Not sure I share your taste in music, TFR, but each to his own.

What nation-wide witch hunt? I wouldn't recognise her if she walked right past me. She got kicked off a dumb programme because she broke the rules.

As for Public Enemy, they were always clear in what they believed,wierd though the Nation of Islam undoubtably is. In terms of music, they were pioneers.

"What nation-wide witch hunt?"

I think that if someone is in a position where the gutter press is picking through their entire life in order to find any stick with which to beat them, where the race relations industry is bellowing abuse at them, and where there is apparently even a facebook group dedicated to hating them, then we are getting pretty close to a witch hunt.

"She got kicked off a dumb programme because she broke the rules."

Which rules?

And as for Public Enemy, the fact that they were always clear in their abhorrent beliefs just makes matters worse. And I don't see what their supposed status as musical pioneers does to change the fact that there are double standards at work. If a white musician, pioneer or not, expressed comparable views about blacks then they would never record for a major company again.

FR

You make a good point about the double standards involved in race politics , but as for the case of this Emily girl, I would imagine it was made very clear to all the contestants after the whole Shilpa Shetty affair that they were not under any circumstances to use racial terms to other contestants. She clearly broke those rules. As to the media turning on her, well that's the nature of these shows. They are bear pits, and the press will always pounce on any of these wannabees and dig for whatver dirt they can on them regardless of how they behave or what they do. . Emily wasn't the first and she won;t be the last this happens to.

This isn't a witch hunt. A witch hunt might involve a single town, say, three thousand people at most. This business with this Big Brother girl involves millions.

The first two are songs, and the last one really happened.

Recorded songs are not normally mere 'expressions of views'. There is one Beatles song by John Lennon where he threatens to kill his woman if he catches her with another man. We would not call this 'expression of misogynistically murderous views': it's a song, and most people are able to tell the moral difference between this and, say, John Lennon holding a press conference and declaring his intention to kill Yoko Ono if he catches her with someone else.

By your logic, Fulham Reactionary, a convicted murderer could claim to be a victim because Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots people in his films all the time.

FR,

it was a genuine question. By avoiding the gutter press and BB I have avoided the controversy. She needs to get the same publicist as Ron Atkinson.

Public Enemy came to prominence because of their music. Their views on race, taken from Nation of Islam, (presuming they still adhere to them) are indeed very curious, but I can't pretend to be personally offended by them in any deep way. A Jamaican friend of mine certainly was - she wasn't black enough for them.

You're right there's a double standard, but you're conflating life and art in the examples, two are from song lyrics and one is reported speech. Do you wish to see it removed? If so, in what direction? Everyone witch-hunted for whatever they've said, or no one?

"You might have fucked the Indians
but you can't surgeon me...."

Wrong. They don't even know their history.
The 'Indians' fought the settlers every inch of the way and were proud and independant enough never allowed themselves to become SLAVES to their eventual occupiers.

Richard Carey.
Are not your tastes in music just a trifle 'relativist' (and PC) ?

Colm:

Agreed. Whatever sympathy I may have for her is mitigated by the knowledge that she went into this looking for attention, and that that is exactly what she's getting.

Hugh Green:

Public Enemy are an overtly political rap group. By contrast with the Beatles song you mention, their lyrics are not simply a fictional representation of a situation, they are, and are intended to be, an accurate representation of their views. Ditto Ice Cube, at least back in the early 90s.

In any event, even if you remove their views from consideration, the fact remains that Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and other rappers are calling people "white devils" (and other things), and getting away without a hint of criticism, while Emily Parr called someone a "nigger" and was hounded for it.

Incidentally, how do you feel about bands like the defunct white supremacist group RaHoWa, whose lyrics included such gems as "you kill all the niggers and you gas all the Jews"? Are their songs just songs?

Richard:

Personally, I'd rather just stop the witch hunts. If people like Farrakhan, etc, want to call white people "devils", or whatever else, then let them. But if Public Enemy are going to support his views, then I don't see how they can pretend to be anti-racist.

