Messenger King: Michael Jackson & the politics of #BlackLivesMatter

[Lulu]

I read this in the Baltimore Sun earlier this week and wanted to share:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-messenger-king-20141209-story.html

[RobertZ]

So I’ve avoided posting a response to this interesting thread, but decided that I would do so now and if my response is deemed insensitive I’ll delete it.


As a non-African American I feel strongly that it is not my right to judge or comment about individual decisions made by members of this vital and significant part of America’s population. Additionally what gives me the right to judge music currently being made by people young enough to be my grand-children?

That being said, as someone who came of age in the late 60’s loving soul music and its creators I do find that the dynamic and talented stars of the contemporary music scene[[s) seem to me to be more interested in projecting images of their wealth than perhaps extolling the values of education, voting, and community service.

[Lulu]

So I’ve avoided posting a response to this interesting thread, but decided that I would do so now and if my response is deemed insensitive I’ll delete it.


As a non-African American I feel strongly that it is not my right to judge or comment about individual decisions made by members of this vital and significant part of America’s population. Additionally what gives me the right to judge music currently being made by people young enough to be my grand-children?

That being said, as someone who came of age in the late 60’s loving soul music and its creators I do find that the dynamic and talented stars of the contemporary music scene[[s) seem to me to be more interested in projecting images of their wealth than perhaps extolling the values of education, voting, and community service.

I don't disagree. It's all ABOUT that with all of these young artists on the scene. I'm not a fan of hers but Taylor Swift doesn't drop "labels" and other materialistic stuff when singing. The same can't be said for the majority of the other chart toppers out there black, white and latino. The youth-obsessed culture has really taken over the music industry as we've discussed several times. "Message music" just don't do the trick anymore.