The Deadly Anti-Black Weaponization of Popular Culture, But No One Apologizes To The ‘Hood

There is convincing evidence that exposure to certain media messages increases substance use in adolescents.  For instance, viewing smoking in movies prospectively predicts a substantial proportion of adolescent smoking initiation. Similarly, exposure to smoking-related media promotions is associated with smoking initiation. Alcohol use in movies and promotions is also linked to actual alcohol use.

While the most frequently studied genres for this research include movies, television, and advertising, health behavior theory strongly supports a link between music exposure and substance use. According to the social learning model, human beings learn not only by direct experience but also by exposure to modeled behavior, such as that represented in popular music. This theory further suggests that individuals exposed to representations of substance use would be more likely to perform those behaviors themselves if they are linked with (1) motivations that are relevant, (2) associations that are desirable and familiar, and (3) consequences that are positive. Music is well-known to connect deeply with adolescents and to influence identity development, perhaps more than any other entertainment medium.

In addition, prior work suggests that references to substances of abuse in music are common. Several years ago, a content analysis published by the Office of National Drug Control Policy showed that multiple messages related to substance use are present in music lyrics and music videos. Of the top 1000 popular songs they studied, 18% referenced illicit drugs and 17% referenced alcohol. Another report found that, of 258 popular music videos, 20% verbally referenced illicit drugs and 37% displayed alcohol. In every case, marijuana was the illicit drug most commonly represented.

However, to our knowledge, no comprehensive content analysis of substance use in popular music lyrics has been published in the peer-reviewed medical literature. Furthermore, popular music is rapidly changing, and it has been more than a decade since the previous data described were collected. This is a particularly important omission because popular music exposure is increasing among young people. Finally, a more comprehensive and theoretically based content analysis may more completely capture relevant factors, such as the motivations, associations, and consequences associated with substance use in popular music.”

At the same time that we have witnessed Black Music become dominated by Hip-Hop music, we have seen Hip-Hop music become a toxic art form laden with the promotion of drug use and lyrics that serve as “pre-criminal conditioners” that are designed to feed the infamous “school to prison pipeline.” Simultaneously being developed has been military scientists’ making ground breaking advances in the use of  culture as a weapon.

Author Rochelle Dean discusses how foreign theaters of war are becoming testing grounds for new military sciences that weaponize the culture of a people against them.

According to Dean: “At the fourth Culture Summit of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) in April 2010, Maj. Gen. David Hogg, head of the Adviser Forces in Afghanistan, proposed that the US military think of “culture as a weapon system.” The military, Hogg asserted, needs to learn the culture of the lands where it is deployed and use that knowledge to fight its enemies along with more conventional armaments. This conceptual and perhaps literal “weaponization of culture” continues a trend that began with the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Endorsed at the highest level by Gen. David Petraeus, head of Central Command, the Pentagon unit in charge of the greater Middle East, the idea of culture as a weapon grows out of the “‘gentler’ approach” to America’s post-September 11 wars adopted after the departure of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

This approach is best articulated in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, that Petraeus oversaw and that the Army released in December 2006.  In the Field Manual, this peculiarly military application of culture uses cultural anthropologists’ definitions of culture as the behaviors, beliefs, material goods and values of a group of people that are learned and shared. The weaponization of culture posits that culture can be a crucial element of military intelligence, used to influence others, to attack their weak spots and, more benignly, to understand the others the military is trying to help. While scholars and military analysts have shown how “culture” was enlisted to play a role in the Vietnam war, today’s wars are the first in which culture has been so clearly articulated. Maj. Gen. John Custer, commander of the Army’s Intelligence Center of Excellence, describes this shift as “a tectonic change in military operations.”

Professor Robert McChesney has studied pop culture for many years and he has described that there is a both military mindset and a colonizer mindset that makes up the philosophy that rules the pop culture industries.  He writes:

“You should look at it like the British or the French empires in the nineteenth century. Teens are like Africa.  There’s this range that they’re going to take over, and their weaponry is films, music, books, CDs, internet access, clothing, amusement parks, sports teams. That’s all this weaponry they have to make money off of this market, to colonize this market. And that’s exactly how they approach it. So they look at music as just one small part of it. They aren’t music companies; they’re moneymaking companies, and music is a weapon that generates money for them.” –Robert McChesney

It becomes quite clear when we look closer at music trends and trends in popular culture, just how dangerous it is for those outside the Black community to be in control of our music and culture.  One would think that Jews in the music industry would be guided by the principles of the Torah.  The Torah says that music should be about the praise of God and the promotion of righteousness.  Yet powerful Jewish music industry moguls such as Lyor Cohen, Edgar Bronfman Jr., Barry Weiss, and the late Jerry Heller have presided over a musical form of expression that is in total opposition to the ideas of music found in the Torah.

It has been reported that Sony, Universal and Warner are the big 3 music companies that control as much as 75% of the music that is distributed.  It is also reported that Edgar Bronfman Jr., Lucian Grainge and Rolf Shmidt  who head these respective companines are members of the Jewish community.  One wonders, how they reconcile their promotion of this particular kind of music to Black, Latino and poor White youths that is so negative and  destructive; the same music that is frequently identified as being responsible for the the “implicit bias” that conditions and shapes attitudes of Police Officers who police in neighborhoods where Jewish controlled Rap Music is predominant.

I think that if Black artists and entertainers are going to be called out to apologize for statements that the Jewish community has deemed to be insulting and anti-Semitic, they should also have frank conversations with those who are the developers and distributors of the “Black music” that is not only insulting to us, but is helping to fuel our community’s downfall.  The artists should insist that popular culture be stripped of all expressions that portray negative stereotypes of the Black community.  The artists should unite and examine how Jews are portrayed in music and in film.  They should take the posture that if it is not good for the Jewish people to be portrayed as drug users, “baby mamas”, pimps, prostitutes, strippers, gang bangers, dead beat dads, corrupt businessmen, etc. , then these kinds of negative portrayals are no longer appropriate for Black people.  If terms like “kike” are unacceptable, then the term “nigger” is equally unacceptable. If we don’t promote negative images of Jewish youth, then we must cease to promote negative images of Black youth. True equality says to us that if  anti-Semitism is wrong, if anti-Jewish tropes, stereotypes and canards are wrong, then so are these same pejorative portrayals and references wrong when the Black community is the target. It is out of self-respect as a people, that we must insist that to be anti-Black is  to also be guilty of a  public sin that must be atoned for by all who promote and participate in it.