With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spurting extremist political views to Iranian and American audiences and the nation facing serious problems in Iraq, it seems the b-word, n-word and h-word should be “bombs,” “nuclear” and “heightened security.” At a Congressional hearing Tuesday, however, scandalous words drawn from hip-hop lyrics were put on trial, prompting many questions, but answering far fewer.
While U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) may sometimes be correct to call the lyrical content of hip-hop culture “filth,” she and others on the House Subcommittee on Commerce and Trade unfairly focused on one aspect of the culture that degrades women and minorities. As exemplified by the Tuesday verdict against Warren Jeffs, a polygamous sect leader in Utah convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl by accomplice, misogynist leanings proliferate outside the realm of hip-hop culture and often then with more serious effects. Recent events in Jena, La., point out that racism predates hip-hop culture by hundreds of years, and today’s racially motivated attacks do not draw inspiration from lyrics, but rather a legacy of racial tension.
Regulation of hip-hop’s so-called inappropriate and degrading product should be left to consumer demand. Just as the Federal Communication Commission took the back seat while society ripped apart Don Imus, the talk-show host who used sexist and racist terms to describe the Rutgers women’s basketball team, so should Congress allow consumer demand and corporate decisions to rule on what passes as acceptable in hip-hop.
“The business of stereotypes and degrading images,” as the Congressional hearing was called, may be a national problem, but it is not one to be handled by legislation. Warning labels and restrictions for R-rated movie admission and music with explicit content for minors do stop some young people from accessing offensive material. Parents also have a role in keeping their children away from messages and social images they find inappropriate. Personal, rather than Congressional, decisions can control public access to and market demand for hip-hop culture.
Infringement of the most offensive and vile speech has been denied by the Supreme Court as a violation of basic constitutional rights. And while the recording, television and media industries may be subject to more severe regulation than general expression, the art of hip-hop expressionists is still to be given fair play in the arena of public ideas. The public must be allowed to make its own decisions on what culture to access and what trash to ignore.
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