor bad—it just depends who the target is.”

Wisdom of the Saints XIII

The country in which I live is not my native country; that lies elsewhere, and it must always be the center of my longings.

St. Thérèse de Lisieux
1873-1897

Obispos con Cajones

In Zimbabwe, where President-for-life Robert Mugabe seems not to know the meaning of human rights, the nine Catholic bishops took a bold step on Easter Sunday.

HARARE, Zimbabwe - In an Easter message pinned to church bulletin boards around the country, Zimbabwe's Roman Catholic bishops called on President Robert Mugabe to leave office or face "open revolt" from those suffering under his government...

"As the suffering population becomes more insistent, generating more and more pressure through boycotts, strikes, demonstrations and uprisings, the state responds with ever harsher oppression through arrests, detentions, banning orders, beatings and torture," the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference said in a pastoral message pinned up at churches throughout the country.

The majority of Zimbabwe's Christians — including Mugabe — are Roman Catholics. Several thousand worshippers who packed the cathedral in Harare clustered around the bulletin boards to read the message after morning Mass on Sunday.

"Many people in Zimbabwe are angry, and their anger is now erupting into open revolt in one township after another," the nine bishops wrote.

"In order to avoid further bloodshed and avert a mass uprising, the nation needs a new people-driven constitution that will guide a democratic leadership chosen in free and fair elections," it said. MORE

How often do we see this kind of backbone in church leaders today? People who oppose Mugabe like this are routinely subject to arrest, torture, and imprisonment. These bishops are risking life and limb to protect their flock.

I know, I know, separation of church and state, etc etc. Tell it to this guy. We're not talking about whether to post the Ten Commandments or not. Zimbabwe is way past that point. But not all church leaders are in agreement:

The Anglican church has been more muted, with its leaders generally toeing the ruling party line.

Why am I not surprised?

UPDATE: Here is an excellent blog post comparing the Church in Zimbabwe to the role of the church in overthrowing communism in Poland. Hat tip: Mark Shea.

Three Presidents at Once?

Today I was listening to the podcast of NBC's Meet The Press from Sunday. They were discussing the 2008 presidential race. Somebody, I'm not sure who, said that we're going to have three competing presidents for about nine months next year. How can this be?

First there will be President Bush, of course. Meanwhile the front-loaded primary season makes it likely that the nominee of both parties will be decided by early February 2008. From then until November (and maybe longer if we get into another recount fiasco) the two nominees and the guy in the White House will all be claiming national leadership. Obviously Bush will still hold the nuclear keys, but in other ways he will become increasingly irrelevant.

The loser in this scenario has to be the GOP. Unless Bush's approval ratings go up dramatically, the Republican candidate will be forced to distance himself from the current president as much as possible. That means all the party leaders and activists will have to take sides. Few will choose the guy who already has one foot out the door. Meanwhile the Democratic candidate, whoever he/she is, will be free to exploit all the fissures on the GOP side.

Bush likes to say he doesn't make his decisions according to polls. He will probably lose that luxury for his last year in office, unless he wants to hand over the White House to a Democrat.