Thoughts on Mercy with Music

Taylor Tschida

Lora Strey

Composition 101-12

9 October 2014

Some Thoughts on Mercy with Music

        "Some Thoughts on Mercy" is an article or a memoir if you will about some stories of  this black man's life and how he still has to deal with racism in present day. There was one story that I always wondered if it really happened in the real world, it was a story where Ross Gay got pulled over for a reason he did not know. But anyway Ross told himself that he wouldn't be scared when the police officer came up to his window unlike normal because it's always a tense moment when a black man has confrontation with a police officer (Gay). Ross goes in depth about the routine stop but then the cop continues to ask if he any drugs or guns in the car with no real reason at all, except that he a black male. What Ross is saying is that he a respected associate professor at Indiana University and why must he be subject to general racism for a random stop. Also why are not only cops but other people still holding black people to a lower standard in this day and age.

       Reading about Ross has brought up a few questions of how this same standard could be the same in the music business. They're a lot of black people in the music business like producers, artists, and musicians. So the questions I asked were: Do black rappers think they get treated unfairly with the law? How are black musicians treated differently than white musicians? and Does being black or white have an effect on sales?

          There was an article I found about what rappers think of the criminal justice system. It says that although rappers use lyrics that portray cops as the enemy and how they exercise their power, that those communities are subject to more profiling and unfair treatment from the justice system (Wade). But blacks are more likely to be arrested and sentenced rather than whites, regardless of crime rate.

       Another article that a group member found was from the L.A. Times about how The NAACP's best estimate is that black recording artists are responsible for generating 25%- 30% of the total revenues earned by the recording industry. It also goes on to talk about how the blacks buy 11.4% of the records, tapes and music videos sold annually, according to the report (McDougal).
      
       So clearly the racism is still a very big part of the music industry and I don't think it is changing anytime soon. I always hear about stories of how police officers try and aggravate black people when it is simply unnecessary and unneeded. It's not right how black people in music and just black people in general are treated unfairly in their life when people know it's wrong but do nothing about it.


Gay, Ross. "Some Thoughts on Mercy." N.p., n.d. Web.

McDougal, Dennis. "Racism In Music Industry Alleged." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 24 Mar. 1987. Web. 10 Oct. 2014.

Wade, Lisa. "What Rappers Are Actually Saying About the Police." Mic. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2014.