FR,

I don't think they do pretend that. As for Farrakhan, as far as I know he's been banned from this country, at least I remember him being refused a visa in the past, so it's not the case that no attention has been given to black people over the question of racism, mainly due to references to the Jews rather than white folk. Public Enemy likewise have had plenty of controversy over things they've said, and if you remember when NWA hit the streets, there was all sorts of trouble over such things as "F*** tha Police". The appeal of groups like NWA and Ice Cube himself must be similar to the appeal of "the Sopranos" - a vicarious thrill. Also, here in Britain we see this music as foreigners and so don't have such an involvement in the political message, which doesn't perfectly transfer to this side of the Atlantic.

Bernard,

what is a "relativist" taste in music? I like lots of things. Public Enemy and the Sex Pistols may be "PC" in a counter-culture way, I don't know.

I base my opinion on Public Enemy's first few records, which sounded like no one else, and took music in a direction that hadn't been done before - to a point of density that could be almost unlistenable at times. They plowed their own furrow.

In this context Richard, relativist means there is no such thing as bad music; it just depends on your viewpoint in relation to other types of music.
It is, in the end, value-neutral.
There is no bench mark and Rap is as good as Keats.
Relativism is our defining cultural ideaology at present.

Bernard,

in that case I don't have a relativist taste, as I'm sure there is such a thing as bad music.

People have different tastes, but arguing that rap is as good as Keats is like arguing a bicycle is as good as a table.

By contrast with the Beatles song you mention, their lyrics are not simply a fictional representation of a situation, they are, and are intended to be, an accurate representation of their views.

There is nothing to suggest that Run For Your Life is a 'fictional representation of a situation'. On the contrary, it may be an expression of certain sentiments felt by John Lennon at a certain point in time. The point is, however, that there is a substantial moral difference between recording a song or producing some other piece of art, and simply expressing your views. You can express your views in an interview, or a press conference, or a piece of prose. Why bother writing a song about it?

Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and other rappers are calling people "white devils" (and other things), and getting away without a hint of criticism, while Emily Parr called someone a "nigger" and was hounded for it.

Well, Party for Your Right to Fight is from 1989 and Horny Little Devil is from 1991. Unsurprising that neither is particularly to the fore in the minds of the nation when Emily gets evicted from Big Brother. Now, if you could give an example of someone in the Big Brother house calling a white person something as equally offensive as 'nigger', and demonstrated that this person got treated differently, well then maybe you would have a point. But getting 'hounded': isn't that something that happens when any Big Brother contestant does something unacceptable? Think Nasty Nick, or Jade's first appearance in Big Brother. Both got 'hounded', but neither had made racist remarks.

The. Country's. Gone. Mad. Some of the comments above miss the point so much that they really are indicative of mental sickness. Get out of your heads and smell the coffee, peeps!

What is the point, then?

I don't give a flying f*** about BB or the prurient gutter press. She broke the contract she agreed with BB, who had specifically set out that no racist language was allowed. The N word is racist language. Where's the confusion?

The black one said it too.. . She even says nigger on the clip on my site, about 20 seconds after the white girl does - what she was kicked out for!!!

Jumping, skipping, laughing, yelling, down the yellow brick road!

What is your point? That the girl shouldn't be kicked off for saying the word, even though it was a breach of the contract she agreed?

That the other girl should be kicked off for using the word as well, even though she would not have done so if she hadn't just been called it?

That the word isn't racist? What is your point?

Bernard,

"In this context Richard, relativist means there is no such thing as bad music;"

It does not and cannot mean that.

"There is no bench mark and Rap is as good as Keats."

Wrong. If there is no bench mark then there what bench mark do you claim Rap and Keats score equally against?

"Relativism is our defining cultural ideaology at present."

Also wrong. Not least of all because relativism isn't an ideology.

Richard, she said it before, first - according to herself in that clip. Cant you hear? Let me tell you of an interesting experiment;

http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_007/bloom_reality_hallucination.pdf

Go to page five, from "Though it got little public attention, research on the slavish nature of perception had begun at least 20 years before loftus' work. . ."

