Angel Aduwo, the Black female opinion editor of Oberlin College’s “Review,” recently penned a piece suggesting that the widespread antipathy amongst White people for Rap was racially motivated.
“If there’s one thing white people hate, it’s competition…..If we consider rap music to be music, then we must question the validity of the claim that classical music and other Eurocentric art forms are superior……..These critiques were often rooted in racism and a distaste for black American expression, rather than any real discourse on the music itself.”
In the aftermath of the Super Bowl half-time show, I forced myself to listen to a good deal of Rap performed by both Black and White “artists.” The general impression I had acquired after being exposed to hundreds of hours of Rap in a previous work environment, was fully reinforced.
Rap is a degenerate “art form” barely worthy of being considered music. Fundamental to the Western concept of Art is the notion that the raw stuff of experience be submitted to the alchemy of human intelligence and imagination with, obviously, some form or other of technical skill. Simply spewing one’s raw emotions does not constitute Art. Indeed doing so would be considered by most traditional Western critics little more than a form of self-indulgence if not abject primitivism.
Invoke the Western Tradition and one is of course immediately accused of being a mindless advocate of White Supremacy. But “conservatism” puts the dictates of Mind before the biases born of Race. It is a prioritization with which Socrates would absolutely have agreed, as do millions of Black people who see themselves first and foremost as Intelligent Human Beings rather than the members of some oppressed subset.
My disdain for most Rap is not a product of my Whiteness but of my capacity as an Intelligent/Moral Being. To Post Moderns, who are but Marxist cynics in disguise, there is of course no such thing. All Ideas and Values are equally moral, equally intelligent, an axiom which suggests that a car engine backfiring has the same artistic merit as a Chopin nocturne. Such is the integrity of the argument that White people don’t like Rap because they’re racists. Such is the degeneracy of a Culture in which a Black writer, Elie Mystal, is celebrated on a major T.V. show, The View, for publishing a book on the Black experience with a Chapter entitled “Reverse Racism is Not a Thing.” Yes Elie, Black people are never racists, only Whites! We know this because the geniuses on The View have told us so! And millions apparently believe them!
Are you familiar with the racial intolerance killing people daily throughout much of the non-Western world while here in the West using the word Negro is now considered an act of hate? Are you aware that Slavery has been practiced by people of Color throughout all of history and continues to be so in parts of Africa even today? Have you ever read a history book? Elie Mystal said in his appearance on The View that the U.S. Constitution was “trash.” No one is suggesting the history of America and the West in general has not been fraught with imperfection, but Post Enlightenment European Man has made progress in the realm of tolerance that remains utterly unthinkable in many parts of the world. While no White Man could get away with saying such a thing, the wonderful Candace Owens, a few months ago, sardonically offered a Black man who had been lamenting the plight of his people in contemporary America, a one way ticket back to Africa!
And oh, by the way Ms. Aduwo, your argument that accepting Rap as “music” therefore makes it comparable to Western Classical Music, makes no sense whatsoever! To the Humanist there are standards, intellectual, aesthetic and moral, governing such valuations. That this is now seen as a White Western bias rife with Racism has brought us to a place where I must apparently accept the banal, mindless rant of some childish, misogynist, sex-driven, Male egotist, as a wonderful expression of the Human Spirit worthy of my admiration. But I do Not!
Those convinced of the efficacy of Western Humanist Principles must stand and fight for their Values and not be cowed by the juvenile tactics of second-rate minds incapable of seeing beyond issues of Race to the full potential of the Human Spirit.