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Gangster culture [An element of rap music has shifted from the ghetto to mainstream]
QMI Agency via Sun Media via Toronto Sun ^ | 2011-08-16 | Ezra Levant

Posted on 08/16/2011 8:31:43 AM PDT by Clive

What was the cause of the riots in the United Kingdom?

This wasn’t a political riot. There wasn’t anything political about it. It wasn’t even race-on-race rioting. It was races rioting together — rioting against the state, and for themselves.

Last week, renowned British historian David Starkey made this point to the BBC: The rioting was just shopping with violence. People sensed a moment of lawlessness and impunity.

But Starkey’s point was an observation, not an explanation. How did thousands of people in the land of the Magna Carta, the land of liberty and law, simply decide to become petty little gangsters?

Starkey referred to a speech made in 1968 by a politician named Enoch Powell, who had warned about unlimited immigration to the U.K., using the phrase “rivers of blood.” Starkey said the violence predicted by Powell had come true — but it wasn’t race versus race.

It was various races together. “The whites have become black,” he said. “A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.” Uh-oh.

Hundreds of people immediately filed censorship complaints against Starkey and the BBC, and he was widely condemned as a racist.

Perhaps Starkey could have been more careful; he said white had become black — and then immediately became more precise, meaning they had accepted a particular segment of black culture, namely gangsta rap. But his meaning was perfectly clear — to anyone who has listened to rap music, with its glorification of violence and material excess, and who has seen the glamourization of that lifestyle move from ghettos into the cultural mainstream.

What grown men wear hoodies in public? Or their underwear up high and their pants down low? Those aren’t crimes, of course — maybe fashion crimes. But far more serious is the set of values that has been swallowed along with the cultural touchstones of fashion and diction.

Gangsta culture calls women “hos” and “bitches,” a crude misogyny with an undercurrent of a threat of violence. It glamourizes fighting, shooting and even dying in gangland warfare. It holds that the point of wealth is to squander it on bling and champagne.

For some folks, it’s a joke. Take Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comic who created a character called Ali G — a twenty-something white kid trying so hard to be a gangsta.

It was a laugh riot, so over the top it was hilarious. Except that thousands of British kids decided that’s who they wanted to be when they grew up.

As U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday, this isn’t just about mimicking some questionable role models. It has become a substitute moral code. Starkey accurately pointed out where it came from, and where it has gone.

When thousands of British thugs decide it’s not a fantasy anymore, but rather a code for living, that’s the time to blow the whistle.

Cameron’s right. This is a slow-motion moral collapse. And the solution is surely not banning rough music or comedy. But being free to talk about it openly, like David Starkey did, is part of the solution, not part of the problem.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS:
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1 posted on 08/16/2011 8:31:47 AM PDT by Clive
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To: exg; Alberta's Child; albertabound; AntiKev; backhoe; Byron_the_Aussie; Cannoneer No. 4; ...

-


2 posted on 08/16/2011 8:32:43 AM PDT by Clive
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To: Clive

3 posted on 08/16/2011 8:34:53 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: Clive

All ‘rap’ is strictly shi- for the pigs!


4 posted on 08/16/2011 8:35:37 AM PDT by IbJensen (God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made politicians.)
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To: Clive
There is nothing wrong here that won't be solved by a few years of starvation.

Which is where these goons are taking us.

5 posted on 08/16/2011 8:35:57 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Regulation is government control of capital, and government control of capital is socialism.)
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To: Clive

Who said??:

‘If you went out and found a bunch of racist kids and asked them to invent something to make minorities look stupid... they’d invent gangsta rap’


6 posted on 08/16/2011 8:36:02 AM PDT by SMARTY (A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers.)
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To: Clive

They have shown that most of the people involved in the riots are out of work and don’t want to go to work and most never had a job. They are leaches on society.


7 posted on 08/16/2011 8:36:02 AM PDT by RC2
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47 Days And FR Is Still Short Of Its Goal

Take FR Across The Finish Line

Click The Pic To Donate

8 posted on 08/16/2011 8:36:02 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are here! What will you do?)
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To: Clive

Since we now let the entertainment industry set our moral values, this is not surprising.

Violence and wierdness sell, especially with a mass media that constantly stimulates the desire for more. It was essentially the entertainment industry that promoted rap as the image of what all blacks should be and made it cool to be a thug. As Jesse Jackson once said (during his early sane period when he was actually rather conservative in some ways) when talking about illegitimacy being tolerated and subsidized in the black population, “what goes around, comes around,” and people were mistaken if they thought they could tolerate and fund dysfunction in the black population without having it spread to the white population as well.


