In what may be recording-breaking time, a connection has been made to the University of Oklahoma racist chant caught on film and hip hop being responsible because sometimes the n-word is used. Cause that makes sense, Bill Kristol and Joe Scarborough. But let’s blame anyone but the people actually responsible for the racism.
Team Blackness also discussed the Blurred Lines verdict, Don Lemon’s continued ignorance, and a study that explains why we feel compelled to protect people’s feelings even if their views are incredibly flawed.
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS
Porco Rosso
I blame Lucille Bogan’s Shave ‘Em Dry for everything since the 30s
Alesis
The sheer cynicism of the “blame the rappers” ploy is so blatant that one would expect it to be a rare sign of desperation.
Sadly, no…
The Moar You Know
White people cannot be racist, therefore, rap.
Another Holocene Human
I like that Al Sharpton called Mika on it the same day and she was reduced to word salad level incoherence.
I’m glad Sharpton is on the air (just look at the demo who watches that show) but I wonder for how long with MSNBC’s current, uh, strategy?
The Moar You Know
One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to grab my brother’s arm and make him punch himself in the face, all the while chanting “stop hitting yourself! stop hitting yourself!”
This is pretty much the same thing.
Violet
Only one post? Wonders never cease.
Tree With Water
The same mentality is in play that tried to strangle honky rock ‘n roll in its crib because its sound (and record sales) reflected well on black America. Chuck Berry explained it well in his song Brown Eyed Handsome Man: “2-3 the count with nobody on, He hit a high fly into the stands, Rounding third he was heading home, It was a brown eyed handsome man that won the game, It was a Brown eyed handsome man”.
There’s no such thing as a 2-3 count in baseball– three strikes and your out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
so you’re saying that rap music isn’t full of funny jokes about lynching? I saw a bit of this, but I had to hit mute, enough to see that for Mika this is all about naughty language, “the N word” and “the F word”. Hey Dumbass, how ’bout the L word, a true obscenity.
Please tell me, just to confirm my contempt for these people, that at some point Brezcinski invoked her status “as a mom”
Another Holocene Human
Elon survived AZ! Yay! Welcome back!
Tommy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That was my take on the whole OU thing. Sure the use of the N word was terrible, but they were talking about lynching somebody. I am just not that surprised somebody might use the N word, but talking about lynching somebody made me throw up a little in my mouth.
Zam
Somehow I doubt that if a black man called Scarborough a redneck on his way to work that he would blame it on country music.
Starfish
The rap music made Beauton Gilbow lose her mind.
mtiffany
How such a brilliant man could have such a painfully stupid daughter is beyond me. Mika “Rap music is responsible for racist chants and video games are responsible for school shootings” Brzezinski is proof that occasionally, inexplicably, the apple does fall far, far, improbably far, from the tree. Maybe the apply tree was planted at the top of a very tall, very steep hill. That would explain it — the apple falls to the ground and then rolls down the hill, until it comes to rest in a ditch or swamp or in this case, an open sewer.
raven
@mtiffany: Her brother is a wingnut.
Violet
Rap music being responsible for racist chants is very similar to “she made me hit her” that abusers will say.
I see Republicans as abusers and those that keep voting for them as the victims who have been abused who think that’s normal.
MomSense
@raven:
I thought her brother worked in the Obama administration.
MomSense
@Another Holocene Human:
Jon Stewart did a good segment on that as well but I didn’t catch Sharpton. I’ll have to look for it.
jl
Krugman has post today that I think is related, except it omits nonsense like rap (or rebel Southern country, or whatever music and videos). Argues real social pathologies follow trends in economics and social/political power status.
So, even if they talked about real things, like stable jobs, stable and livable family life, etc, they have the direction of causation wrong.
When Values Disappear
Krugman blog, NTY
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com//2015/03/11/when-values-disappear/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MomSense: per Wiki, Mark worked for Obama, Ian worked for Reagan and Bush II, and Mika works for the Ghost of David Broder
raven
@MomSense: Ian
“He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Policy in 2001–2005, under President George W. Bush.”
Tommy
@mtiffany: Mika knows so little about what she talks about. Your mention of gaming is another perfect example. I am a huge gamer. I am really good with a snipers rife in a FPS. But I have never for a second thought of harming somebody. Heck I don’t even own and gun and only fired one in “real life” twice.
I like video games but any sane person knows they are just that, a game. Entertainment. I also like a TV show like Hannibal, but not thinking of killing somebody and eating them. That Mika can’t grasp these basic concepts yet has a national TV show is beyond me.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: nice
wasabi gasp
The chicken has always tasted like wood.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @raven:
So one of each!
Violet
@Tommy:
Mika is paid a lot of money not to grasp those concepts and to say what she says. If she rocked the boat she’d be out of a job and she knows it.
