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fpbI guess maybe I sound like Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells. But I ask you:
- Michael Jackson behaves so as to make it almost certain that he was a paedophile. He destroys his face in a crazed attempt to make it look less like the pure and very black kid he was and more like a caricature of a white person. He dies of a disastrous combination of unhealthy living and drugs. He is practically canonized, underage kids - especially blacks - carry his face on their t-shirts and put it on their walls, and it is his doctor, who is no doubt a villain but did what he was told - who is scapegoated for his shameful death.
- Boy George abducts, rapes and tortures a male model. He is quite rightly sent to jail - if for a ludicrously short term. Within a few months of being let out he is all over the BBC and other channels, grinning all over his ugly pasty face, and being consistently treated as a respected veteran of the industry.
- Rihanna is brutally beaten within an inch of her life by the kind of boyfriend whom an old-fashioned father would have horsewhipped out of the county. Now her latest album is about sado-masochist sex and the pleasures of pain, all intended to make money.
We profess to hate racism, to hate rape, to hape sexism and violence. And yet, when a black singer insults his own descent by trying in public to destroy his own skin colour and features, blacks insist on making a hero out of him. When a woman celebrates sexual cruelty and seems to condone actual violence done against herself, the press and television give her space. When a man becomes guilty of the abduction and rape of another man, he is treated as though he deserved to be treated as a gentleman. Is it possible to have a more mixed set of messages?
- Michael Jackson behaves so as to make it almost certain that he was a paedophile. He destroys his face in a crazed attempt to make it look less like the pure and very black kid he was and more like a caricature of a white person. He dies of a disastrous combination of unhealthy living and drugs. He is practically canonized, underage kids - especially blacks - carry his face on their t-shirts and put it on their walls, and it is his doctor, who is no doubt a villain but did what he was told - who is scapegoated for his shameful death.
- Boy George abducts, rapes and tortures a male model. He is quite rightly sent to jail - if for a ludicrously short term. Within a few months of being let out he is all over the BBC and other channels, grinning all over his ugly pasty face, and being consistently treated as a respected veteran of the industry.
- Rihanna is brutally beaten within an inch of her life by the kind of boyfriend whom an old-fashioned father would have horsewhipped out of the county. Now her latest album is about sado-masochist sex and the pleasures of pain, all intended to make money.
We profess to hate racism, to hate rape, to hape sexism and violence. And yet, when a black singer insults his own descent by trying in public to destroy his own skin colour and features, blacks insist on making a hero out of him. When a woman celebrates sexual cruelty and seems to condone actual violence done against herself, the press and television give her space. When a man becomes guilty of the abduction and rape of another man, he is treated as though he deserved to be treated as a gentleman. Is it possible to have a more mixed set of messages?
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Re: Chi e' che parla italiano?
Date: 2011-02-13 08:45 am (UTC)Re: Chi e' che parla italiano?
Date: 2011-02-13 09:36 am (UTC)http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html#5
Those figures are to popular culture what alta moda is to pret-a-porter. It's the popular culture that worries me, but at the same time, it's also popular culture with its childlike innocence that might one day say: "The King has no clothes."
I can't offer much advice, because I'm only at the first stage of turning my world upside-down. For instance Health Care to me means not what Obama or the Republicans might come up with, but what would happen if I fainted out in the street. Would anybody stop and ask "Hey Mister, are you all right?"
I remember 100 years ago a hippie friend of mine put it to the test in Paris. In the city of lights and fraternité absolutely everybody just walked by.
Buon Lavoro
oops I have to confirm that I'm a human - altro che canzoni partigiane!
Re: Chi e' che parla italiano?
Date: 2011-02-13 10:57 am (UTC)As for falling over and nearly dying, don't ever try it in England, that's all. Speaking from personal experience...
Re: Chi e' che parla italiano?
Date: 2011-02-13 02:16 pm (UTC)Oops, sorry, I'm Steven, 58 years old, father of two girls, profession translator, romano di Englewood New Jersey. I'll become a Utente LiveJournal and call myself Frittomisto.
Take care