9 posted on 08/16/2011 8:37:31 AM PDT by livius
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: livius

Not all Rap is Gangsta Rap. It’s just the form that has taken over the mainstream.


11 posted on 08/16/2011 8:51:56 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Clive
Unfortunately this is not really news. Judging by what I see on the streets, if Obama wanted to balance the budget he could propose a $500 a head "National Wigger Tax" and we'd be back (ahem) in the black by Thanksgiving.
12 posted on 08/16/2011 8:54:06 AM PDT by Notary Sojac (Nothing will cure the economy but debt deleveraging, deregulation, and time.)
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To: Clive

Obama:
“They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”

Obama to His Followers:
“Get in Their Faces!”

Obama on ACORN Mobs:
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”

Obama to His Mercenary Army:
“Hit Back Twice As Hard”

Obama on the private sector:
“We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.“

Obama to voters:
Republican victory would mean “hand to hand combat”

Obama to lib supporters:
“It’s time to Fight for it.”

Obama to Latino supporters:
“Punish your enemies.”

Obama to democrats:
“I’m itching for a fight.”

Capuano (Violent Democrats for Obama):
Once in a while you have got
to get out on the streets
and get a little bloody.

13 posted on 08/16/2011 8:54:44 AM PDT by Diogenesis (No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. - Mark Twain)
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To: Diogenesis
Obama to democrats:
“I’m itching for a fight.”


He's not itching for a fight. He's itching for this country to fight amongst itself. He'll flee to his other country refuge, that's been established by his handlers, for a job well done destroy the U.S.A.
14 posted on 08/16/2011 9:02:56 AM PDT by crosshairs (If Sharia Law becomes the law of the land, heads are gonna roll.)
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To: Clive

I wonder if any of these kids realize that the gangsta rappers of the 90s have IRAs, have reality shows on VH1, and sing with groups on the Disney Channel?

Their music led to the good life. These kids will not be so lucky.


15 posted on 08/16/2011 9:04:59 AM PDT by VanDeKoik (1 million in stimulus dollars paid for this tagline!)
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To: Clive

{C}rap music.


16 posted on 08/16/2011 9:10:42 AM PDT by Signalman
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To: Clive
So many words.
So much Bullshit.*

Animal nature is to survive with a minimum of effort.
The hunter gatherers spent their entire exixtence surviving hunger and the elements.Eevery day. 24/7.
The weak died.
The predators among them began to prey on the weaker. The weaker died.

The anmals with thinking ability learned to band together and not allow the stronger to take from them; they baded together and they killed the predators. Soon those who would not expend the effort to earn their own survival disappeared.

Then man became civilized. Cooperating, they thrived, but the entire group was expected to contribute or die. Then they became more civilized, and a system of parasitic cooperation evolved. Leaders were expected to think, plan and help the group survive. Then the groups slowly devolved into predator groups again. The stronger lost their conscience and began preying on the weaker again. Soon they joined the leaders into preying on the weak.

The weak realized they were headed to extinction. Unfortunately, they became too civilized to remember how to fight back, and they once more became the prey, of both the leadership and the bands without conscience.

The producers, the vast majority of the tribes had to make the tough decision : fight back or die.

To be continued.

But rap certainly has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

*BULLSHIT

17 posted on 08/16/2011 9:13:36 AM PDT by Publius6961 (My world was lovely, until it was taken over by parasites.)
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To: VanDeKoik

Yep, nowadays, you’re nobody unless Snoop Dogg makes a cameo appearance in your video.


18 posted on 08/16/2011 9:14:06 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Clive

The Gangsta Rap crowd living in the White House is happy to see trash talk become mainstream.


19 posted on 08/16/2011 9:15:48 AM PDT by Iron Munro (One Trillion seconds = 31,709.79 YEARS / One Trillion dollars = Obama's spending for 3 months)
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To: RC2
They have shown that most of the people involved in the riots are out of work and don’t want to go to work and most never [lost a job, because they never] had a job. They are leaches on society, [and will fight, destroy, and even kill to keep it that way]

There.
Fixed it for you.

20 posted on 08/16/2011 9:30:54 AM PDT by Publius6961 (My world was lovely, until it was taken over by parasites.)
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