The Good From Evil

You can misread this if you want to. Or you could just read it first...

I wanna start this evening (it's really morning, but evening just sounds better) by saying, congratulations to those of you who are about to censor hip hop; you have won a decisive battle against... something.

Lemme drop a dime on you. Don't you hate it when babies cry in public and embarrass you? Don't you hate it when you hafta vomit after eating something? Don't you hate it when you walk into the casino and come out broke because you didn't bring enough money? Don't you hate the way girls always argue with you? Don't you hate when you have sex with thugs and they leave you barefooted and pregnant all on your own? Don't you hate when cats in the projects rob stores?

Well, for those of you who are trying to censor hip hop, these are your answers to the aforementioned problems: silence and shame the baby for unpleasant crying with discipline; take some medicine to coat your stomach before you eat whatever made you sick; bring more money to the casino next time; say that all girls are stupid; use better contraceptives; profile the Black men in the neighborhood and arrest as many as possible.

Whether you know it or not, if you're one of those who are out to censor hip hop, these examples represent your mentality. You're not a healer of the world; you're a band-aid to cover up the world's wounds. Lemme give you the correct answers to the problems to show you what "healing" is supposed to look like:

CHECK THE BABY'S DIAPER OR GIVE HIM A BOTTLE; STOP EATING FOODS THAT YOUR BODY ISN'T NATURALLY MADE TO INGEST; RECOGNIZE THAT YOU ARE ADDICTED TO GAMBLING AND NEED TO AVOID CASINOS; CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT EVERY GIRL ARGUES WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE OF A DISAGREEABLE PERSONALITY; STOP SLEEPING WITH THUGS... OR ANYBODY ELSE NOT COMMITTED ENOUGH TO MARRY YOU; ASK WHO OR WHAT PUTS POOR PEOPLE IN A POSITION WHERE THEY FEEL THEY HAFTA STEAL, AND ADDRESS THOSE PEOPLE/SITUATIONS.

I called this post "The Good from Evil" for a reason; not all evil is meant to destroy. Some evil is merely an indicator. It's not cool to have negative and profane language in hip hop, but it's only an indicator. Of what you ask? Of the conditions in the places where hip hop is generated. The music didn't make itself; it was spawned from real life. So, even if you manage to censor hip hop, all you're doing is forcing silence a baby who's catching a rash because his diaper is full of sh!t. And we'll just say the "diaper full of sh!t" is a metaphor for inner city life.

Evil is tricky because evil has this ability to distract us from its true essence by giving us decoys. Then again, I shouldn't call them decoys; they're symptoms. Evil is a disease that generates its own symptoms, and we tend to focus more on the symptoms than the disease.

But just like any symptom in real life--- coughing, sneezing, vomiting--- the good comes in that they alert us to a more serious condition. If we can just analyze the symptoms instead of trying to hide them--- the way we use cough suppressants to "quiet" strep throat without curing it--- then we can do something useful, like addressing inner city conditions.

Again, I'm not condoning profanity in hip hop; but for those of you who are focused on the profanity, you ARE condoning the conditions of the inner cities of urban America. Is that justified? 'L no. It boggles my mind why we're so unnerved by the minors, but so comfortable with the majors.


But When I Look at the Way Our Medical Community Operates, It Makes Perfect Sense B-J