Pop Culture Buzz

This week it was announced that rap pioneer and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons wants the music industry to ban or label 3 words he considers “extreme curse words”. The 3 words in question are “bitch”, “ho” and “nigger” (I hate typing that word, eeewwwww!). I somewhat disagree with the idea that people should be censored, but agree that those epithets have no real value in music. I am on the fence with “ho” and “bitch”, but I am a guy, so who am I to say what it offensive to women? It seems that some people are trying to tell us what is offensive, when in reality we all have lines that we will not let people cross. How come these words illicit this reaction from the hip-hop community and media (granted the N word is the ugliest of slurs and I would never defend the use of it), what about the other words that are just as offensive?

These days you are allowed to call gay people a “faggot” (Anne Coulter, Isaiah Washington) without people asking for someone to be fired or without questioning by the media. You can call someone fat and make fat jokes, and people think it is funny (Donald Trump and Rosie O’donell). One of the most offensive words around, “retarded” is used so much without any regard for the handicapped it has now become o.k. to throw around in pop culture (The Black Eyed Peas song “Let’s Get Retarded”). I know many people who will not tolerate the use of that word because they have family that are handicapped. I for one detest people using the word “faggot” as a way to put someone down, but myself use it in jest. I think it is a slippery slope, if you say these 3 words are too offensive, then who is to say that other words are not just as offensive to them?

I understand what Russell Simmons is trying to say, but think that it is just bad timing coming right off of the heels of the Don Imus incident. I also think that the rap community is the sole reason why this “bitch” and “ho” culture has become so popular. Why hold other genres of music up to those standards? I think this movement to blacklist words in pop culture is futile. People will say what they will, they just need to think hard about how people interpret them. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know that it’s not what you say half the time, but it’s how you say it!