Back in the ‘80s, there was a lot of concern about the coarsening of U.S. culture, especially in entertainment, including the use of violent, crudely sexual, and misogynistic lyrics in both heavy metal and rap music. At the time, heavy metal was considered a genre mostly for young White men, and rap a genre mostly for young Black men.
Sociologist Amy Binder (1993) studied the ways in which journalists and others expressed their concerns about both heavy metal and rap during those years, and discovered a very important difference. People were concerned that the messages of heavy metal would in some way harm its White listeners. The concerns about rap, however, were not about its effects on the listeners themselves, but about the possibility that rap music would motivate its Black listeners to harm others. “I’m worried about those (White) kids” vs. “I’m worried about what those (Black) kids will do to the rest of us.” Continue reading “Are those kids our kids?”