Brendan in NC
@mtiffany: See also Cuomo, Andrew.
chopper
this makes perfect sense. white racism is basically caused by rap music. i mean, we all know that white racism didn’t exist until rap music came out. QED, motherfuckers.
Cacti
Racism was invented by NWA in 1986.
ETA: Ain’t nothin’ to it, gangsta rap made me do it.
MomSense
If after watching the morning joe video you feel like gouging your eyes out, I offer you something soothing.
Pete Souza’s recent releases on flickr.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/
raven
She rails on about feminism, tsk tsk’s promiscuity and dresses like a fucking two dollar hooker.
schrodinger's cat
@Tommy: Its an act, I think. She plays the dumb sidekick to Joe S.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: Maybe it is an act. I liked Mika a lot when she read the overnight news on CBS.
Disappointed to see what she’s like on Morning Joe, and cannot bear to watch that program. Scarborough is usually insufferable, and the whole show is there to manufacture consent. It’s kabuki.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: Thank you.
Posts about all the stupidity of the GOP are becoming the opposite of readership capture for me. I think “I need to step away from the internet.” And now it’s getting to be spring again.
I stopped watching MSNBC months ago, and am so much happier for it. Depressing subject matter.
MomSense
@raven:
I doubt it would be some sort of homage to le jeune homme et la mort. It’s far too tacky for that.
raven
@MomSense: More like Irma la Douce !
Tommy
@schrodinger’s cat: It is hard for me to gauge with Mika. But I have always thought many of the people I see on TV that say what I consider stupid shit are not in fact stupid. They are playing a game. A role. A role where they make a ton of money. Playing to an audience. I wonder how they sleep at night, but I bet it is in a more expensive bed then I own :)!
Another Holocene Human
@jl: Yeah, I’m in total agreement with the Krugster. And there’s plenty of research to back that up. You’re a conservative who loves marriage? PAY THE PEOPLE. And take that fucking concern trolling you love so much back to the church bbq where it belongs.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: She plays the dumb blonde to his average Joe.
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: She knows. She’s concern trolling. She haz a Concerned™ about that hippity-hop gangsta rap don’t-call-it-music and will be heard! Though her voice trembles!
So she is beating that dead horse in a totally inappropriate context because this is about Mika and her feels, not about OU students of color and their feels (do they have feels? are they real? are they dolls? reports vary).
Plus it keeps her in dosh because she is on a POLITICS show, it is very clear that the GOP and Fox News have been pushing the envelope on politicized hate speech towards people of color since Barack Obama was elected and there is a clear pattern of these outbursts of vile, eliminationist hate speech but she’s gonna blame Waka Flokka Flame? Uh, sure, whatever you say, lady. Can’t get Reince Priebus offended so he won’t come on the show, right?
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: You know if you have an amazing brain and you don’t use it doesn’t your brain start … changing … if you act dumb long enough … could you become dumb?
srv
@raven: I hope that was ironical.
Mary G
@Violet: This. I think Mika is way smarter than she plays on TV. If she gives Joe an intelligent liberal argument, he will fly off the handle, lose his shit and say a lot of misogynist racist Republican things that’ll cause a big kerfluffle and get the show cancelled. Then how will she afford all those designer clothes to wear to the Village cocktail parties?
Another Holocene Human
@raven: Not fair. Two dollar hookers aren’t afraid to use colors and accessorize.
Tommy
@Elizabelle:
A year almost to this day I got rid of cable. I work out of my house and used to have MSNBC on 24/7 as background noise. Now I don’t watch it, Pandora is my friend. I am willing to bet I’ve added a few years to my life. As you said I am so much the happier for it.
Sure I might miss some “breaking news” but I can live with that.
Peale
I think you can blame hip hop for the movie Tokyo Tribe., but that isn’t related to this discussion.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: I blame Merle Haggard, a convicted criminal. Or am I thinking of Francois Villon, who stabbed a man in Paris, just to watch him die?
Calouste
@Another Holocene Human: Unlike in some of the heathen social-democratic workers’
paradiseshell holes on the other side of the ocean, Americans do not even get time off from work to get married. Some of them even worry about getting fired for taking time off to get married. Once conservatives start pushing laws that give couples time off to get married, only then will I believe they are serious about that whole marriage thing.schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: True that, use it or lose it. She could be dumb or just playing dumb. May be the peroxide in the hair color is affecting her judgment, who knows?
jl
@Mary G: It’s a disgusting show, at least I think so when I am involuntarily exposed to the thing real time.
Morinin’ Joe is an abusive arrogant ignoramus, and the stooges that appear with him have to calibrate themselves so that ass can manage to retain some semblance of self-control.
