Gangster Rap Is Not To Blame

 There are many people that think hip-hop and rap music are the cause of many mishaps in America.  Some of these mishaps include violence in our schools and objectifying women.  The culprit of these epidemics, in my opinion, is the separation of church and state, which essentially took prayer out of schools.   I will use this essay to help people understand that we cannot blame hip-hop or rap music for these, what I like to call, epidemics.
 In April of 2007, America experienced the most recent school shooting. At least 32 people were killed in two shooting incidents at Virginia Tech.  In April of 1999 we also witnessed one of the deadliest school shootings in America’s history.  Two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher.  They killed themselves afterwards.  Not even a month later, a student injured six of his peers in a shoot-out in Georgia.  In 1966, America was introduced to school shootings.  A person by the name of Charles Whitman killed 16 and wounded 31 during a four-day rampage.  Between 1966 and now there were at lease 30 known school shootings.  What do all of these incidents have in common?  They were all after the Supreme Court decision, McCollum vs. the Board of Education in 1948.  This was the decision that took prayer out of schools.  They even did away with “moment of silence”.  “Moment of silence was the part of the morning that you were allowed to pray to God, Allah, Buddha or whomever you considered your “higher power”.  If you did not want to pray, you could just be quite for 10 seconds.  I think that putting prayer back in schools might not dismiss all the violence but it is a start. 

According to the Law Library’s American Law and legal Information, national violent crime rates in schools dropped after 1993.  They remained low through the 90s. Unbelievably, the early 1990s introduced a new wave of rap, which we, as a society, refer to as “gangster rap”.    With rap albums like “The Chronic” by Dr Dre.(1992), “Me Against the World” by Tupac(1995) and “Amerikkka’s Most Wanted” by Ice Cube(1990), gangster rap was on the rise.  If you ask most people in our society, this same music is contributing to school violence.  If violence rates are getting low and kids are listening to more rap music, how is it possible for hip-hop and rap be responsible for violence in schools?  This is exactly why hip-hop and rap music cannot possibly take the responsibility for this epidemic.  So what is the cause of this madness?  It starts in the home.  If you think hip-hop and rap are destroying our youth, do not buy your kids those types of albums. Do not let them listen to it on the radio and television.  I was having this same argument with a woman that had three kids.  She was complaining about her kids looking at the music videos that come on “B.E.T Uncut”.  B.E.T Uncut is a show that comes on at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.  This show shows the same videos that come on during the daytime but it does not cut out the bad language.  It also reveals more on the females’ body. That is why they call it B.E.T Uncut.  First, if your kids are up at 3 o’clock in the morning, you are messing up already. Secondly, if they are looking at B.E.T Uncut, whether it’s 3 in the morning or 3 in the after noon, that’s another problem.