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"I'm Italian, but not a guido."
You've got to love Barack Obama's choice of the soundtrack to "Ray." "I'm black," Obama seems to be saying, "but not in that scary rap way."
I'd defy you to find a white home outside Lou Dobbs' triple enforced super secret underground bunker that doesn't have Ray Charles in the audio dept.
And seriously ... rap? Scary? Only if you're channelling Paula Zahn and rap / hip hop make your pink nose do the bunny-twitch of horror.
Rap's been around almost as long as I have, longer if you count other spoken musical forms (eg Jamaican toasting) making longevity the scariest thing about it, therefore what does it say (a) when white people listen to the soundtrack from Ray and (b) what would listening to Ray (that would be Ray-Ray) in the innocent pre-rap days say about a listener in or out of the color code at the side of the toaster?
You never seem to fail in perpetuating the myth that mainstream rap that fiercely defends the status quo of brutal injustice on the basis of color, gender, and sexual orientation is rebellious. When young white males--the historical gatekeepers of power and oppression--are its base, there's nothing remotely challenging about the genre.
Only a person who believes the basic human rights of ethnic minorities, women and girls, and homosexuals are an injustice could consider rap "scary."
Please.
