Letters to the Editor
Xrandadu Hutman
Published Letters: 2630 Editor's Choice: 52
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Oh, by the way...
[Read the article: I'm obsessed with being a hipster]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One more thing I want to say:
At this time, with our government as corrupt as it is, and with as many shenanigans that are being passed off as legitimate elsewhere, it really is sort of weak and shallow for us to spend much time worrying about "being hip."
In high school, when forming a sense of self, it means a lot. At an adult age, one should not let it become quite as important (unless you ply your trade as an artist, or DJ, or critic).
I'm saying: Keep your perspective, and your sense of humor. What is important? People I know are being shipped off, possibly to die, in Iraq...and they're getting "back-door drafted" with this new 15-month-deployment schedule.
I just sent a donation to Amnesty International because I appreciate their fight for human rights. Our government has made a habit of capturing people and then sending them to third-world countries that have no anti-torture standards ("extraordinary rendition").
I think it's a little crass for us to worry about whether The Shins are better than Grandaddy or whatever while people are being waterboarded and beat up during interrogation (a few of them dying from "cardiac arrest"...a euphemism for "beaten to death") even though they aren't even charged with crime.
Our music lust (as Nic Harcourt calls it) is playtime and pleasure. We gotta make sure that we don't mistake it for the things in our adult lives that really matter. Life would be shitty without them, of course, but if we obsess over them at the expense of more substantial things, we have to ask ourselves -- what are we doing?
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Kansasgirl
[Read the article: Black rappers made him do it!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kansasgirl writes: "I'm just as angry when conservatives try to ban the Dixie Chicks from country radio as when liberals try to get Imus fired. It's a bad precedent to set and a distraction from real solutions to racism and sexism in this country."
Not a parallel.
-- Don Imus was fired by his direct bosses.
-- The Dixie Chicks were being boycotted by supposedly independent radio stations that were owned and controlled by Clear Channel which is owned and controlled by a longtime Bush supporter.
If you don't see how those are two different things, then you're not in Kansas anymore, you're in la-la land.
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Dear "Denny Crane"
[Read the article: Black rappers made him do it!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You write, as if to paraphrase the majority of liberals:
" 'Black hiphop mysogony, racist words, calls to violence and intentionally bad english are reflective of their culture so its alright. Who are we to criticize. Its reflective of diversity and multiculturalism and that must always be deemed to be good.' "
...the problem with the above is that it does not represent mainstream liberal thought in the slightest.
Find me one Salon writer, or message-board commenter, who has said something like the above. I am sure if you combed the entire internet you could find somebody that naive, but it hardly resembles what the majority of liberals think.
-- Nobody says "Misogyny is reflective of their culture so it's alright."
-- Nobody says "Multiculturalism must always be deemed to be good."
Instead, almost all liberals that I've seen on Salon say things that are more balanced, such as: "Some rap has misogynist lyrics, some does not. Let's not condemn an entire style/genre of music because some of it is offensive."
I think it's also worth pointing out that rap music and Don Imus do not exist on parallel planes. If you took a rap artist and gave him his own mainstream radio show and TV show, and he used his great big bullhorn to make lame racial/bigoted statements, not just one time but over the course of years, with little to mitigate it, do you honestly think Salon writers like Joan Walsh would defend him?
I wouldn't.
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Joan Walsh is trying to get perspective, so give her a break
[Read the article: And now, for news that really matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Joan Walsh is torn between two forces in today's media, and I think this message is her attempt to swing herself (and Salon) from one to the other. Those two forces are:
(1) The need to jump on "hot" news that gets ratings, generating reader interest and involvement (Anna Nicole Smith, Don Imus, the Duke rape case, and other hot-button stories).
and...
(2) The desire to do real journalism, which involves much less glamorous investigation, research, fact-digging, "interesting the public in the public interest," watchdog efforts, and the sort of work that makes news media valuable to civilization even as it leaves some readers snoozing.
Joan Walsh, as one person put it, got her piece of pie and weighed in on this issue, and I don't think anybody should blame her. She seems to be relatively new and fresh to the on-air pundit scene (at least, she is to me), and she's got to accept invitations to be the liberal voice of debates or risk not getting them. I for one welcome a strong, articulate, good-humored liberal voice who can hold her own against all the right-wing bullies out there, and I hope she keeps going on-air even as she struggles to walk the tightwire act of not succumbing to media-whore-ism.
Today is a big day: Lots to report in Iraq (including the bombing of the parliament in Baghdad), the White House has mysteriously "lost" important emails, the U.S. has been paying millions in restitution to families of Iraqis and Afghanis we've wrongly killed, the U.S. back-door draft of 15-month deployments was just announced, and a literary icon just died.
Salon is covering many of the above subjects in addition to the Don Imus thing. So cut them (and Joan) some slack.