Fighting Stereotypes

I love rap music. It has really revitalized music the last few years. Great energy.

After reading the Calendar letters reacting to the recent commentaries by Times pop critic Robert Hilburn and rapper Ice Cube, I can’t resolve one issue in my mind.

For years, black leaders have worked tirelessly to clean up the media’s view (and white society’s as well) that blacks are nothing more than drug dealers, criminals, irresponsible and violence prone. Such stereotyped images in television, radio, magazines and advertising were steadily cleaned up, and new ones were guarded against.

Now, along come the rappers, pushing the old stereotyped image of the black as a violent, drug-dealing criminal or totally sexually oriented salivater. And worse, they push it as the thing to be!

I wonder how the former leaders feel about having many years of work wiped out in a year or two by a few individuals.

MIKE CREGAN

Santa Barbara