COUNTERPUNCH LETTERS

Ice Cube hits the nail on the head, and by that I mean his comments about all the bad press about rap music.

White adult society for the most part is never concerned with African-American society or culture until it is forced to come into contact with it via some “discovery” made by the white youth.

I have known about the group 2 Live Crew and their raunchy style of music for a few years now, and I’m sure that many others in the African-American community have known about the group for as long as I have also. Before the group’s new-found publicity for “As Nasty as They Wanna Be” they had made an album titled “Luke Skyywalker / Bass Waves Compilation/XR-1000”; where were the Jack Thompsons (anti-rap crusaders) when this album was made and released?

The only difference between this earlier album and the present one is one very important thing, and that thing is time. By this I mean the time it took the white youth to discover rap music and bring it home to their parents.

The issue is not one of censorship of some art form that someone views as obscene--because there are plenty of other examples of obscenity in our society more graphic and degrading than any record--but of one culture (white) saying that another (African-American) is inferior and corrupting.

BRYANT L. McCALISTER

Pasadena