The message of the music

Re “And the cheat goes on,” Feb. 2

I can’t help thinking what a shame it is that Kanye West and his ilk fail to take into account that although it may boost their bottom line, every “and ain’t I a nigga?” speech they make impedes the march toward racial equality.

HEATHER TARNOWSKI

Minneapolis

*

Jonah Goldberg’s column -- bent on degrading hip-hop, Kanye West’s genius and popular music activism -- brought your Op-Ed pages to a new and amazing low. He began by admitting he knows nothing about contemporary hip-hop, and though his intent may not have been racist, it came off that way to an astonishing degree. He goes on to dismiss West’s social and political concerns as marketed rebellion -- a sensationalist commercial ploy of the popular music industry, he says, since the 1950s: “a scam for kids too stupid to recognize they’re being played.”

If the kids are being played, they aren’t the only ones. Those who are moved by Goldberg’s futile brand of cultural conservatism have been played.

Popular music has been a force for advancing democratic values throughout the world since the 1950s. Goldberg can scorn that all he likes, but he’ll never be able to counter it. In the end, that is his primary target: attacking the effect of those cultural forces that find inspiration in opposition and that also spread that inspiration.

MIKAL GILMORE

Rolling Stone

Contributing Editor

Woodland Hills