Gangsta Rap music, bad for children?

Great Debates
1

In this thread, Magellan takes the position that a five year old child listening to gangsta (gangster) rap music will somehow be harmed by it.
He is being piled on by the more liberal in the thread who take the position that it’s harmless, he’s overreacting, and they see nothing wrong with it. No condemnation of the mother of the child, who must be the one allowing her son to listen to it, no condemnation of the music itself. It’s perfectly fine, no harm done, no harm will come, and further they would like to see Magellan prove that this type of music could harm a child and in what way.
This proof was something Magellan didn’t offer up, yet.
So, I start this thread with the intention of gathering opposing views on the matter so we can come to some level headed agreement and hopefully back up our positions with some facts.

In post #107, Zoe brings up a good point

However, I must ask, at what point does does the child begin to understand and absorb the lyrics? Should we be concerned then? Zoe seems to say that the psyche of the child at this age would not be damaged. It sounds, though, that the inference may be that at some later age (when the child figures out what the lyrics mean) there could be damage.

Example of lyrics from the link;

Where Left Hand of Dorkness plays along;

What say you??

2

I’m with the people who feel that negative images and messages in works of art and the media have no detrimental influence on children. And I figure if that is true then positive images and messages in works of art and the media have no uplifting influence on children, so why bother exposing them to any of it. Problem solved.

3

Really?
What we’re focusing on here is the possibly negative influence that lyrics in popular music may have on the minds of young impressionable children.
You don’t think that a very young child hearing the lyrics like the ones quoted in the OP will be influenced in some way as they grow up? I think lyrics, movies, videos, etc. have the ability to empower certain people who may be looking for justification for certain types of behavior. Being that they can see the author or performer as role models who engage in the behavior they want to justify.

4

When I was a kid, I watched He-Man an the masters of the Universe. Watching that show influenced me not one whit.

Thing is, the kids know that what comes out of “the entertainment box” is just for fun. Now, if I had taken a book full of violent stories, read it to my (hypothetical) kids everyday, and insisted that the stuff in it not only happened in reality but was good and right, then I would think that would influence them.

5

Depends on the adult.

I don’t believe the kid’s five-minute exposure to the muffled music leaking from my earphones constituted anything particularly harmful: the exposure was too inconsequential, and most of the lyrics (except in C-Murder’s “Die for my Niggas”) were hardly very clear. What tends to change anyone, including kids, is the duration, frequency and consistency of specific influences they are exposed to and their own willingness to change behavior.

But what stops kids from actually exhibiting behaviors they have an affinity for that’s not in their best interest – be it imitating something not-age appropriate or lying or stealing or whatever – is active teaching by adults: parents, teachers and guardians. An adult’s ability to praise, laugh, approve and evoking pride compels kids to obey, and adult’s disapproval, criticism, warnings and contempt usually stops a kid from doing something. Also, a parent who recognizes they have easily influenced kids knows not to expose their kids to some things, just as a parent who knows their kids are pretty savvy won’t worry overmuch about fleeting influences.

You get shitty parents who aren’t consistent and don’t know how to express themselves in any way except negativity, and their kids never learn to judge situations to exhibit appropriate behavior and tend to do whatever the hell they want. But until a child reaches the cognitive level where they can evaluate things, it’s up to the adults around them to do it for them.

6

Yeah, I would say it’s the parenting that guides the children more than the entertainment. If the parents allow only entertainment as a guide, then I could see some problems.

I was raised listening to punk rock, heavy metal, industrial music, etc. I watched many violent films. As a young teen, my father recommended A Clockwork Orange to me, and I loved it. I played many, many video games, often violent ones.

You see, my parents don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or even curse. I’m not saying that any parent who does should be condemned, I’m more saying that my parents tried to set an example for us kids - we saw and learned more from them than we did from any music or television. My father today likes listening to Marilyn Manson, Bloodhound Gang, stuff like that. He doesn’t like them, but he loves the music - he doesn’t care what they’re actually saying. I think being able to make that separation is something that kids often do, naturally. Sure, as they grow and change, there will be music they love for the message. But at that age (and any age, really) - let them dance.

