I don’t get the Black rapper thing, never have, but then I’m a middle age white guy living in northern Canada, not a Black guy enduring what passes for life an inner city ghetto.
So I remove myself from the emerging Black discussion, I can’t possibly understand it — I roll my eyes and I move on. And I’m not alone; white guys a lot closer to the action than I am are doing the same because not to is to meddle and this is way too volatile an issue to toy with.
But it is far too great an issue to ignore, too. It begs the question: how can non-Black people get involved to help change what appears to be a lethal and deranged set of life-choices? Is there some meaningful way the white community can meaningfully participate or must it just be left to the Bill Cosbys and the Cynthia Tuckers to prod the discussion in the hopes of ultimately finding some hint of a solution?
There is a hopeless helplessness in passively watching a process of the glamourization of thuggery, the butchery of language and the deliberate demeaning of a dress code. It all lacks basic and responsible discipline which, if this was occurring in a pocket of the white community, could be taken as an urgent cry for help.
Humanists everywhere would be interested in answering that call. The question is, how.
Oh, and if this offends, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, honest.
If white entertainers were making millions singing about the slaughter of black men and mistreatment of black women, city streets would clog with protesters. Demonstrators would pack the halls of Congress. Commerce would grind to a halt as black activists demanded boycotts. But somehow, the violence and misogyny of T.I., 50 Cent and Nelly are less inflammatory. — Cynthia Tucker Thug culture is a cancer destroying Black America
