Only one type of thought is allowed in the art world, and it’s leftist thought. Here, the participants in the discussion who dare to be different are Coleman Hughes and Ayishat Akanbi. I’ve linked to Hughes many times before (see this), but Ayishat Akanbi is new to me. She’s a Nigerian-British fashion stylist.
I’ve cued up the part where they discuss people clandestinely reaching out to them and expressing secret agreement:
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Nineteen years is a long time. And yet sometimes September 11, 2001 seems like a century ago.
I date that day as the day I woke up politically, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Nor did I realize that previously I’d been asleep. But I think that many of us were shocked that day into something that ultimately led us to a different sensibility. I think a lot of us have ended up facing grim truths that were present back then but somewhat hidden. I hope we don’t have to face too many more, but I fear we may.
On 9/11 we were attacked from without. That may happen again, but at the moment the attacks come mainly from within. I say “mainly,” because some of the funding and some of the impetus for the leftism and anarchism and sheer nihilism we see today is foreign, but much of it has been carefully nurtured for many decades in our own universities and other institutions. To see the Democratic Party and MSM so utterly complicit with it; to see their campaign so focused on hatred of Trump, the right, and even America; and to watch them all pretend that the geriatric, now-somewhat-addled but always corrupt and mediocre career politician Joe Biden is a worthy candidate, is the sort of thing I could not have imagined in 2001.
And yet here we are, nineteen years later.
On this anniversary, let us remember the bravery and sacrifice of that day, and say RIP to them all. And let us try to go forward with the resolve that this country and its people continue to “nobly save…the last best hope on earth.”
…in normalizing relations with Israel.
You’ll be hearing other countries coming in over a relatively short period of time. And you could have peace in the Middle East.
I think that last sentence is hyperbole, but it’s a hyperbole for which I totally forgive him. These are big developments, even though it’s been clear for a while that, de facto, these states have been getting friendlier to Israel.
Hey, do you think Obama/Biden will take credit, saying that this is really a result of their cozying up to Iran and enabling it, thus forcing the Arab Gulf States to get closer to Israel in response to the threat?
I also believe that much of the Arab world is heartily sick of the Palestinians. Actually, that’s been true of much of the Arab world for a long, long time, and with good reason (see this and this, for example).
The Palestinians are not happy (the article appeared yesterday and is entitled “Palestinians: ‘Our Arab brothers have abandoned us'”):
Palestinians have reacted with outrage and deep disappointment to the Arab League’s refusal to condemn the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The refusal of the Arab League foreign ministers to endorse a Palestinian draft resolution against the Israel-UAE agreement will pave the way for other Arab states to establish relations with Israel, Palestinian officials cautioned.
Indeed – although the refusal was probably the result of other Arab states’ decision to establish relations with Israel rather than the cause.
The “Arab brothers have abandoned the Palestinian issue at a time when the entire world is supporting it,” PLO Executive Committee member Ahmed Majdalani said.
Well, not the entire world. But Palestinian propaganda plus anti-Semitism has been so effective in so much of the world that the statement is nearly true. I would say at this point that Europe is more anti-Israel than the Arab Gulf States. And the same is true of the left in the US.
This sums it up, I think:
…Mohannad Aklouk, the Palestinian envoy to the Arab League, wrote, “[The Palestinians] have dignity, martyrs, prisoners and refugee camps of glory, and this is enough for us.”
Some glory. I guess their sorry history of destruction – and it quite prominently includes self-destruction – is what they are clinging to now.
Of course, if Trump is defeated in November, I believe all of this will be reversed and we’ll be back kissing up to Iran.
You all know the story. But this will rip your heart out anyway. It’s half documentary – with interviews with the families of some of the passengers – and half re-enactment.
Remember.
Here’s an article that attempts to answer that question:
The notion that the 2020 campaign is a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency has been a persistent storyline of this year’s campaign coverage. And properly so. A strong correlation exists between Americans’ approval of Trump’s presidency and whether they plan to vote for him.
But there’s a second-level storyline that’s often missing in the analysis, and it extends back two decades, the time at which wide swings in voter support disappeared during presidential general elections. It’s the story of party polarization, which began in the 1980s and was firmly in place by the early 2000s. It was marked by a widening of the partisan gap but also a strengthening of partisanship and antipathy toward the opposing party.