Today, I am a quiet, shy housewife, who would bend over backwards to help a friend in need. I’d never harm a soul. I rarely, rarely drink, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs… I curse, but you know, I still get reprimanded by my mother for it today. I got that from my peers, however, not entertainment. I like electronic music, and often call my father to have fun discussions about our music, movie, and video game tastes.

I can’t seem to stop dropping those anvils on people, though. Thankfully, Acme always mails more supplies to feed my addiction. :wink:

7

Bolding mine.

The problem with this is if you were to ask most parents, they would consider themselves good parents who have smart, savy children. I don’t think a ‘bad’ parent knows they are a bad parent.

Oh…and He-Man really threw me for a loop.

8

I had a very similar upbringing. I was allowed to read/listen to/watch/play anything I pleased and it hasn’t affected me one whit.

I see absolutely no difference between gangsta rap and the heavy metal of my youth. Both use foul language and violent imagery, as well as offensive words used to describe others. Both advocate illegal activities. Both show a lack of respect for authorities.

I have always thought that the objection to gangsta rap has a submiminal current of racism. As Ice-T once pointed out, what’s the real differerence between “Cop Killa” and “I Shot The Sherriff?” Is it that blacks are seen as more threating, more serious about it than whites, even when singing about basically the same subject?

9

In this day and age of music television, certain lyrics are associated with certain imagery . I don’t think that lyrics alone would influence a child, but if you combine them with some graphic theater, it might. Anyway, I’m a fan of alot of rap music and I’m 42 yrs old. If you water it down, alot of it sucks. WEST SI–YEED!!!

10

Cop Killa is, interestingly, Ice-T’s metal experiment, of all things, if I recall correctly. So how is it different from Suicide Solution?

11

I’m fairly certain that Bob Marley was black, too. :slight_smile:

12

You know what happens when you tell a kid that they can’t listen to a certain kind of music, don’t you?

Well, maybe you weren’t that type of kid, but I know I was.

I bought the Public Enemy album partly because of the parental advisory, and was slightly disappointed when my parents didn’t seem to mind. I listened very closely for whatever it was that was so horrible that it would warp my little mind, and I couldn’t figure out which part that was. I did figure out what I liked about it, and I wondered what they meant by some of the stuff they said, and made an effort to find out (which is rare for a little white girl in North York, let me tell you). I have listened to rap and hip-hop ever since, and because of that I am able to know good hip-hop when I see it (eg. Sarah Jones) and to be able to criticize bad hip-hop from a position of understanding that the stuff which is constantly played on the radio is not necessarily what’s GOOD, or even what people like, but what record companies want to constantly be played on the radio. I am also very interested in hip-hop culture in the context of race and gender in North America, and I would not be able to think critically about it if I had only heard it as something which The Establishment didn’t want me to listen to.

My friend, whose parents were much more concerned about what she listened to, went to great lengths to smuggle a “banned” album into the house, even going so far as to falsely label the tape that it was recorded on (which is why I can’t remember the name of the band - someone help me out - early-mid-90s, caused great moral panic? anyone?) We listened to it furtively and felt very rebellious in doing so precisely because we knew it was forbidden, even though it wasn’t clear what damage it was doing to our tender psyches.

I have no kids now but if I did, I would like them to be able to recognize misogyny and hate where they see it, rather than to be hidden from it and have no way to evaluate it beyond “Well, my friends think it’s cool!” I would like to be able to listen to the track in the OP with them, and help them put it in the greater context (eg “do you agree with what he is saying? Is he automatically right and good just because he’s famous?”)

There has always been music that parents have gotten worked up about. Remember how they didn’t used to show Elvis from the waist down? when Ed Sullivan censored the Stones? Somehow, society didn’t crumble.

