Kids Speak Their Mind About Race/Music
The video we had to watch was a report of how kids at the age of 6 and at the age of 13 thought of a picture where it was a white kid standing over a black kid with books all over the ground and they would state their opinion. Then they showed them the same picture but with a black kid standing over a white kid with books on the ground and asked if they are friends. The point of it was just to portray how different kids would respond to an image with race involved in it.
Race is a huge part of the music industry as well, there are very successful artists that are all different races. But most of the time people would portray rap music with black people even though there are just as many white rappers that are just as popular. In fact in an article that me and some of my group members found, they point out that white musicians actually profit from mocking hip hop. They give Lorde's song "Royals" as a good example, because at the time her song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 7 weeks and her song was specifically mocking the tropes of hip-hop when she sings about rejecting “Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece / Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.”(D'Addario). so it is very ironic that with her successful hip hop song where she is mocking hip hop she made millions of dollars.
My group had a long discussion about this topic because the answers that these kids provided were pretty much directly related to their parents thoughts on race or where they grew up. The video also went on to ask kids if it would be ok for a black female to bring a white kid home to their parents and of it was ok for a white boy to bring a black girl home as well. There seemed to be a double standard on the matter which isn't fair to the kids who have this mindset that is drilled into their brains by their parents. For me personally I don't think it would matter too much if I brought a black female over to my house or had dated one but that's just because I wasn't raised in that racist of a household. For the music industry I think it is a little different, like my parents didn't like me listening to rap when I was a kid and that was pretty much the same for all my friends at the time. In an article I found it talks about the positive and negative side of letting kids listen to rap. The negative side obviously had more to say like there is "profanity, violence and references to sex. At times it objectifies women to a very degrading degree. And it can glamorize the “gangster” lifestyle of glitz, sex and drugs"(Kiplinger). Which is probably the reason my parents didn't want me listening to it when I was little.
To sum it all up, kids perspective on race is based mostly upon what household they grew up in or how their parents view racism. it showed in the video that the black kids didn't think anything of what they saw in the picture but the white kids figured the black standing over the white kid was being bullied. It is just how they were raised and racism is still a huge part of today's society and it starts with the kids. If parents can train their kids to think and do the right thing about race it will make this world a much better place to live in.
D'Addario, Daniel. "Pop Music’s Race Problem: How White Artists Profit from Mocking Hip-hop." Saloncom RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
Kiplinger, Anne. "Should You Let Your Kids Listen to Rap Music?" Latest and Greatest from Chicagoans. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
My group had a long discussion about this topic because the answers that these kids provided were pretty much directly related to their parents thoughts on race or where they grew up. The video also went on to ask kids if it would be ok for a black female to bring a white kid home to their parents and of it was ok for a white boy to bring a black girl home as well. There seemed to be a double standard on the matter which isn't fair to the kids who have this mindset that is drilled into their brains by their parents. For me personally I don't think it would matter too much if I brought a black female over to my house or had dated one but that's just because I wasn't raised in that racist of a household. For the music industry I think it is a little different, like my parents didn't like me listening to rap when I was a kid and that was pretty much the same for all my friends at the time. In an article I found it talks about the positive and negative side of letting kids listen to rap. The negative side obviously had more to say like there is "profanity, violence and references to sex. At times it objectifies women to a very degrading degree. And it can glamorize the “gangster” lifestyle of glitz, sex and drugs"(Kiplinger). Which is probably the reason my parents didn't want me listening to it when I was little.
To sum it all up, kids perspective on race is based mostly upon what household they grew up in or how their parents view racism. it showed in the video that the black kids didn't think anything of what they saw in the picture but the white kids figured the black standing over the white kid was being bullied. It is just how they were raised and racism is still a huge part of today's society and it starts with the kids. If parents can train their kids to think and do the right thing about race it will make this world a much better place to live in.
Works Cited
D'Addario, Daniel. "Pop Music’s Race Problem: How White Artists Profit from Mocking Hip-hop." Saloncom RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
Kiplinger, Anne. "Should You Let Your Kids Listen to Rap Music?" Latest and Greatest from Chicagoans. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.
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