The hostility that many partisans have for the other party is a larger driver of the vote than might be assumed. Party identification was once the best predictor of how people would vote on election day — Democrats lining up behind their party’s candidate and Republicans backing their party’s nominee. But party identification no longer has that distinction. When Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster examined post-1990s elections, they found that “ratings of the opposing party were by far the strongest predictor” of vote choice. “The greatest concern of party supporters,” they write, “is preventing the opposing party from gaining power.”
Nothing surprising there.
But I get annoyed when people write in generalities such as “party polarization” and “partisanship.” It’s not that such words are incorrect, but I think they are screen words that smooth over what actually has happened.
It’s actually pretty simple, I think. One driver of this “polarization” is the fact that the press has become more transparent and nasty in its bias, which revs up those who tend to be on the left and further infuriates and frustrates those who tend to be on the right. That drives people who might otherwise be “undecided” into one camp or another. The same is true – and perhaps even more true – of the effect of social media, an amplifying echo chamber.
In addition, years ago there really were not all that many differences between the parties, except in certain years – Goldwater vs. LBJ, for example (and recall that Goldwater was considered to offer the stark contrast of “a choice, not an echo” back in the days when candidates mostly were echoes of one another). Now the differences are intense and obvious. It is far more difficult to remain undecided in that sort of situation, when so much appears to be riding on the choice the voter makes.
I think those who are still undecided at this point fall into two categories. The first is composed of people who have mostly tuned out politics – the LIVs – and who ordinarily vote not at all or on a last-minute whim. The second is made of people who might pay a lot of attention but who have an “a pox on both your houses” attitude towards both parties. Ordinarily, that carries over into antipathy to both nominees, as well, but Trump has attracted some of them because Trump is definitely something different in that regard.
I don’t know anyone who’s undecided at this point. Do you?
…if the award still meant what it should mean, that is.
He deserves one prize for this:
President Trump’s Israel-United Arab Emirates diplomatic breakthrough continues rippling out across the world.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain both announced Wednesday they will now allow flights from Israel to use their airspace en route to other destinations, according to the Times of Israel…
In Abu Dhabi, the UAE is following up on the deal by ordering hotels to serve kosher foods, according to Fox News…
The Palestinians have been trying to drum up opposition to the deal since its announcement but have gained no traction. The most it has been able to accomplish so far is to praise other Gulf states that have not followed UAE’s lead in normalizing relations with Israel. But Bahrain is already reportedly in “advanced talks” to normalize its relations with Israel. Oman may follow suit.
And the second prize for this:
On Sept. 4, the Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signed an agreement committing the two Balkan states to reach a mutually beneficial and permanent economic and trade normalization deal. The Trump administration brokered the agreement and hosted the signing ceremony in Washington.
No, it’s not a peace treaty between Serbia and Kosovo; it’s an agreement to reach a deal. But the positive small step that makes possible larger steps is proving to be a trademark Donald Trump diplomatic and peace-making technique. Trump emphasizes economic progress that diminishes the negative effects of divisive ethnic, religious and cultural differences, and neuters destructive historical grievances as the harmful excuses for hate they are. Trump sees economic development that everyone can see sets the stage for the resolution of seemingly permanent political disputes.
This may seem as though it’s just common sense, like so many of Trump’s policies. But in the world of diplomacy, common sense is so uncommon as to be nearly extinct. And yet it can accomplish wonderful things. I certainly hope so.
And an Norwegian official actually did nominate Trump for the Prize. No, it wasn’t a joke – it was for real:
“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde, a four-term member of Parliament who also serves as chairman of the Norwegian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, told Fox News in an exclusive interview…
Also cited in the letter was the president’s “key role in facilitating contact between conflicting parties and … creating new dynamics in other protracted conflicts, such as the Kashmir border dispute between India and Pakistan, and the conflict between North and South Korea, as well as dealing with the nuclear capabilities of North Korea.”
Tybring-Gjedde, further, praised Trump for withdrawing a large number of troops from the Middle East. “Indeed, Trump has broken a 39-year-old streak of American Presidents either starting a war or bringing the United States into an international armed conflict. The last president to avoid doing so was Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter,” he wrote.
