Earlier this month it was Flint, Michigan. Last week? Riviera Beach, Florida. Two days ago, the latest nanny-state trend – outlawing saggy pants – made its way to Lynwood, Illinois, a suburb about 30 miles south of Chicago.
This, of course, only reinforces Chicago’s reputation as American’s Most Paternalistic City.
Coming to a city near you…
If mere existence of the law weren’t enough, many of its detractors – too boneheaded to understand that it is a lifestyle, not a skin color, that the ban ultimately seeks to root out (which, of course, it never will) – want to make this into a race issue.
Go America!
|
Posted by
Nicky Cheese |
Categories:
Paternalism | Tagged:
chicago,
Flint,
Flordia,
Illinois,
Lynwood,
Michigan,
nanny state,
Paternalism,
racism,
Riviera Beach,
Saggy-Pants Police |
Hipster rap. Not segregationist, not white-washing. It’s just fun.
From this week’s Reader, an argument that ought to be thoughtfully considered within the entire race debate:
Oh Word blogger Sach O claims hipster rap is “intended for an affluent, generally educated white audience wanting to dabble in the excesses of black music absent from more restrained contemporary rock without really investing themselves in the less comfortable aspects of black culture.” White kids want the funky otherness of hip-hop, in other words, without all the scary black people. But in Chicago t least, the hipster-rap scene has always drawn mixed crowds. It’s not the less comfortable aspects of black culture it avoids but the less comfortable aspects of hip-hop culture—the thuggishness and ignorance, hardly confined to black artists and fans, that high-minded blogs like Oh Word and Unkut.com go out of their way to criticize in mainstream rappers. [emphasis mine]
