Are white people who say "I don't like hip hop" yet listen to it when white people make it really saying "i don't like black people"?

You're just kidding around but the word cracker comes from Scotland and the obnoxious Scottish people who got that tag ("Shakespeare's King John (1595): "What cracker is this . . . that deafes our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?") ironically moved to the Southern US and formed both Southern white and black American culture in general.

The black card game of whist (which some of my black friends' still play!) was picked up directly from Northern Brits for one example.

To call Merritt a cracker is essentially no different from calling him a "loud nigger."

I'm just pointing out that irony always wins.

Again. Irony. Winning, etc

http://tiny.abstractdynamics.org/

Ohhhhh-T-M !!

Or is it his token hip-hop selection in question? Or his token 11% of his votes by black artists? There are plenty of other cultures completely absent from his ballot as well, should we alert Amnesty International?

Don't want a cat,
Scratching its claws all over my
Habitat
Giving no love and getting fat
Oh, (oh oh) you can get lonely
And a cat's no help with that

-----------

Morrissey, "King Leer"
-----------

Your boyfriend, he
displays to me
more than just
a hint of cruelty
I tried to surprise you
I crept up behind you
with a homeless chihuahua
you gushed for an hour
you handed him back and said
"You'll never guess
I'm bored now"

---

thus: CHIHUAHUA = GAYISM

http://www.chihuahua-info.de/fotos/paris.hilton.chihuahua.jpg

This debate is fucking boring. It's so lame, people aren't even talking past each other, they're just popping out these strawmen that were stale the first time someone trotted them out. Sasha and Jessica aren't arguing that people who hate rap hate black people. Whatsisname at Slate isn't arguing that musical taste exists in a vacuum.

Frankly, Magnetic Fields stuff is so escapist, so clearly untouched by urban America, that it does strike me as similar (in its cultural white flight) to all the creepy, interchangeable white suburban/rural dramas on TV that started with Dawsons Creek (the OC, Smallville, One Tree Hill, etc etc.)

On the other hand, I believe Stephin when he says he just doesn't give a shit about syncopation and rhythm and shit. Man just likes a good tune, and thank god, because now we have 69 Love Songs. And that being the case, his taste is going to skew white. It's problematic, but not inherently racist.

I dunno, I think Sasha and Jessica chose the wrong guy to pick on here, but can we recognize that linking taste in music to the rest of the culture isn't ridiculous?

Dudes, see the EMP thread for much more on this, including posts from Hopper and a big-ass thing I posted before I realized y'all were talking about it here.

http://www.sashafrerejones.com/2006/05/idee_trix.html

Ask Don Delillo to do the same for books, and it's not like that list should be the syllabus in universities nationwide - it would just be interesting as a reflection of literature that has resonated with him as an artist. In Merritt's case, it happened to be work that would be an appropriate tie-in with the records he released that year, and probably more fun for him to do than an interview. It's just an artist's list in a weekly magazine, is all. I love reading artists' best-of lists (music, books, whatever) for their idiosyncracies and championing of underappreciated work, not for their breadth.

And just so we're careful what we wish for in asking our songbook composers to acknowledge rock and r&b influences, would anyone like to listen to Rent?

(I'm not a fan of 69 Love Songs because I can't get over the production and Merritt's voice - so hearing the same songs on a Morning Becomes Eclectic archive was quite a revelation.)

I can't think of a better pop song about people who've been sexually abused than "Papa Was A Rodeo".

Mind you, I'm no fan of Merritt -- but it's for strictly musical reasons. (All his songs sound, to me, like demos with which he has no emotional connection. His lyrics are repetitive, and frequently embarrassing in a tee-hee-look-at-me-I-am-talking-about-sex-aren't-I-shocking? kind of way. Also, I tend to dislike synthesizers. Personal biases, blah.) But I think expecting songs that aren't about class/race/etc. to acknowledge those topics is supremely ridiculous -- that's not the point of the song, the point of the song is that someone is in some sort of unrequited love, or requited love, or whatever. And I think it is fair to say that maintaining lyrical focus within a song is particularly important to Merritt, but I think that much breadth cannot be expected of anybody.

Maybe he could write his songs as normal, only devote the bridges to Matters of Political Import? "This guy doesn't love me, he doesn't love me... / also, I would like to point out that a lot of people are homeless / something ought to be done / And if there are any racists listening to this song / Well, you guys can just fuck off, okay? / Oh, good heavens, I said "fuck"! / (synthesizer solo)"