‘Morning Joe’ panelists blame Oklahoma fraternity racism on black culture and rap music

[DonViejo]

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski discussed the controversy caused by the now-expelled SAE fraternity members who led their brothers in a racist chant — and determined that rap music was to blame for it, Mediaite’s Evan McMurry reports.

Responding to a CNN interview with rapper Waka Flocka Flame — who had performed at the Oklahoma SAE chapter the previous summer — in which he said he was “disgusted” by the video in which Parker Rice led his brothers in a chant that included both racist language and a reference to lynching, Brzezinski said that some of the blame for the behavior belongs on artists like him.

“I look at his lyrics, and you have to ask yourself why he would go on that campus. If you look at every single song [by Waka Flocka Flame], it’s a bunch of garbage,” she said. “It’s full of n-words, it’s full of f-words. It’s wrong. And he shouldn’t be disgusted with them — he should be disgusted with himself.”

The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol jumped in, opining that “popular culture becomes a cesspool, a lot corporations profit off of it, and then people are surprised that some drunk 19-year-old kids repeat what they’ve been hearing.”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/morning-joe-panelists-blame-oklahoma-fraternity-racism-on-black-culture-and-rap-music/

[cilla4progress]

1. I was watching the Voice last night

(wait for it ... there is a tie-in) and 2 women contestants were singing a hip hop song about violence - I couldn't understand all the words, but one line was something like "put the gun down."

It hit me like a ton of bricks: I too used to sit in my comfy white neighborhood decrying violence in hip hop music, tsk tsking my way into only the "good" ie, peaceful, philosophical, unifying branch of it.

Then I connected what they show in American film and on TV every night: horrifically violent entertainment.

So, I realized: it's "OK" for Hollywood and mainstream TV to show and glorify and exploit violence, but not our Black brothers and sisters in their art form?

I realized what a hypocrisy this was.

Now, for me, I don't view or enjoy either. But for people or critics to take down rap music, without seeing that mainstream white America does the same thing - using violence as a primary theme - is not only hypocritical but shallow and stupid.

It's patently clear that as a species, humans respond viscerally to viewing violence, in a way that allows us to be manipulated through fear. It is very compelling to us and is very useful to both control us, but also to show us the reality of what some of us are faced with regularly, in our lives.

[snooper2]

3. interesting, Eminem rapped about this 13 years ago :)

[cilla4progress]

4. Yes - I must admit I neglected to mention "white rap,"

but I guess I still consider it an African-American genre, at least as far as its roots.

I have limited bandwidth, so will try to watch when I have access to broadband.

What is the song, and the essence of it?

I guess sometimes it just takes us little old white ladies longer to figure this crap out! At least, we sometimes finally do! I hope someone called Joe/Mika/Kristol whothehellever out on it!!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. Those poor frat kids were just victims of society.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Of course they'd say that...