The same man nominated Trump in 2018. Trump did not win, and I will go out on a very stout limb and say he will again not win.
So, who is Tybring-Gjedde? He’s described as a populist conservative (or what passes for that in Norway), but he adds:
“I’m not a big Trump supporter,” he said. “The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts – not on the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”
Indeed, Obama got the Prize for just being Obama and getting elected. That was very early in his presidency. Later, the things he did regarding foreign policy were not “nothing,” however. For the most part, they were awful.
Bob Woodward’s been riding on Watergate for nearly fifty years. He’s the author of the latest effort to make the public turn on Trump – that portion of the public that hasn’t already done so, that is.
I would imagine that unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately, you are aware of some of the charges. I’m not going to go into them here; others have done so quite adequately, in my opinion (see this, this, and this, for example).
But this quote in particular caught my eye. Does the left think this exchange reflects badly on Trump?:
When Mr. Woodward pointed out that both he and Mr. Trump were “white, privileged,” and asked if Mr. Trump could see that they both have to “work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain, particularly, Black people feel in this country,” Mr. Trump replied, “No,” and added, “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”
As someone in the comments section to that thread at Althouse wrote:
That, right there, is sufficient reason to vote for Trump.
I wonder sometimes how it is that everyone doesn’t see the transparency of these hit pieces coming like clockwork, based on what Trump’s enemies are saying and writing, or on manufactured outrage at what Trump actually may have said (or some twisted version of it). And in many instances, what he’s actually saying is just the common sense sort of things that most people are thinking.
Trump is a blunt man, and many people find that awful but at least as many find it refreshing.
It’s almost as complicated as the Nuremberg Laws. Please take a look:
To be eligible for best picture, a film must meet at least two standards across four categories: “Onscreen Representation, Themes and Narratives,” “Creative Leadership and Project Team,” “Industry Access and Opportunities” and “Audience Development.” Within each category are a variety of criteria involving the inclusion of people in underrepresented groups, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and those with cognitive or physical disabilities. (Other Oscar categories will not be held to these same standards, but the contenders for best picture typically filter down to other feature-length categories.)…
The new standards will not go into effect until the 96th Oscars in 2024. But at a time of racial reckoning both for Hollywood and the nation as a whole, the academy believes the requirements provide a road map for how the industry can ensure that at least those films that compete for its highest honor reflect the diversity of the moviegoing audience and the wider world.
Sure, that’s why people go to the movies – to see them “reflect the diversity of the moviegoing audience and the wider world” in a “time of racial reckoning.” And here I thought it was escape, entertainment, or even to be moved by something (although that’s the aim of fewer and fewer movies, it still happens now and then). I haven’t gone to the movies for years except on extremely rare occasions, and I rarely even rent or stream a movie that was made more recently than twenty years ago. But the people who do go to the movies aren’t going for those reasons, I can almost guarantee.
And yet Hollywood has become obsessed with this. It goes almost without saying – but I’ll say it anyway – that this is a combination of abject virtue-signaling and fear of being called racist or homophobic or transphobic.
A sample of the actual standards:
For the 96th Oscars (2024), a film must meet TWO out of FOUR of the following standards to be deemed eligible:
STANDARD A: ON-SCREEN REPRESENTATION, THEMES AND NARRATIVES
To achieve Standard A, the film must meet ONE of the following criteria:A1. Lead or significant supporting actors
At least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors is from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group.
• Asian
• Hispanic/Latinx
• Black/African American
• Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native
• Middle Eastern/North African
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
• Other underrepresented race or ethnicityA2. General ensemble cast
At least 30% of all actors in secondary and more minor roles are from at least two of the following underrepresented groups:
• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearingA3. Main storyline/subject matter
The main storyline(s), theme or narrative of the film is centered on an underrepresented group(s).
• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearingSTANDARD B: CREATIVE LEADERSHIP AND PROJECT TEAM
To achieve Standard B, the film must meet ONE of the criteria below:B1. Creative leadership and department heads
At least two of the following creative leadership positions and department heads—Casting Director, Cinematographer, Composer, Costume Designer, Director, Editor, Hairstylist, Makeup Artist, Producer, Production Designer, Set Decorator, Sound, VFX Supervisor, Writer—are from the following underrepresented groups:
• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearingAt least one of those positions must belong to the following underrepresented racial or ethnic group:
• Asian
• Hispanic/Latinx
• Black/African American
• Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native
• Middle Eastern/North African
• Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
• Other underrepresented race or ethnicityB2. Other key roles
At least six other crew/team and technical positions (excluding Production Assistants) are from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. These positions include but are not limited to First AD, Gaffer, Script Supervisor, etc….
It goes on – and on and on – with much more. But I think you get the idea. I note with interest that having “women” as a main storyline, theme, or narrative of a film is considered to fulfill at least one of the inclusion criteria. I had no idea there was such a dearth of chick flicks that we needed affirmative action to ensure that we have more.
What a travesty. Jobs by identity group numbers – the future of America, if the left has its way. Note also that California will be voting this November on Proposition 16, which would allow the state to discriminate in employment based on race:
Proposition 16 is a constitutional amendment that would repeal Proposition 209, passed in 1996, from the California Constitution. Proposition 209 stated that discrimination and preferential treatment were prohibited in public employment, public education, and public contracting on account of a person’s or group’s race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Therefore, Proposition 209 banned the use of affirmative action involving race-based or sex-based preferences in California.
I don’t believe any of that would affect the movie industry, since it is not public employment, public education, or public contracting. But it is an indication of the determination on the part of the left to make race-based preferential quotas the law of the land, both de facto and de jure.
I didn’t leave the movies, the movies left me – a long time ago. But hiring people by the numbers is just another way for them to hurt themselves.
From William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:
…Trump’s move [to end Critical Race training in federal agencies] is viewed as a mortal threat by the CRT movement. One of the leading academics on CRT, UCLA and Columbia law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, certainly is worried. Crenshaw, my former law school classmate who invented the term and ideology of intersectionality, tweeted in desperation that she wondered if CRT’s allies would come to their assistance:
“So woke up to the news that CRT is banned as the greatest threat to Western Civilization. This is McCarthyism 101. I’ve often wondered what our allies would do when they came for us. Now we’ll see.”
Cutting off funding is the same as being jailed. Oh, yeah.
But hyperbole is the coin of the leftist realm. Trump hasn’t banned CRT. Nor do I recall that he, in connection with this nonexistent banning, called it “the greatest threat to Western Civilization.” However, it actually is a threat to Western Civilization and its basic principles, as well as a device to stir up racial enmity rather than damp it down.
What is most arresting about critical race theory is that…it turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative. Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories – fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal – designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today.
Critical race theory started in the law schools, and although it was somewhat after my sojourn there, I followed it with alarm. Like so many things that begin in academia, it has spread to an astounding degree throughout our institutions, including those of the federal government. Why should the government pay for the rope that will hang it – and yes, undermine the tenets of Western Civilization?
Crenshaw’s tweet is childish and self-pitying. But that’s typical of Twitter; it encourages that sort of thing in people. Lawyers know how to be precise in their use of words, so I’m going to assume that law professor Crenshaw’s misstatements and hyperbole are knowing and deliberate, an act of demagoguery. She sees herself as a victim, although this poisonous ideology has not only had a free ride for decades, but has been the recipient of handsome financial rewards.
In this context, commenter John Tyler mentions Orwell’s famous quote: “There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language.” That is something Orwell learned through his exposure to the left, and a great deal of his masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four was devoted to an exploration of the way language is used by the left to shape thought as well as censor it, and to not only hide the truth but to make people believe the opposite of the truth. That is the left today.
The left has also been screaming “McCarthy” at the right for many decades in response to any attempt on the part of the right to fight back against the left’s Gramscian march. That’s one of many reasons why that march has been so successful. Once any fight against it was demonized as “McCarthyism,” many people on the right have been intimidated into passivity. Trump, of course, could not care less, and will not be passive. That’s just one of the myriad reasons the left (and the NeverTrumpers) hate him.