13

I didn’t know that the abysmally shit-headed notion that young children are some sort of blank on which nothing makes a real impression still had currency in intelligent circles. Oh well, live and learn.

Children are not as dumb and innocent as many in this thread seem to think. They do not immediately take in everything they hear, positive or negative, as the gospel truth. They are more discerning than that. That’s why, when presented with material that’s new, they start asking questions. It’s just that some of the answers they are not ready to hear, or adults are not ready to talk to them about. Sometimes with very good reason, sometimes not.

Neither do they simply shrug off everything they don’t immediately understand. They especially notice when certain material gets certain reactions from adults. When they see Grandma’s reaction to the phrase “Fuck them niggaz”, they know that that’s a phrase that may get a rise out of certain adults. Experimenting with that new knowledge is not going to be good for their long-term health.

Suppose Grandma’s reaction is complete indifference to the phrase, however. Then the child may get the impression that it’s the sort of thing they can say without any serious consequence. Then the notes start coming home from the school office.

Long-term, there’s probably nothing happening to them solely as a result of exposure to any sort of lyrics, but to imagine that young children do not actively look to everything that they encounter as some sort of clue as to how to function within the world is stupidity at best. If you are not prepared to answer the question, “Mommy, what does ‘fuck them niggaz’ mean?” in the middle of the grocery store, then you’re going to save yourself a lot of short-term trouble by controlling your child’s exposure to such material.

14

It’s a good thing that my statements in this thread does not mean that a kid will never say “Mommy, what does ‘fuck them niggaz’ mean?” in the middle of the grocery store"

Get real. We are saying “Long-term, there’s probably nothing happening to them solely as a result of exposure to any sort of lyrics”, but you are reading it as "We are a buncha’ pinky commies who are opposed to everything you are in favor of.

15

2 Live Crew, maybe?

And yeah, the idea that Bob Marley is white threw me for a loop, too :). If you want real violent lyrics, what about, “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”? There’s plenty of country, bluegrass, traditional Irish music that’s full of blood, revenge killings, suicide, and folks dying from drug overdoses (the drug of choice is usually whiskey). So, yeah, I agree that many objections to gangsta rap have a patina of racism.

On the other hand, I tend to thnk that you ought to be careful about how a kid approaches violent fantasies, making sure they’re clear on what part is a fantasy. They need to understand that real-world violence is often banal and always awful, and that while it’s okay to pretend to kill, it’s very rarely okay to do so in the real world. Parents who aren’t willing to teach this lesson to kids are really shortchanging them, in my opinion.

Daniel

16

THANK YOU!! Phew. My brain can rest now.

Last summer I had the privilege of participating in a fireside singalong consisting almost entirely of songs from the British Isles about horrible things befalling people after a night at the pub. (“And all that was left was a pile of bones/And occasional pieces of skin/Of skin/And occasional pieces of skin.”) Good times.

17

I don’t really see how listening to a song, or reading a book, or watching a movie is harmful to a kid, so long as their parents are willing to talk about it with the kid, and put it into its proper context. Sure, cute lil’ dancin’ white boy might start using the word “nigger” because he heard it in the song. That’s when the parent steps in and explains why its a bad word, and how you’re not supposed to say it because it hurts people’s feelings, and the difference between a song and real life. This stuff could be harmful if there’s no positive parental influence to temper it, but if that influence is there, then it becomes another learning tool for the kid. And if that influence is not there, then the kid’s got much bigger problems than listening to gangsta rap.

18

Psst. Clapton covered I Shot The Sheriff. Many people don’t even know about Marley. Sad, isn’t it?

19

At least one of the songs (that quoted) came not from Cambridge England, but Cambridge Mass.

sing rickety-tickety-tinn.

20

personally, I’d rather deal with “fuck them other niggas” at the supermarket than have to answer either:

“Daddy, what’s my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lump”

Likewise, I’ll bet

“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” has formed the basis for many an exciting father-son dialog.