Be Careful Little Ears What You Hear

Wow, after reading this article I have become determined to make a difference in peoples lives. The way Whitlock speaks of the murders of not only Sean Taylor, but Darrent Williams and other blacks pretty much sums up this article. He gives his take on how there is a new KKK in our society, a black KKK. What is interesting however, is that they do not kill whites, but people of their own race.
He makes the point near the end that we are the only "group of people who can change the rotten, anti- education, pro-violence culture our kids have adopted." This is so true. Rap music, which Whitlock believes plays a role in the genocide of black men, has become extremely popular among not only blacks, but whites as well. How long will it be until we have a white KKK?
I completely agree with Whitlock's point that we need to make a difference. If we choose to just stand and watch, our society will one day destroy itself. We need to let our kids know that who they hang out with is very important. The Bible says "Bad company corrupts good character." It is the people with bad character who commit these kind of crimes, not the God-fearing, church going, community helping kind of people. We need to raise our children to be the latter of these two groups, not the former. We need to guard their ears so they will not hear the crap played on the radio these days. Contrary to popular belief, what you listen to does effect how you act. If we give them Christian music to listen to, we can protect them early on from the desencitization many experience from rap music. We can make a difference!
Obviously Whitlock uses parallelism in this artice, otherwise it would not have been assigned. In my opinion his best use occurs in the sentence: "When your leading causes of death and dysfunction are murder, ignorance and incarceration, there's no reason to give a free pass to a culture that celebrates murder, ignorance and incarceration." The way Whitlock parallels the causes of death to the whole rap music culture is perfect. This parallel shows the influence rap music has on people. Our society is already ravaged by death because of these murders, ignorances, and incarcerations, so we let the rap music culture become a part of our society. This makes no sense. One plus one equals two, not zero. We already have the one (deaths because of murder, ignorance, and incarceration) so why do we add one (rap music) to it? All this can do is increase the number of deaths, which is why there is "no reason to give a free pass" to it. There has to be a change in what we allow to influence our kids and our own lives. If not, America, not just Detroit, may become the most dangerous place on earth.

It's A Winter Formal, Not A Winter Foreplay!

1) This article is Betsy Hart's opinion and response to the dance moves performed at high school dances. Her opinion is obviously that she is opposed to the bumping and grinding that goes on at these dances. Her response is to call out parents and ask why they will "protect their children every second early on and then abandon them to real dangers later on." She discusses what different parents saw chaperoning dances.



2) Hart's main point in this article is that a parent's response to his/her child's school dance should be the same as their response when they first started raising them. She says parents should protect their children, whether their children like it or not. She uses examples such as parents recollections of dances to support the point that what goes on in these dances is actually sexually dangerous. Since what happens is sexually dangerous, parents should be protecting their children not leaving them to "play" unattended.



3) I agree with her point. What goes on at these dances can only harm the individual. Name one way that bumping and grinding will help someone? I do not think that teens getting pregnant because they got aroused at a dance is helpful in the least. Now, I know that sounds extreme, but is it really out of the realm of possibilities? After all, once people start down the slippery slope, which grinding is a part of, it becomes tougher and tougher to stop. I say do not let them grind. By doing this, school's can rest assured that they are not responsible for little Suzy getting pregnant.



4) Hart uses many rhetorical questions. The one that I found to be the most powerful was, "If the $400 dress girl had been sexually assaulted in the parking lot after the festivities because the dance wasn't a dud, would mom be happy, or suing the school?" I think this one is the most powerful because it shows the consequences of bad parenting. By letting kids do whatever they want at these dances negative consequences such as rape and assault may happen. Would any mom be happy if her little girl was raped at a dance? No, she would be suing that school and pulling her girl out of it. This is why that question is so great. It exposes bad parenting. It shows that we put our children into this position and then when the unthinkable happens, we get mad at the school when it is really our fault. One of two things needs to happen. Either parents need to shut up and stop yelling at the school for their children getting raped at a dance they allowed them to attend, or they need to speak up and take action to stop this "foreplay" on the dance floor.