For ratings, seems to me that ol’ Joe needs to rage on certain themes, but within a fairly tightly controlled bandwidth.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t understand what her next career move is. Is she waiting for Joe to retire? He only goes if ratings collapse, imo. She has no brand right now to sell it seems like. She’s not doing any other projects. So many shades of why.
schrodinger's cat
@jl: I can’t stand Joe and Mika, the dynamic between them is like an abusive husband and a battered wife. Not seen the show for over 4 years.
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: My brother is almost ten years younger than me. People like Tupac were all the rave when he was in high school.
I don’t know much about rap music. My brother does. I’ve had this conversation with him and he would tell you listening to rap music ensured he’d never be a racist. He liked music by African Americans. He liked the sub-culture.
It is at this point I should note my brother has a MA in Computer Science. Never been arrested. But he grew up with and currently enjoys rap music. Go figure.
Doug r
But we live in a post racial society! At least it was when they showed Blazing Saddles on AMC
Micherr Markin
Hip hop keep black people down just as badly as racism. Subtle but crucial difference, rightards.
Mary G
@jl: Yeah, I haven’t watched it in real time in years either, since I got my CPAP machine and am no longer usually awake at 3-6 a.m. I totally agree about Joe. He is so abusive and abrasive it makes me gag.
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: The numbers at Mediate show they had less than 250,000 viewers last week. Morning Joe’s numbers are getting to the point where reruns on other cable channels have more viewers. IMHO MSNBC won’t cancel the show because (1) lets them say they are not a liberal network and (2) they do get “buzz.” Maybe not good buzz but we are talking about it here.
raven
@jl: Willie Geist is a good guy as was Thomas Roberts.
Arclite
RE: Blurred Lines verdict. The entire problem is caused by these ridiculous copyright lengths: “life plus 70 years or 95 or 120 years.” Pharrell and Thicke should be able to use Gaye’s work without permission at this point. Tech patents are 17-20 years. That’s more than enough time to recoup the effort to create the art, and to have the work enter the public domain. Fuck you, Disney, for lobbying for the Copyright Term Extension Act, which made copyrights “life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.” It’s unacceptable that anything created during my lifetime will not enter the public domain. It flies in the face of the constitution:
On what planet is 120 years “limited?” The original copyright law was 14 years, plus another 14 if you renewed. That’s plenty. We need to get back to that. The problem, as always, is money. The people lobbying for copyright extensions have lots and lots of money. The people arguing against have none.
Tommy
@schrodinger’s cat:
I had not thought of that. Now I have thought about the above for a few it seems very accurate. When I watched the show, and it was years ago, she seemed to often say the right thing. Then Joe would just bully and beat her down until she started to agree with him.
Not sure what an abusive husband does but it would seem this might be it.
jl
@Arclite: not only that, but the standards for claiming an infringement have gotten looser and looser. If any music types here, it would be interesting to hear what they make of the analysis in link below. I think we are living through an radical legal and economic experiment in extreme intellectual property rights. Is it really about balancing the costs of monopoly versus rewards to creating new intellectual value anymore, or just about extending monopoly power and appropriating rents?
Analyzing the case against “Blurred Lines”
http://danreitz.com/blog/2015/analyzing-case-against-blurred-lines/
jl
@Tommy: Odd we have such different perceptions. The codependent and ugly dynamic between the ignoramus bully and most of the others on that show, including Mika, was the very first thing that I remember when I first watched that thing.
And mostly its people sitting around BSing. They don’t even do it over beer. I remember watching an old Second City clip that satirized shows like that, except it was funny, not ugly.
rikyrah
Because gangsta rappers love to rap about Black people swinging from trees…yes…they do.
Because, NO BLACK PERSON ever swung from a tree, or was shot dead for looking wrong at a White Person, or lived in general terror before rap.
I guess my parents IMAGINED their lives in the Police State known as Jim Crow America.
These grown -ass privileged White MEN aren’t responsible for their actions..
But, I’m supposed to buy that 12 year old Tamir Rice is responsible for an unqualified cop shooting him to death.
Yeah, right, whatever muthaphucka.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Arclite:
I don’t have a problem with an artist keeping the rights to their work during their own lifetime. I think that having, say, the Harry Potter books’ copyright expire 20 years after publication would lead to artists getting screwed since the giant corporations making millions from the books, movies, theme park rides, etc would be able to cut the author out and keep all of the profits for themselves.
IMO, the real problem is that corporations are being allowed to administer copyrights for artworks, which leads to all kinds of stupidity since corporations don’t have a natural lifespan like a person does.
If you really want to get into some deeply weird Disney-related copyright shit, look up the Bourne Company and see how many famous Disney songs Disney DOESN’T own — they have to license them from the Bourne Co. because the songs were sold to Bourne in the 1940s.