Frank O'D.
You can make an ideology out of anything... This govt certainly does, and has expanded relativism to include moral relativism too.
For example gay marriage is propagated as having the same validity as hetero' marriage, as does gay adoption rights. Nothing is right or wrong, everything is just relative; there is no accepted morality, or even human behavior.
Our terrible Margaret Beckett thinks like this when she said the west has a lot to learn from Islam.

The West is a secular, Christian society, that has moral absolutes, so when it relinquishes these, it leaves the gates wide open to ANY interpretation.

Sorry to have wandered off the music topic, but I had to start at some point.

Bernard , your example about gay marraige wasn't a very good one. After all it could be argued that granting civil partnerships were righting a moral wrong by giving official recongnition to people in personal unions who had been denied them. An upholding and strengthening of moral values if you like. Just like The argument of this thread that opposing racism should apply to all people and all targets of race baiting, not just some races.

That's a very odd perspective Colm.
No-one denied gays the right to live together.
The question of morality only arose when CPs tried to claim it was the same as the institution of marriage, or at least the insinuation was there.

By extention, and on the race argument, this is why Fulham man titled his post 'double standards' and why we in the west are in such a bind: The moral arbiters of the msm want a multicultural society on the grounds that all races, religions etc are all on the same footing....and to judge by those posted extracts.... we clearly are not.

No-one in the west, it seems, wants to make a stand on this.

Bernard, am i not right in expanding your very last point above when i say that as a white man it is as yet politically ok to have nebulous thoughts of fairness and equality for oneself, but that it is when those germs of feelings coalesce into actualised reason relating to your race that they become definitely verboten, and that the hurdle to equality of racial conceptions is that there is in fact only a very few white people who haven't themselves surpassed or noticed that artificial block on their community that feel morally able to support those who have surpassed that thought barrier?

Put another way, it could be said that a great many white people, from many different walks of life and with no IQ based distinction, have been successfully inoculated against the principle of the white race surviving, no?

It seems to me to be quite comparable to A.I.D.S, in both its modus operandi and in its effect, turning previously necessary and healthy impulses against the body which gave birth to those impulses, leading to the bodies death at the hands of foreign bodies.

No-one denied gays the right to live together.

no-one except everyone, until very recently. and even now only a few nations truely accept same sex marriages, and even then the religious right, be they muslim or christian want to deny those people their rights.

The West is a secular, Christian society

thats the problem with right world. it wants the best of both worlds but on it terms. secular means values outside those of religous doctrine. it doesnt mean an aboandonment of basic values. and everything seems relative because everyone has different secular veiws. ie those not governed by millenia old dogma.

what you guys seem to want is your version of sharia. which is obviously why you hate them so much.

It seems to me to be quite comparable to A.I.D.S, in both its modus operandi and in its effect, turning previously necessary and healthy impulses against the body which gave birth to those impulses, leading to the bodies death at the hands of foreign bodies.

or put another way, all outside (foriegn) influence is essentialy viral and should be eliminated. yes indeed the bnp has come a long way from its old days of paranoid xenephobia.

There, You see!

Why the hell is this idiotic show grabbing headlines? It goes on for weeks and weeks and gets endless coverage, yet the only talking points thrown up are who gets off with whom or who says something moronic? Then whats done or said is used as a barometer for the national temperature.
If you put ten prats in a confined space for a few weeks they'll do something prattish I guarantee ya. As my aunt from Annaghanoon used to say - What can you expect from a pig but a grunt"

Richard and Sara both make valid points; the show is shit and the producers pray for this kind of drama to garner ratings and attention. The show isn't worth discussion.

FR's post is worth discussion, which I think has been mostly skirted in previous comments.

