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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 3
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 3 |
I was composing a letter today to a local radio station that continues to play a song (surprisingly, not a rap song) that I find offensive because it contains a line that I interpret as being repulsively sexist.
Isn't it a bit prejudiced to accept the notion that rap music is inherently more offensive than other types of popular music. Why don't people bristle at the sugestions of pedophilia in Union Gap's "Young Girl" or Lionel Richie's video for "Hello"? Likewise, nobody gets fired up when Big Joe Turner exclaims, in "Shake, Rattle & Roll," "I'm a one eyed cat peeping in a seafood store. Well, I can look at you and tell you ain't no child no more." Nobody is writing letters to Amy Winehouse's record label, asking them to pull her records from the shelves and force her to go to rehab for her extremely public heroin addiction; to the contrary, they give her awards. With so many reprehensible ideas being bandied about in popular music, I'm not sure why people continue to single out rap music as being the most deserving of its disapproval. And while I understand that you were not writing about a rap song, I do not understand why you felt a need to include that little aside: "surprisingly, not a rap song".
"Effectiveness of assertion is the Alpha and Omega of style." -George Bernard Shaw
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
Perhaps some of the groups aren't that popular and porcupine is not aware of them. I never heard of Amy Winehouse until a few weeks ago.
There is some good rap and there is some idiotic rap and there is some that is a little of both. "Gold Digger" and "Baby Got Back" are both brilliant - and both extremely sexist. Some words from "Gold Digger" could get one's ass handed to one if spoken in a certain contexts. It's still genius, though. OTOH, "hollaback girl" is musically brilliant, but culturally just stupid.
Rap music is singled out because it is often (not always, but often) far more abrasive and more pervasive than other stuff.
Possibly the reason this is frowned on is the perception that kids actually try to emulate the behavior they hear on these songs.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
I think that a better choice than "silently" would be "tacitly." From Merriam-Webster: tacit
1 : expressed or carried on without words or speech <the blush was a tacit answer — Bram Stoker> 2 : implied or indicated (as by an act or by silence) but not actually expressed <tacit consent> <tacit admission of guilt>
— tac·it·ly adverb
— tac·it·ness noun
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067 |
I think 'implicitly' condone is more the sense you're looking for isn't it?
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Joined: May 2008
Posts: 4
stranger
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stranger
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 4 |
If you condone something, you act or speak out in support of it. Passively condoning something would be to not voice disagreement.
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 876
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 876 |
I think you can condone something without a word or action. Simple inaction in the face of another action would condone it, absent any effort to stop it. If you sit by and do nothing when something occurs in your presence, you are condoning it without actions or words. I don't know if this has a name. This is not, however, the case with the radio station. They are taking action by playing the song, thereby actually promoting whatever message is in the song, a step up from condoning. I'm sure it's a simple case of the Almighty Dollar. If there's profit in playing it, they will, no matter what the message.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067 |
If you condone something, you act or speak out in support of it. Passively condoning something would be to not voice disagreement. I think the core sense of the word is approval. It doesn't necessarily involve particular actions. To condone something means to approve of it. That approval starts with a theoretical assent and could come out in various ways, by words and/or actions. But the act of condoning itself is the act of approving. Not voicing agreement could be a passive action (if that's not an oxymoron) that SHOWS you condone something. Speaking for something would be an active sign of condoning it.
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