Our friend Phil's racist rant about Jay-Z's Nets raising eyebrows

I'm not as well-versed on the history of the word as I should be, but it always seemed to me to be used as kind of a, "Because fuck you, that's why" to their dark history in this nation. Right?

 

Phil Mushnick can't put rap lyrics into context. Critics can't put Phil Mushnick's columns into context. It stirs the debate that YankeeFan raises: In a drive-by society created by the Internet's ease of access to information, should all things be completist by nature? I don't like to half-share an opinion. It's one reason I write a lot of longer posts here. I want my point to be made clearly and saliently, be it under my message-board alias or my byline, because I don't think we can make assumptions of regular readership.

Mushnick had a chance to take a measured, albeit dated, stance against the new Nets uniforms. You can intelligently shake your fist and tell these damn kids to get off your lawn. Instead, he opted for shock value and little context. That doesn't make him a racist, but it does make him a lazy columnist.

The New York Post won't fire Phil Mushnick for this transgression. This is why they have Phil Mushnick writing these types of columns. There is undoubtedly a crowd, likely fully of white people over the age of 50 but also including blacks and other minorities, who will nod in approval. This rapper who raps about selling crack cocaine and his murderous crew shouldn't be in charge of a basketball team that kids watch, they'd argue. They don't see Jay-Z in context. They don't know how progressive much of his music the past decade has been.

Mushnick was always going to be uninformed on that matter. It may not matter. He's absolutely right to say Jay-Z uses many curse words and raps about things that might make him a bad influence on the wrong child. These are critiques that rappers face, and a man like Shawn Carter understands those criticisms come with the territory. As Jay-Z, he uses or has used the most inflammatory words in the English language. All of them, some which would never be used to describe him. Often. And it's reasonable for Mushnick to question the role in a major sports franchise for someone who has so frequently used that type of language. Certainly, the attitude of many posters would be different if we were discussing Michael Richards as a team owner. Mushnick lacks the context to differentiate. He's ignorant, but he's not incorrect by his own epistemology.

Unfortunately, his point was lost because of his blunt, unintelligible writing in this case. He comes across as a hits troll, more Jay Mariotti than William Rhoden. I disagree with Rhoden on many issues, but I respect the way he lays out his points. That can't be said here.

 

Phil's addressed those ads in his column about a million times. He's criticized the Post for running them.

He's right, and the Post values his opinion enough to let him write it on their pages.

 

What is the difference between Jay-Z rapping from the point of view of a disenfranchised inner-city person and Bruce Springsteen singing from the point of view of a working-class debtor who "met a man and (am) going to do a little favor for him"?

 

I always find it odd when white people take offense to the suggestion black might be allowed to use a word they cannot use without offending people. I don't mean kids, like Billy is talking about, because kids are myopic and prone to foolish jealousies. But adults who so desperately want to pretend we should all be offended equally or not at all.

White people are free to use whatever words they choose. But if they choose to do, they should at the very least try to understand the context that it's used in art and why it's not the same for Phil and Jay-Z. I feel like Eminem should travel the country and teach gumpy old white dudes this lesson. And if you want to make the argument no one should use the word, at least make it intelligently or, again, you're going to offend.

 

DD you my nigga.

 

This reminds of someone who writes 10,000 words about the subtext of existentialism they've detected in a porn video.

 

Dick Whitman wrote:

*****
I'm not as well-versed on the history of the word as I should be, but it always seemed to me to be used as kind of a, "Because fuck you, that's why" to their dark history in this nation. Right?
*****

While the word offense me, no matter how it's used -- and there are many variations -- there certainly is plenty of precedent for people reclaiming words.

I think "queer" is the best example.

 

Why's he right? They're legitimate, legal businesses. The paper could use the money. Who's he to get on his high horse about it?

 

Nothing, and when Jay-Z was still an artist, that's what he was doing. But then he decided there was a lot of money to be made from rapping from the perspective of a millionaire hip-hop mogul, and at that point the rhymes about bitches and hoes become gratuitous, written just to sell records to young kids who then act the way Jay-Z's lyrics suggest they should act.

Whitlock has built a career on the kind of stuff Mushnick wrote. Only difference, of course, is Whitlock is young (relatively) and black, while Mushnick is old and white. It isn't an indication of a racist life-view, just a tone-deaf life view, since the issues Mushnick attempts to address in a few grafs are issues that cannot possibly be addressed in a few grafs.

Really, though -- people need to relax and get rid of this sociopathic mindset that tells them they should be offended by something. Think for yourself and decide if you really are offended.