Thursday, December 6, 2007

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.

4 comments:

schilling, N said...

In your article you said you agreed with the author that we need to make a difference. I do not believe that the author says we are the ones who need to make a difference. I think the author believes black parents are the ones who need to raise their kids differently and they need to protect their kids from rap music because the author believes the black KKK is the problem, not the white one.

Katie Webb said...

Just want to say that there already is a White KKK, lol...

And I disagree with you on your opinion of the article. Read my entry to see why, and I totally think I'm right and spekaing on just grounds by saying this.

It's really hard to change the world, but hey, if they can do it in "freedom writers" and "take the lead", I don't see why more teachers can't help change the attitudes of many black kids before they enter the black KKK type relations.

-Katie

J. Gatz said...

Hickory,
I think its great that you feel the need to pitch in a do your share. It would seem common sense, tho, that this artical is to be directed towards the black community. He talks about the strugles that his people must overcome. And Hicks, by all means, i don't think we're going to catch you doing the solja boy or be involved in any gang crimes.
love
-B$

JBrandt said...

I think everyone's life would be better if nobody did the ammunition man or whatever the name of that dance is called.