Tenar Darell
@Elizabelle: I just download Rachel’s audio podcast into Overcast. It’s much less upsetting that way, especially if you shovel or go fast on the elliptical while listening to her summarize the day. (ETA to remove link)
Tenar Darell
@jl: There’s an unwritten rule that columnists at the Times don’t critique each other. So Krugman, without linking or mentioning why he was writing on the topic of bad jobs, was probably responding to David Brooks’ most recent column about the poor not having good moral values and taking responsibility for their lives. (someone said that somewhere… crooks and liars, or dailykos I think).
geg6
@jl:
So loose, apparently, that the Gaye family is now hinting that they are going to go after Pharell for “Happy” because it sorta sounds like another Marvin Gaye song.
I’ve heard all four songs. I don’t see the resemblance in the same way I saw it easily when George Harrison got hit for “My Sweet Lord.”
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Warners is a big beneficiary of the insane copyright extension as well, while they gleefully used big music in the public domain.
Another Holocene Human
@Tommy: Thank you. I saw some figures that indicated that Scarborough lost his liberal hate-watchers dissing murdered Black teens to which I have to say, finally.
I think the show was conservative CW for the day in a palatable pill, but then he went too far. He’s not nutty enough for the con true believers to care and by no means as entertaining as the network morning shows or even some of the stuff on cable now. 250K is sad. I wonder when the corporate sponsors decide to right-size their marketing investments.
jl
@geg6: I think the plaintiffs should have lost both cases.
If this nonsense had been going on back in the day, JS Bach would have been wiped out by lawsuits by Vivaldi. Maybe the Bach family could have gotten some money back when JC went after Mozart.
Edit at least Vivaldi needed the damn money.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Another Holocene Human:
Current copyright law is basically being bigfooted by giant corporations that were never meant to be involved. A lot of it is tangled issues of copyright and trademark that no one wants to deal with, like, if your corporate logo and registered trademark is also the lead character of a cartoon, do you lose control of that trademark if that cartoon goes into public domain?
Basically, the whole damn code needs to be rewritten for both trademark and copyright to reflect current reality, but there are too many competing interests for that to happen, so they just keep kicking the can down the road by increasing the copyright period.
Tenar Darell
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Did you ever read the Spider Robinson story Melancholy Elephants? I just re-read it, and it isn’t as good as I remembered, but it lays out part of the problem with the ever increasing extension of copyright by basically taking the idea to it’s logical conclusion.
Elizabelle
@Tenar Darell: Thank you, Tenar. I’ll have to learn to do that.
I don’t have the patience to listen to the long windup, and get tired of all the BS she informs us of. Sometimes it’s good to let it go. And y’all keep me apprised quite well.
ETA: bookmarked the “elephants” story.
rikyrah
@Arclite:
Marvin Gaye was 45 when he died. Why shouldn’t his family, his heirs, profit from his music. HE created. If Thicke and Pharrell wanted to create their own song, they didn’t need to STEAL Gaye’s song.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: Wasn’t one of the great Italian masters– Caravaggio?– a notorious thug?
Mayur
@rikyrah: the issue muddying the waters is that they really didn’t steal the song. We’re not in “my sweet lord” territory here. It’s actually the decision to go for the declaratory judgment in the first place that’s the really douchey move.
jomike
I felt bad for token sane person Willie Geist.
mclaren
I’m guessing “incredibly flawed” is a code phrase for “batshit insane.”
mclaren
@rikyrah:
Because copyright was never intended to serve as infinite limitless free-riding extortion payments served up to the relatives and great-grandchilren and great-great-great-great-grand-nephews five times removed of some long-dead songwriter or author or artist whose corpse has long since degenerated into compost.
There is a term describing sustenance ripped forcibly from the living by people who are long dead. The term is “zombie movie.” Real life is not a zombie movie. Get over it.
mclaren
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
No, if you really want to get into deeply weird Disney-related copyright shit, consider the fact that Disney systematically built a business model out of ripping off and stealing hundred-year-old fairytales and then slapping copyrights on the bastardized Disney versions and claiming insanely extended copyright terms on the bastardized versions to collect absurdly inflated monopoly rents on the crappy cheesy Disney knockoff of the original fairytale.
If current copyright laws had been in effect when Disney churned out movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the relatives of the Brothers Grimm (died 1863: copyright term life + 80 years!) would’ve been able to sue Disney into penury and none of Disney’s movies would exist.
It’s lunacy.
Stark, raving, wild, abject lunacy.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@rikyrah: Technically no one else in his family created that music that, as you said, HE created. Maybe, if they want to live off revenue from copyrighted material, they could write and copyright their own great songs. The whole point of copyrights is to give the writer/creator of the content an incentive to create said content. Marvin Gaye, is, sadly, beyond the influence of such incentives. I don’t have a problem with his dependents living off the copyrighted material until they reach the age of majority, but eventually they could, maybe, be asked to fend for themselves.