> My point is that I (and I presume many other folks) do not want be wooed by anything against my will, cultural expression of something or not.
Unfortunately, coming into contact with cultural expressions which are not to a person's taste is part of being in society. When I walk down NYC streets, there are Salvation Army bellringers (at Christmas), street preachers (especially the 10 percenters), all sorts of hawkers, and people playing various instruments. Subway rides can be equally adventurous. That is life. The world cannot be child-proofed just to suit one person's tastes and sensibilities.
> The asshole with the ghetto blaster does that, I dare to say, precisely because it violates other people's boundaries and privacy. It is an act of act of passive aggression that boosts his male ego.
Really? I know a lot of women who play music loudly. In fact, people have been playing music loudly from cars for years. Your idea strikes me more like a pop psychology theory devised to cover up repugnance for hip hop culture and the expression of that culture. Marching bands are loud too. Should we ban them as well?
> I've been to Africa and listen to the music that Africans make and listen to. I did not notice any similarity to the US-produced commercial music known as hip hop or rap.
As I posted earlier, it may be because you seem (to my mind at least) to have a very cursory knowledge of hip hop. The rhythms and techniques of hip hop come from Africa, through the Middle Passage and right on up to the present day. Hip hop is so different because it exists very much in the moment. Music is not being created to "stand the test of time" (a bourgeouis construction to create more revenue).
> One thing that make me tolerant of it, though, was the fair certainty that _my_kid will go to college and his infatuation with juvenile contumacy expressed in much of pop culture (especially punk and hip hop) will be soon forgotten.
Again, you seem to view hip hop culture as some expression of teenage rebellion when it is far more complex than that. You reduce hip hop to a simplistic notion and then dismiss that notion instead of actually enagaging with hip hop culture and what it is saying.
> I think it is a sad commentary on this society's inequalities, which the "let them have their culture" crowd seem to ignore.
There are many reasons that young African Americans do not go to college, but hip hop culture is not one of them (although this notion does serve the purpose of shifting blame from white oppressive culture to the victims of such oppression).
> I find particularly pathetic is a bunch of self-styled kultur-uber-alles progressives who see pop culture is the most important act of social protest and take no-so hidden pleasure when it pisses off the old white men.
I do not believe that I posted that I "see pop culture [as] the most important act of social protest." Again, you seem to be knocking people not for their conclusions, but conclusions you reach for them.
> It is pathetic because when the dust settles, these kids will be living in their noise... err cultural expression engulfed hood, whereas the pissed off white men will be even more inclined to live in communities where the boom-box carrying youth will be promptly arrested should they choose to show up there.
Again, let's be clear: white men are in gated communities not because they are pissed off, but because they are racist.
> If progressivism, radicalism, leftism etc. means that that I have to quietly consent to a bunch of kids blasting stuff in my face whether I want listen to it or not - you can keep your "ism." I am not buying.
Why do you think this is about you? I think that one of the big hurdles for white people to overcome is the notion that hip hop culture is about them. It isn't. There is a clothing line FUBU -- For Us, By Us. White people just have to get over themselves and their sense of self-importance.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister