A Look at the Leftist Mentality

Over at Tu Quoque Bakur's blog, his buddy Joey posts a comment about rap and hip hop, which includes this, "The fact is American Rock music was the counter culture, it was drugs, sex, and partying all the time (which notable involved a lot of drugs and sex)." And he cherry picks a hand full of bands and titles to "prove" his point.

Most rock music was not about sex and drugs. In fact, not even Grand Funk was all about sex, drugs and rock and roll.

To see for yourself, go here: http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1955.htm    Change the year in the address bar to any year of the rock and roll era, and look at the titles of the top songs for each year. Most do not extoll sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

But this is what struck me...

Sez Joey, "The rappers represent another dimension of American culture and life, a life that white people are uncomfortable with and generally afraid of but also played a huge part in causing thanks to things like Jim Crow laws and forced segregation. Do you think anyone wakes up in the morning and thinks “man I hope I get in a shoot out today while being hopelessly unemployed and on welfare!” because pretty sure that makes no one happy. The rappers of the 90′s especially came with a message: The hood is a rough, messed up, terrible place. Black kids are falling between the cracks, no one cares, and they turn to gangs to be their family and support, drugs to ease the pain, and a ‘rock and roll lifestyle’ in it’s purest form. But their Bob Dylan is Revered Run, their rolling stones is the Wu Tang Clan. A Tribe Called Quest and Snoop Dogg wrote their “American Band” and their “Stairway to Heaven”.

Just because she can’t relate to what she hears and is scared of what centuries of white oppression has wrought upon black culture doesn’t make it less American. In fact it might be more American for its honesty and raw emotion. After all this nation was founded on angry drunks throwing tea in a bay. What’s more American than inhebirated (sic) angry gangs trying to get by?

So white people caused rap culture with things like Jim Crow laws and forced segregation? Took a while for the effect to catch up, didn't it, since those ended in the 50s and 60s, and rap/hip-hop came into prominance in the 90s -- a generation later. (And, really, who imagines prominent rappers are hopelessly unemployed and on welfare? They may make and then lose millions of dollars, and end up overdosed or shot, but don't blame that on Jim Crow and segregation.) 

In fact, during Jim Crow and segregation (and later), black people made some of the most beautiful music going out over the airwaves. How is that possible, if Jim Crow and segregation causes ... hip hop? These tunes below, like most rock and roll tunes of the era, were about falling in love, about loss, heartbreak, joy.

It's no coincidence that Boomers were the last generation whose popular music ran high to love songs. (Note: I have chosen male singers and groups to contrast with Gatsby's "Ice Cube," who is a evidently a male person).

Lenny Welch -- Since I Fell for You (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)
(So beautiful it gives me chills)

Phil Phillips -- Sea of Love (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)
(One of the sweetest songs of the era)  

Ray Charles -- Georgia On My Mind (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)

Tommy Edwards -- All In the Game (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)  
The Platters -- The Great Pretender (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)


Otis Redding -- Dock of the Bay (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)


Marvin Gaye -- Ain't That Peculiar (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)  

Spinners -- Could It Be I'm Falling In Love (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)
(This was "our" song when my hubs and I were courting.)


Tower of Power -- So Very Hard to Go (note; no lyrics about sex and drugs)
(I nearly always tear up when I hear this one.)

If "black kids are falling between the cracks, no one cares, and they turn to gangs to be their family and support, drugs to ease the pain, and a ‘rock and roll lifestyle’ in it’s purest form," the blame lies squarely with the left, who set out with a vengence to transform this country after WWII. It lies with LBJ's poverty programs that removed the father from the black home.  All that's needed to confirm this is a look at the statistics. If there were inequities that need to be addressed, seems like it could have been done without destroying so much of the black community... no?

The single greatest indicator that a child will grow up in poverty is living in a single parent household. "In 2007, single-parent families were nearly six times more likely to be poor than married-parent families; that ratio has not significantly changed. The closest the Times comes to acknowledging the role of single parenthood in child poverty is to note that blacks and Hispanics have the highest rates of child poverty. Why that would be, the Times does not say, but it’s just what you’d expect from groups whose illegitimacy rates are 73 percent and 53 percent, respectively." http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/277977/child-poverty-msm-ignores-basic-truth-heather-mac-donald

Seventy-three percent illegitimacy rate! That didn't happen because of Jim Crow and forced segregation.

"It bears mention that the astronomical illegitimacy rate among African Americans is a relatively recent phenomenon. As late as 1950, black women nationwide were more likely to be married than white women, and only 9 percent of black families with children were headed by a single parent. In the 1950s, black children had a 52 percent chance of living with both their biological parents until age seventeen; by the 1980s those odds had dwindled to a mere 6 percent. In 1959, only 2 percent of black children were reared in households in which the mother never married; today that figure approaches 60 percent."  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1261

More here:

HOW THE WELFARE STATE HAS DEVASTATED AFRICAN AMERICANS
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1672

The Black Family: Forty Years of Lies
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_3_black_family.html


Effects of fatherlessness on children:
    * 63 percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes
    * 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
    * 85 percent of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes
    * 80 percent of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes
    * 71 percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes
    * 75 percent of all adolescent patients in chemical-abuse centers come from fatherless homes
    * 85 percent of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2010/11/72_percent_of_africanamerican_children_born_to_unwed_mothers.html

Rob and Joey have learned their leftist lessons well.