This is an interesting moment in time, to say the least. If Trump had come out with this directive a year ago, for example, the public might have less understanding of the nature of CRT and the seriousness of its revolutionary intent and its propensity to ignite race war. Now as a result of the riots and the greater popularity of the anti-racism movement (another Orwellian designation) the public has been at least somewhat alerted.
Is it aware enough? I doubt it. But Trump himself is now aware.
The left feels itself wounded after a long period in the ascendancy. Recently it has laid more of its destructive and nihilist cards on the table, and now there is really no reason for the left to hold back on any and all tactics to get what it wants – which is the entrenchment of its power in ways that will be difficult or impossible to reverse. Trump and his deplorables represent a mortal threat, and the left recognizes it.
NOTE: Last night, Tucker Carlson did a piece on Critical Race Theory. Well worth a look:
He’s running for Congress. This should jog your memory. Good guy, good ad:
Oregon is burning, I will put out the Flames.
My opponent, who lives on a Yacht in DC, has done nothing in his 33 year career.
I fought for what’s right around the globe, and it’s time to send a Fighter to Congress to fight for what’s right here at homehttps://t.co/1m1GzhRwBk pic.twitter.com/sjyHZF4AHe
— Alek Skarlatos (@alekskarlatos) September 8, 2020
Who can blame them? Another foreseeable result of treating police like dirt while simultaneously making it difficult if not impossible to do their jobs, and exposing them to great risk:
Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary said in a statement that he was honored to serve the city in upstate New York for 20 years and commended his staff. However, he said the protests and criticism of his handling of the investigation into the March 23 incident “are an attempt to destroy my character and integrity.”
The police chief is black, by the way. But his black life doesn’t matter, because it’s blue.
His retirement will be effective Sept. 29, according to Rochester City Council President Loretta Scott. Scott told ABC News as of now there is no blueprint for how the city moves forward following the retirements of the command staff.
Of course not. Their only blueprint is to let chaos reign.
It’s all supposedly over the death of Daniel Prude. Here’s what the Prude family lawyer – who for a change isn’t Ben Crump – had to say:
Antonio Romanucci, the attorney representing Prude’s children, called Singletary’s departure “an important and necessary step to healing and meaningful reform in the community.”
“Clearly, the conduct of the officers in Mr. Prude’s case was inhumane, and the subsequent cover-up was unacceptable,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to securing justice for Mr. Prude and to having Rochester leaders do the hard work needed to address issues of systemic racism and training protocols in the police department.”
Sure. The black police chief is racist. A police force that is 25% black (and trying for a higher percentage but having trouble getting black people to apply) is racist. That’s the beauty of throwing in that word “systemic,” because it’s something that’s just there even for black officers. Like the ether.
More from the mayor’s rush to judgment:
“Mr. (Daniel) Prude lost his life in our city. He lost his life because of the actions of our police officers,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren [also black] said Thursday in a news conference…
Warren said some of the officers who were suspended appear on the body camera footage and others “had a duty to stop what was happening.” They are being suspended with pay “against the advice of counsel,” she said…
Prude was failed by many officials before and during the March 23 incident, the mayor said. He would have been treated different if he was White, she said.
“Institutional structural racism led to Daniel Prude’s death. I won’t deny it. I stand before it and I call for justice upon it,” Warren said.
I guess she wants Rochester to commit suicide, too. Is it even necessary to say that her statement that a white person would be treated differently has exactly zero evidence behind it?
And how did Prude really die? This way [emphasis mine]:
Prude, 41, was having a mental health episode on March 23 when his brother Joe called the Rochester Police Department for help, the family said at a press conference Wednesday.
The video provided by attorneys shows officers handcuff Prude, who was naked, in the middle of a snowy wet street, and place a covering over his head.
Several minutes later, EMTs arrive and begin to perform chest compressions, the video shows. He is then placed on a gurney and into an ambulance.
When Prude arrived at the hospital, he was brain dead, his brother said. He died a week later.
His death was ruled a homicide by the Monroe County Medical examiner, according to a copy of the autopsy report obtained by lawyers for his family. The report cites complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint as a finding. The report also cites excited delirium and acute PCP intoxication as causes of death.…
Joe Prude told police that his brother had made suicidal threats earlier in the day and had been taken into custody on a Mental Health Arrest, or MHA.
