A little tidbit re: Censorship/Violence/Rap and Video Games

Currently two men are creating a stir with regard to two forms of entertainment which they consider, separately, to be socially irresponsible. One man, Jason Whitlock, is a writer (for lack of a better word) who once wrote for ESPN's page 2 (got dismissed for being an idiot), I think he still writes for the Kansas City Star (if he still writes for them, I'm sure most of the Star's readers are card carrying certified fools), and has an online column on AOL sports (finally proving that AOL is the idiots internet). Whitlock, though a black man, actually hates black people (I’ve read enough of his anti-black postings to feel this is true) and is trying his hardest to renew the crusade against rap music. The other man, attorney John Bruce "Jack" Thompson, is a self proclaimed Christian Conservative and a Republican (I'd say more, but I think "self proclaimed Christian conservative and republican" pretty much sums up his ignorance). Thompson's mission has been to remove anything he finds morally offensive from the public. Currently he is getting airtime because he feels violent video games helped 'train' Cho Seung Hui (the V-Tech shooter) enabling him to kill 32 people with apparent ease. Thompson's other missions go all the way back to taking on 2-Live Crew (sexually explicit rap lyrics –didn’t work-) and N.W.A (the true grandfathers of gangsta rap, though with some political basis –again, a failed crusade-). Thompson was also one of the first people to gain notoriety by taking on Howard Stern’s radio talk show, labeling the shock-jock’s show morally corrupt and indecent.
Both of these men, and others who drop in and out of 'censorship' fights wish primarily to change the world to fit their distorted views of how life should be for everyone based on what makes them comfortable. Both of these men are not paraplegics, perceivably not retarded, and surely not imbecilic enough to not know how to turn off their TV's, Radios, internet browsers when material they find offensive is aired. However, even with the ability to NOT view material they find objectionable, they both have, instead, suggested the material they do not like is capable of causing groups of people and/or an individual to behave in antisocial manners and should be banned.

Whitlock wants to ban rap music which he feels is too ghetto, too prison influenced, and too disrespectful of women and seemingly glorifies violence and the use of the word nigga. He feels it is rap music which is intensifying the problems in the ghetto or ‘hood’ by continuing to glorify being ‘gangsta’ being a bad-boy, and that in the hood, apparently black/brown people are just stupid and ignorant enough to be incapable of listening to the music or seeing the videos and not understanding the difference between entertainment vs. reality. I guess in Whitlock’s mind, the ignorant, inferior, dumb-ass coon/nigger/spook, is still alive and well ‘in the hood’. I also guess in Whitlock’s world, the hood is soley responsible for making people like JayZ and Sean Diddy Combs nearly billionaires, because there is so much money being pumped into rap music from the hood (as you know, the people in the hood are drowning in cash). Naturally Whitlock has no explaination for how violent ‘white’ movies have yet to destroy the ‘white’ community, or how some violent rock and roll has yet to do the same. Whitlock may grow up one day and help us figure out whats wrong in certain segments of the black community, and perhaps stop ignoring that rap, like all forms of art, has various hallways, wings, bedrooms, and playgrounds that say and mean different things to different people. Push for educational reform Mr. Whitlock. In a neighborhood in San Diego called City Heights, educational reform efforts, and community building efforts have resulted in a major decrease in crime and a major increase in minority students graduating and heading to college –while listening to hip hop-.

Regarding Mr. Thompson, well, I’m not going to spend too much time on him because he’s got a pedigree that is already the muck from which chest thumping moralist arise. He’s not capable of stopping, and in a way he’s molded himself into a walking parody of all ‘fundamentalist’ (and remember, BLACK SPORTS GUY says FUCK anything that is a blank-fundamentalist. Violence in the form of cowboys and Indian movies was the food and vitamins for several generations and they failed to produce anything other than entertainment to endless rows of children and adults. Violence in the form of gangster movies have entertained several hundred million without creating any issues. Violence in video games (literally animated cartoons, in a sense) is no different. When you have several 100 million people watching, playing and even listening to these ‘productions’ and the industry manages to earn billions of dollars a year (again proving that MILLIONS of people are buying and playing), then what you really can do, and Whitlock can do this too) is boil a few hundred million people down to a simple few deranged individuals who periodically make the news.

If we were running around in animal skins, writing on walls with animal blood and egg yolks, there would still be a lunatic who would claw his/her way to the surface, creating a stir by performing some sort of horrifying act against a few other men, causing bloodshed and pain. PLUS where were people like these two back when the bible was being used to kill hundreds of thousands during the crusades? I wonder if there was anyone brave enough to ask for the bible to be censored since in the case of the crusades THE BIBLE WAS RESPONSIBLE, DIRECTLY, FOR COUNTLESS MURDERS.