Outrage Over Lyrics Unites Unlikely Pair

When C. Delores Tucker gets up to speak, she represents a lifetime of left-wing social action and dozens of black, feminist, liberal organizations that stand behind her.

“When I get up to speak,” says William J. Bennett, adviser to Republican presidents, “I don’t represent any of those groups.”

Yet these two very disparate people have formed an unlikely alliance based on a strong underpinning of shared concerns. Together, they have launched a passionate assault against what they see as the hate and sexism in some of today’s rock and rap music, as well as against its corporate sponsors. They condemn the lyrics in question as “sleazy, pornographic smut,” dangerous to children because the words degrade women and promote violence.

Their teaming-up explains a lot about a growing wave of anxiety about the state of American values.

People from very different places and perspectives--indeed, people who agree on little else--are separately concluding that something is destroying the nation’s moral core. More amazing still, they agree on remedies.

Liberal activists are saying many of the same things as Christian conservatives. Small-town preachers suddenly find themselves in sync with university intellectuals. Forces are at work here that are replicated nowhere else.

“There is this growing malaise in the country that reflects a widespread collapse of moral values,” said Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

“People of all persuasions are very troubled. They are troubled by the fact that a million teen-age girls get pregnant every year, that somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 kids bring guns to school every day. Those things strike at the very heart of who we are as moral people. There are certain basic consensus values we can all agree on, recognizing that they are essential to building a decent society.”

“You do get people who are at odds on other stuff coming together in dismay and horror over hostile, inappropriate and careless speech,” agreed the Rev. Avery Manchester, pastor of the First Church of Round Hill in Greenwich, Conn.

Community Outrage

In one of a series of episodes around the country, five Greenwich high school seniors recently inserted a hidden message in their yearbook that said: “Kill all niggers.” Virtually all segments of the Greenwich community reacted with outrage, and the students were not allowed to graduate with their classmates.

“Clergy and teachers and others who simply couldn’t get together on other issues were solid on this one,” said Manchester, a former member of the board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. “If there’s something very concrete in values like this, people will tend to draw together and find community.”

Yoffie, who has added his voice to the growing number of those attacking the controversial rap and rock lyrics, acknowledges the “bizarre nature” of the coalition forming around the issue of values.

“We’re not speaking as politicians,” he said. “We’re not building a coalition around political issues. We speak to values, and we will take that in whatever direction it leads us.”

It has led Tucker and Bennett, who could hardly be further apart politically, to join forces against corporations and musicians responsible for the controversial music.

Tucker, a liberal black woman who spent much of the 1960s participating in marches and protests led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., now heads the National Political Congress of Black Women. Bennett, a white male college professor and former education secretary-turned-conservative politician, is the author of “The Book of Virtues,” a bestseller.

“We may disagree on politics, but when it comes to children, we are together,” Tucker said. She adds that the two are trying to accomplish something that “involves the basic lessons and values and ethics we learn in life: that we should be moderate in all things, be kind to and respect one another, and that God hates lying, stealing and violence.”

“Delores Tucker and Bill Bennett are terrific politicians,” said Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who has known Tucker for more than a decade.

“They know how to build strategic alliances,” Neas said. “In this world--whether it’s the world of values or the world of politics or the world of government--those who forge strong coalitions win more often than not. They both understand they have a common goal, and they are pursuing a common strategy.”

Tucker and Bennett have singled out Time Warner Inc. as the chief corporate villain, the purveyor of lyrics so offensive that, as Tucker said in an interview, “you can’t even print it in your newspaper.”

She holds up a large poster board of a comic strip-like fold-out that depicts scenes of extreme and degrading violence against women. This, she says, comes with an album recorded by rap artist Snoop Doggy Dogg.

“Time Warner produces this pornographic smut, which black children embrace as role models,” she said. “Children want to dress like them, walk like them, talk like them and use language that you wouldn’t believe. This is the filth that children are buying. This is the biggest hit with kids. Yet nobody can show it. Nobody can print it. This is pornography, and every kid is saying these words now.”

Tucker purchased Time Warner stock so that she could participate in a recent meeting of stockholders and deliver a 17-minute tirade against violent and misogynistic lyrics in songs performed and recorded by Time Warner groups.

“If corporate responsibility dictates that we protect the whales, protect the rivers and protect the environment, then the most important of all Earth’s resources should be protected,” she said. She would not necessarily ban the offending material but perhaps only restrict it to adults-only shops.

Since the stockholders meeting, Tucker and Bennett have met with company executives in what was described as a testy session, with especially confrontational exchanges between Bennett and the executives. “I’m louder, but they’re probably more afraid of her,” Bennett said.

Standards for Lyrics

A spokesman in the Washington office of Time Warner did not return calls seeking a response to the Tucker-Bennett campaign. But several weeks ago in New York, Gerald M. Levin, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, promised that its music division would launch an industrywide effort to develop standards for lyrics.

He said he understands that some of the music is offensive, particularly to women, and he called for a balance “between the creative process and our collective responsibilities as the world’s leading communications company.”

Tucker and Bennett first met informally during a school graduation here, although they recall the encounter somewhat differently. Tucker says that Bennett spoke about values at the ceremony, and “I supported everything he said.” Bennett remembers her complimenting him on an urban program for teen-age girls created and run by his wife.

“She said: ‘I don’t know you that well, but my friends say you’re OK because your wife’s OK,’ ” Bennett recalled. “It was sort of, ‘She’s OK; you’re OK.’ I was parasitic on my wife’s virtues, which was fine. It was interesting that the author of ‘The Book of Virtues’ needs a reference.”

But “once we got together, we hit it off,” Bennett continued. “She’s direct. She’s fun. She’s engaged. And she’s got a lot of passion. We agree on an awful lot of things. The only thing we don’t agree on is politics. She’s a deeply religious person, deeply committed to children, with a clear and firm sense of right and wrong. Once we got working together, it was a natural.”

From Tucker’s perspective, “Bill Bennett and I are very much in accord when it comes to values and virtues. My father and mother were conservatives when it came to values. I imagine he grew up in the same sort of home, as far as virtues and values were concerned.

“This transcends politics. This is a human issue. This deals with the most sacred gift God has given the world, and that’s the child. We have a responsibility to preserve, protect and make sure that the child is nurtured with the most positive of virtues and values. Let’s make virtues and values something that is a proud badge for everyone to wear.”