IN his April 20 “Food for Thought,” Harry Blalock lashed against the entertainment industry of the last 15 years as a source of violence in America. In it, he commented, “How many of you have enriched yourselves on money that you know is tainted and dirty? How many of you have had to put your conscience on the shelf so that you can effectively do your jobs?” As the saying goes, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw any stones. I wonder how much KZMI and Harry have enriched themselves with money from business that harm our community, such as businesses that own poker arcades or credit institutions that suck people of all their money. How many times did Harry put his conscience on the shelf so that he could effectively do his job?
Pointing to the entertainment industry as the source of violence is just wrong, and singling out rap music as he does is almost racist. The Bible has inspired more violence, bloodshed, and warfare than any other book in history, and definitely more than all rap songs combined. Yet, Harry and other pundits would not call for its censorship or prohibition, now would they? Harry and other pundits, however, may counter that the Bible can in no way be equated with rap music. Exactly! As crass and reprehensible as rap music may be, it has not inspired a fraction of the violence that the Bible has inspired.
Besides, Harry grossly over-generalizes rap music when he refers to its violence and misogyny. Granted, much of rap music promotes violence and misogyny (as does the military, Pat Buchanan, and a large segment of country music). But rap music is so much more than that. Artists like Nas, Mos Def, The Roots, and Saul Williams decry both violence and misogyny and explore deep philosophical issues in their music and poetry. And for all his violence and misogyny, Tupac’s poetry, both in music and in print, speak to the heights and the depths of the human soul. Lyrics like “keep your head up” poignantly capture a simple yet profound expression of hope amid despair. To label rap music as a bastion of violence and misogyny borders on racism because it neglects the diversity of voices in the hip hop industry.
Even if we had good reasons for promoting censorship, we must remember the warning of Karl Marx: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I believe that censorship only glamorizes and sensationalizes the very thing that it tries to censor. It only increases the appeal and allure of the censored item, which is counterproductive if your goal is to hide it from innocent eyes and ears.
The esteemed British poet John Milton put it best in his “Areopagitica.” The historical context of the “Areopagitica” is very interesting. Milton had been writing eloquent defenses of the Puritans and their political agenda, so when the Puritans took control of England under Oliver Cromwell, it was believed that Milton would fully support the broad censorship laws enacted by Cromwell and his Puritan revolutionaries. (They even banned the theaters, which at the time included ongoing works by William Shakespeare.) However, in “Areopagitica,” Milton criticized the censorship laws, arguing that the only way to defeat bad ideas was to air them openly and challenge them. True virtue, according to Milton, was not cloistered; it was tested by the challenges of vice and temptation.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. expanded on Milton’s ideas with his concept of the marketplace of ideas. Borrowing from the insights of Adam Smith in “Wealth of Nations,” Justice Holmes argued that society needed free speech in order to expose ideas to an open marketplace, where good ideas would outperform bad ideas in the long run. Censorship would only stifle that process and drive bad ideas underground where they would fester and thrive.
As a parent, I, for one, do not shield my children from profanity and obscene material. If they run into either, we discuss it together and I try to explain why profanity and obscene material are inappropriate. I would rather teach my children how to think, than tell them what to think.
Of course, in the back of my mind, I always remember that profanity and obscenity are subjective judgments, for one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure, or, in this case, another man’s art. Consider, for example, the backlash against Elvis Presley and the Beatles in the 1950s and the 1960s. Their “art” was considered profane and obscene. Pundits of the time went so far as to accuse Elvis and the Beatles of corrupting the young. (I wonder how many times I’ve heard Elvis and the Beatles on KZMI?)
And I suppose you will always have pundits like Harry who claim that media, art, and literature should be censored so as to avoid corrupting the young. Even Socrates, who himself advocated censorship, was accused of corrupting the young.
So, in short, I don’t believe that rap music, or the rest of the entertainment industry for that matter, makes our society more violent. If anything, I believe what does make our society more violent is the close-minded, intolerant, self-righteous vindictiveness of pundits like Harry Blalock. In fact, listening to the diatribes of Seung-Hui Cho reminded me of vindictive diatribes from folks like Bill O’Reily, Rush Limbaugh, and, yes, Harry Blalock. If anything should be censored, it should be that kind of self-righteous indignation. At least most rap music doesn’t claim to be a “no spin zone” that dishes out “food for thought.”
(By way of a disclaimer, please know that I write this not as a representative of Mount Carmel School, but as an avid supporter of the arts…even art I don’t particularly like.)

GALVIN DELEON GUERRERO
Garapan, Saipan