Loud music, aggressive lyrics, a dark room--who's responsible?

February 20, 2006 12:50 am

WHO KILLED Baron Braswell?

The suggestion that "Knuck if You Buck" might have had some small part in his murder is certainly generating letters to The Free Lance-Star. Some readers may feel that the idea of a link between the two clearly violates the most sacred rule of "political correctness"--that "gross" equals "good." Anyone who objects is likely to offend someone, with the clear suggestion that the offender is somehow involved in "hate speech," which of course is the end of all discussion--if not the end of all reason.

If we are looking beyond a mere inanimate song as the perpetrator of the violence, we might wonder about the kid with the knife. Perhaps he is responsible for killing Baron Braswell. However, we might also ask whether the kid with the knife would have stabbed Baron if his "nice" friends were not screaming "Mayfield Mob," beating Baron to the floor, and kicking him.

Or whether the temporary thugs (as the "nice boys" were called) would have knocked Baron to the floor if the DJ had not chosen to play songs which he well knew would incite "dancers" to crash enthusiastically into each other--in keeping with the somewhat violent sentiments of the song.

Which brings us to another tenet of the Political Correctness Religion: "Songs (and those that sing them) are sacred." As long as it has a melody or, in the case of gangsta rap, a beat, any words or any behaviors are perfectly acceptable. In fact, if "nobody can understand the words," or if 100 percent of the people who listen to the song do not go out and stab someone, it must be okay, and should not be criticized. In fact, even looking at the lyrics might be a violation of somebody's First Amendment rights.

One might also wonder if the guy with the new "gangsta" CD thought about playing "punchin' stompin' backbone-breaking" music in a dark room to stir up a crowd of kids who had recently been tackling each other on the footfall field.

To move further up the chain, one might wonder about the rich record producers in New York and Los Angeles. Think of how much money they've made by taking the most self-destructive, brutal, woman-abusing losers and making them multimillionaire heroes for our "nice kids" to copy--sometimes with fists and feet and knives and time in jail.

Academics, students, rappers, and "experts" all say that "violent video games, and violent movies and TV shows" don't really have much of an effect on the society.

But I guess Baron didn't know that.

And neither do the little boys who grow up hearing again and again that little girls are just "hos and b-----s." Or the little girls who think that's the way they're supposed to act. Or the five "nice kids" whose lives are now ruined because they have now experienced the Real Rule: "Garbage in, garbage out."

As a teacher who has been helping to supervise school dances for 40 years, I have found it instructive to watch what kids do in response to different songs--from tenderly dancing with their sweeties to slow love songs, to happily bouncing around to "YMCA."

And then comes the instantly scary and awesomely disgusting stuff that goes on when a few of "those" songs are played in a row. We know firsthand that, contrary to the experts, music does affect behavior and so requires serious supervision by those more aware of consequences than 14- to 17-year-olds--and the "experts" who write books.

As the local police know well, any dance that continuously plays that stuff in a dark room is absolutely certain to have the same kind of behavior that just resulted in so many lives being ruined and so many people being hurt--guaranteed. Maybe we should wonder whether exposing our children to poison just to make rich guys richer is as innocuous as the experts say.

We seem to be part of a society that thinks that "Knuck if You Buck" and its associates are harmless ways to educate our children as to how they should treat each other.

Maybe we're not much different from the Mad Mullahs who teach their little boys and girls to blow themselves up in the middle of their own people another harmless educational miracle.

Who killed Baron Braswell?

One of my exam questions was on John Donne's "Meditation XVII," where he points out that "No man is an island," as all of us are part of each other and are therefore responsible for more than our own personal happiness. And so, if we hear the Bell of Responsibility tolling, we shouldn't "send to know for whom the bell tolls." It tolls for us.

JAMES ANDREWS teaches English at Stafford High School.