Hearing what they don’t want you to see

Wednesday, October 15, 1997

Hearing what they don’t want you to see

CENSORSHIP Ban on rap music racist; The Bruin’s editorial misses
the mark

By Michelle Oberman

We in the Spartacus Youth Club (SYC), the revolutionary
socialist youth organization of the Spartacist League, are outraged
at the racist ban on rap music enforced in the dorms over the
summer. Students must condemn this assault on their rights and
denounce the racist ban.

Further, we vehemently protest the Daily Bruin editorial ("Hip
hop ban unconstitutional," Sept. 29) which complained only that the
ban didn’t go far enough, urging instead a wholesale ban on all
music considered "vulgar" – like Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan
show?

On principle, the Spartacus Youth Club stands in ardent
opposition to all forms of censorship by the campus administration
and the capitalist state which it serves. The ban on rap is a piece
of the broad-scale bipartisan offensive by the bourgeoisie against
youth and especially minority youth. It is part of the drive to
roll back all democratic rights and reinforce every backward,
racist, sexist, xenophobic prejudice in order to instill obedience
to a reactionary "New World Order" in which youth are served up as
cannon fodder for imperialist incursions like the Gulf War.

In its entire discussion of the ban, The Bruin purposefully
avoids uttering the words "racist" and "African American" – they
just can’t bring themselves to call this bigoted censorship what it
is.

In its essence, this ban has nothing to do with "offensive" song
lyrics, but plenty to do with race. The ban on rap comes, not
coincidentally, in the wake of Propositions 187 and 209, spearheads
of the bipartisan war on African Americans and immigrants; and in
the midst of growing segregation on campuses nationwide. The
destruction of affirmative action, combined with huge fee hikes and
elimination of outreach and recruitment programs, amounts to a
racist purge of the universities.

Not satisfied in its attempts to drive minorities, particularly
African Americans, off campus, the administration is now going
after anyone who dares to even listen to African American music.
And it particularly irks the racist, moralist bureaucrats that rap
is enjoyed by scores of white children.

A big part of rap’s popularity lies in its trenchant social
commentary. "Hard-core" rap speaks to the anger and frustrations of
youth who are targeted by cops "who think they have the authority
to kill a minority," as N.W.A. put it. Rap lyrics address the
miserable conditions of life for most African Americans and other
minorities under capitalism.

The attacks on affirmative action today signal that the ruling
class would rather not educate or employ another African American
person ever again. In today’s decaying capitalist economy, the
racist ruling class has no interest in educating youth whose labor
power they see as useless.

Lacking any leadership to point the way toward overthrowing the
real enemy — this system of racist capitalist exploitation – the
mounting despair and anger of minority youth is often misdirected
against other oppressed groups. There certainly is an ugly side to
rap music which reflects backward attitudes like anti-Semitism,
sexism, anti-gay prejudice and anti-immigrant racism which are the
noxious by-products of oppression. These poisonous "messages" can
only serve the oppressor by keeping the oppressed divided and
misled. Likewise, the widespread use of the word "nigger" by
rappers reflects a profound, if unconscious, demoralization.

But no matter how offensive and misguided people may find
particular songs, it is free speech. The Daily Bruin gushes
sentimentally about First Amendment rights, but instead of
denouncing censorship, The Bruin simply advises the housing
administration that they extend their ban to any and all music
deemed "offensive."

The members of the Spartacus Youth Club wonder, distrustfully,
just who would The Bruin anoint as the righteous guardians of
student morality? These same campus administrators that The Bruin
charges with assaulting students’ First Amendment rights? Or maybe
some group of student "hall monitors"? There’s nothing better than
having your rights treaded upon by your peers.

The administration’s toadies in The Bruin editorial offices
scratch their heads and ponder, why rap? Well, with African
American youth unemployment soaring over 50 percent in the rotting
inner cities, the state wants to crush any form of social,
political, sexual or artistic expression it deems "deviant" or
fears could ignite the social tinderbox.

Accompanying this systematic regimentation in all spheres of
life is brutal police repression, such as that meted out to
students whenever we dare to challenge the racist bourgeois law and
order – from the 1992 cop attacks on Chicano studies movement
demonstrators, to the 1994 attacks on Proposition 187 protesters,
to last year’s arrests of Proposition 209 protesters.

The SYC participated in Proposition 209 protests in defense of
affirmative action, raising our revolutionary program to fight for
open admissions, free tuition and a state-paid student stipend –
for student and worker control of universities and free, quality
education for all. The racist attacks on affirmative action
demonstrate that capitalism can never be fundamentally reformed,
but must be swept away – any reforms made are, at best, only
partial and temporary.

What the racist rulers fear most is integrated class struggle
like that demonstrated by young UPS workers in the recent Teamsters
strike. We in the SYC fight to ally students with the social power
of labor to forge a multiracial, revolutionary workers party that
fights for proletarian revolution to build a socialist egalitarian
society, doing away with racist bigotry once and for all. Finish
the civil war – for African American liberation through socialist
revolution.