I have been told since the early eighties that the world is full of Haves and Have Nots and it's all falling to pieces because of this horrible reality. (This is, of course, the stupidest political statement ever made.) A more accurate statement is that the world since the early eighties has been made up of censored and uncensored speech. Certain groups can say whatever they like without public censure and other groups can't say anything without public censure. It's quite interesting when you study who can speak with impunity and who is silenced with public shaming. If you are an ethnicity/color other than anglo/white you can speak and slur with impunity. If you are anglo/white you are constantly parsing your speech before it hits your tongue for fear of being labeled a knuckle dragging insensitive cavemen. Words hurt, huh?

While I don't understand anyone wanting to use the kind of nasty language FR posted, a hypocritical double-standard language barrier definitely exists based on race. I tend to believe that this "standard" is racist at its base. Our mores come from the top down and our elites who dominate the social politic of our world have decreed that people of color get a pass on offensive speech. The pass is based on an ugly bias that believes that "Those People" can't be held to a higher, more dignified standard of behaviour because they aren't able to. And we've bought into their belief that all men aren't created equal and shouldn't be held to the same standards of decency. Shame on us.

FR, good post.

Daphne,

"The pass is based on an ugly bias that believes that "Those People" can't be held to a higher, more dignified standard of behaviour because they aren't able to."

Agree totally - that does seem to be the assumption, but then that is just a example of 'liberal' patronizing. It may well be done subconciously, - but then that is what they do so well!

"And we've bought into their belief that all men aren't created equal and shouldn't be held to the same standards of decency."

By the same token, it isn't just 'liberal whites' who have bought into that belief, 'those people' have also bought into the same belief. They have - by taking full advantage of the 'pass', have - in effect - admitted that they also believe they are somehow inferior.

Shame on all of us.

Bernard,

"For example gay marriage is propagated as having the same validity as hetero' marriage, as does gay adoption rights."

Because it does.

" Nothing is right or wrong, everything is just relative;"

You're making no sense. That everything is relative (the word 'just' adds nothing) does not mean that nothing is right or wrong.

" there is no accepted morality, or even human behavior."

Clearly that is false. There are several moralities that are accepted.

If all music is value-neutral, can someone please explain to me the reactions against Prussian Blue?

Thanks.

Regarding the topic at hand, could everyone please just grow up? It's just a word. Like any other. The only way to make it inoffensive is to stop caring about it, rather than panicking at the merest hint of it. Similarly, the only way to make 'racism' vanish is to get to grips with things and speak openly and honestly, rather than treating all the 'poor-little-things' of various colours as psychological and civilisational invalids. We in the West managed to make this wonderful thing called Civilisation to which millions are flooding, why can't they make an effort to create something like that themselves rather than destroying our own?

Sorry I missed out here. Went to bed early.

Ernest,

"By the same token, it isn't just 'liberal whites' who have bought into that belief, 'those people' have also bought into the same belief. They have - by taking full advantage of the 'pass', have - in effect - admitted that they also believe they are somehow inferior."

This seems to suggest that black peole as a group go around cursing and swearing, which they don't. Some of them do, and some white people do.

Over the last few years, bad language has become much more prevalent in films, tv and music. Remember the furore ("the filth and the fury") when one of the Sex Pistols called Bill Grundy a "dirty f***er"? Now it's tolerated to a much greater extent.

People now seem less able to distinguish between reality and media.

Mr Smith,

"The only way to make it inoffensive is to stop caring about it, rather than panicking at the merest hint of it"

Who's panicking? The word is offensive and is meant to be offensive. There must be a need for offensive words, otherwise why would they exist? Why shouldn't someone be offended when another person uses offensive language with them, whether or not the intention is to offend?

"The word is offensive and is meant to be offensive. There must be a need for offensive words, otherwise why would they exist? Why shouldn't someone be offended when another person uses offensive language with them, whether or not the intention is to offend?"

Words are just words. For example, if I were to call you an idiot today, it would most likely be an insulting term, yet it used to be a medical term. If the intent were simply to say that in my opinion you were, through no fault of your own, mentally deficient, it would be no more offensive in itself than calling a spade a spade, so to speak.

