Sunday, April 16, 2006

Bad Comparisons; or, Hey, I Got yer Culture of Firepower Right Here!

The Houston Chronicle's Zharmer Hardimon, on the comparisons between hip-hop culture and country music culture:

Comedian Chris Rock once joked that country-music stars don't go around shooting each other. (Though rap stars don't seem to go around getting ticketed for DUI.)


Whoa. Is it just me, or is this comparison a little bit off? While I would never want to downplay the serious dangers posed by driving under the influence, to sit there and compare that in any way with pulling out a gun and shooting someone with malice aforethought is just disgusting. I guess some people will attempt to rationalize the poisoning of their chosen cultures any way they can, but this is just outrageous. It's like, say, comparing Dick Cheney's carelessness with his shotgun to some street thug walking into the local 7-11 with his Glock wondernine and blowing away the clerk for the fifty bucks in the cash register. I know that in the case of Dick Cheney's hunting accident, his partner could well have been critically injured or killed, just as dead as the 7-11 clerk...but, of course, the law would not see the two incidents the same, as Cheney would probably have been slapped with some sort of manslaughter charge and the street thug would have gone down for capital murder. Bad comparisons aside, the gutless wonders who make up (and study) this rancid excuse of a "culture" continue to blame the guns...

"How many rappers have been shot, lost a brother, lost a friend?" asks Bascunan. "How much gun violence have we heard of? It seemed pretty obvious what the problem was. Guns escalate violence."


"Guns escalate violence." Judas Priest, will the cop-outs never cease? Here we go yet again, blaming the inanimate object instead of the mutant holding the object. Pretty obvious what the problem was? Well, apparently not -- that gun doesn't fire itself, Scooter, no matter what the world's would-be do-gooders try to make you think (or, in your case, actually did make you think). Makes me think of that "culture of firepower" that moronic Seattle columnist was blabbering on about. Maybe, in the case of hip-hop culture, that moniker ain't so far off base. Consider this...

Just bring who you gon' bring on, who you gon' swing on?
I'm King Kong, guns blow you to king-dom come
Show you machine gun funk
Sixteen m-16's and one pump [click-clack]
The snub in my paw, shove it in your jaw

Have you runnin out this fuckin club in your drawers
We lovin the broads, there's nothin to applaud
But fuck it it's all good, the hood is up in The Source
It's fight music


That, my friends, was from the esteemed deceased rapper Proof's "Fight Music." Or how about this, from Soulja Slim...

Ya daddy made ya?
Let's see if he can be ya savior
When I cave ya chest in with me murder weapon
They can't find out Smith and Wesson
Only glocks and street machines with infer beams
You know what I mean
Fully automatic things light up the scene


You think that was the "culture of firepower" he was talking about? We all know the answer to that...