The term 'nigger' is not in itself an insulting one, it has merely become verboten through repeated stigmatising and propaganda efforts. Look at Agatha Christie's book originally titled 'Ten Little Niggers', or look at G.K. Chesterton's book 'The Flying Inn' which lists the people entertaining on a beach-front with the words "Next was a young man talking of nobody knew what
(least of all himself), but apparently relying for public
favour mainly on having a ring of carrots round
his hat. He had more money lying in front of him
than the others. Next were niggers. Next was a
children's service conducted by a man with a long neck
who beat time with a little wooden spade. Farther
along there was an atheist, in a towering rage....'

And so on. The world is largely what we make it, and if we only had enough people of sufficient intellectual and emotional maturity, perhaps we could move on from this contemptible wailing and blubbering every time someone decides to have their 'feelings hurt' for their own gain.

Mr Smith,

"The term 'nigger' is not in itself an insulting one"

Of course it is. Look it up in the dictionary, or else walk up to a group of black people and use it, see what happens, test your theory.

"Words are just words"

Words convey meaning. That's why children ask "what's an x?" or "what does x mean?" Even children understand that words are more than just random letters.

Frank O'D:

You're right. Relativism is not an ideology.

Richard Carey,

"This seems to suggest that black people as a group go around cursing and swearing,'

It wasn't the cursing and swearing that was the reference of the post, or of my comment. It was the overt racism that is acceptable from one section of society, but not from another.

By the rappers, or whatever they call themselves, taking full advantage of the licence granted them by 'liberals', to foul-mouth, anything and everything, and anyone, they are perpetuating the oft held theory that they really are 'inferior'...

"The term 'nigger' is not in itself an insulting one"

Of course it is. Look it up in the dictionary, or else walk up to a group of black people and use it, see what happens, test your theory.

And what would an offended or violent reaction tell me? Nothing more than their personal beliefs on the subject at this moment in time. Which was the point I made with the above references from popular literature of the time. Do at least try to pay attention, won't you?

"Words are just words"

Words convey meaning. That's why children ask "what's an x?" or "what does x mean?" Even children understand that words are more than just random letters.

And even children understand that there's a difference between 'a rock' being a word for, well, a rock, and 'good' being something that lots of people think is different. A distinction which, sadly, seems to have escaped you. Now I wonder, does this make the average child unusually clever and wise, or does it make you unusually deficient?

Mr Smith,

You ignore the reference to the dictionary, which will tell you the word is offensive, and concede that you expect black people (in this present time) to react to the N word by taking offence. Therefore you agree that if you call a black person a n***er, it is likely that you will offend him, and therefore must concede that the person would be justified in believing that either you intend to offend him or else are somehow ignorant of the meaning and significance of the word, which is unlikely.

You also concede my second point about words conveying meanings. The distinction you point to (between the thing and the word that describes it) may or may not be understood by children, but doesn't contradict what I've said or have any bearing on the matter. If you think this is some kind of revelatory fact to someone with as many lines on his brow as me, you are mistaken.

The examples you present indicate that the acceptability of words, and indeed their meaning can and does change over time. As for the Agatha Christie reference, the title of that book was changed decades ago for reasons that you can guess.

What you can't deny, although you're welcome to try (again), is that the word, in this present time, using the agreed definition of words without which communication would break down, that the word is offensive, not because there is anything offensive about an n, an i, two g's, an e and an r, but because, put together it signifies an insult.

Ernest,

you'd be wrong to assume that Ice Cube and Public Enemy didn't have to take a lot of flak for saying such things. There is also a difference between what someone says in the lyrics of a song and in real life.

As to whether "overt racism [is] acceptable from one section of society, but not from another," I don't think it's acceptable (you're unlikely to hear it on the radio, pirate stations excepted), though I accept there is a double standard.

In terms of general obscenity, rather than racism, it was the Supreme Court overturning the Florida verdict against the 2 Live Crew that opened the flood gates. This doesn't make their music any more appropriate for a kiddie's party of course.