Additionally, a witness took a Facebook Live video showing Prude undressing and defecating in the street. And a tow truck driver called police to report a naked, bloodied man trying to open a locked car door, the documents provided to CNN say.
The video begins at 3:16 a.m. with Prude naked on a wet street as a light snow falls…
[During the wait for the EMTs to arrive, presumably after having been called] He yells that he has coronavirus and spits in their direction.
Three minutes after the incident begins, one officer puts a spit sock — which is designed to keep a person from spitting or biting — over Prude’s head.
Prude appears to try to stand at approximately 3:20 a.m., and three officers move in to restrain him and hold him to the ground.
He appears to stop breathing not long after that, and they call the EMTs who instruct them in chest compressions.
I literally cannot imagine anything better that they could have done differently under the circumstances. And obviously, the hood is designed to be used this way. They had to protect him and themselves, and they did their best to do so. But now they are being accused in the way we have come to expect every time these things happen.
Facts don’t matter any more, though. They certainly don’t matter to the mayor of Rochester or so many other mayors in blue cities. But there are other facts, too – riots, destruction, and loss of whatever tax base a city like Rochester (which has been the site of past riots and has been messed up for decades) has managed to maintain so far.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Mayor Warren. Once the video was in the public domain, the match was probably already tossed into the oxygenated room. She had a choice: to throw the police under the bus or defend them, and defending them might have caused even more rioting, I suppose.
But at least she would have had the police on her side. Now she and the City Council are alone in this, and the crocodile is likely to eat them, too.
If you want to read evidence of the republic’s further slide into “Idiocracy”-squared, please see this.
We’ve come a long way, baby, and it’s not in the right direction. I can’t say I’ve paid special attention to the lyrics of Cardi B’s previous oeuvre, but her recent interview with Joe Biden and the reaction to it made me take a deeper look (see the above link for what I’m talking about).
Her recent hit is called WAP. I’m not going to translate, but I’ll just say it’s not about wanting to hold your hand. It’s not just vulgar, it’s filthy, degrading, disgusting – the sort of thing you get in your spam email where the title is purposely misspelled in an attempt to evade the filter and lead you to a porno site.
I think Biden’s handlers decided that an interview with Cardi B would be just the thing because of her enormous popularity, which is hard to overestimate:
Recognized by Forbes as one of the most influential female rappers of all time, Cardi B is known for her aggressive flow and candid lyrics, which have received widespread media coverage. She is the highest-certified female rapper of all time on the RIAA’s Top Artists (Digital Singles) ranking, also appearing among the ten highest-certified female artists and having the top certified song by a female rap artist. She is the only female rapper with multiple billion-streamers on Spotify. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, seven Billboard Music Awards, five Guinness World Records, four American Music Awards, eleven BET Hip Hop Awards and two ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. In 2018, Time included her on their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cardi B has further been credited for supporting and uniting female rappers in the music industry.
The song WAP was praised for its “sex-positive” message. I suppose you could say it’s positive about sex in the same sense that any porn that is devoid of affection or love and that deals with the totally physical side of things is “sex-postive.” Those who like the song seem to think it’s just fabulous that now women are singing about sex in the same debased way male rappers have been singing about it for ages.
That’s progress, folks. Women are now free to be just as gross as men at their worst. What is especially destructive is that the market for this is teenagers. Maybe even children, for all I know. It’s probably not pitched for them, but what’s to stop them from seeing it, except hyper vigilant parents?
In an interview with Australian breakfast radio show presenters Kyle and Jackie O, Cardi, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, has spoken out about the backlash – and it’s fair to say she isn’t too concerned.
“The people that the song bothers are usually, like, conservatives or really religious, big religious people,” the star said.
Gee, what a surprise!
More:
“But my thing is that… I grew up listening to this type of music, so other people might [think it’s] strange and vulgar but to me it’s like, really normal.”
Cardi B was born in 1992, so I suppose that’s the case. Another depressing thought.
Cardi, who has a two-year-old daughter with rapper Offset, continued: “It’s like no, of course I don’t want my child to listen to this song and everything, but it’s like… it’s for adults!”
Yes, you can put blocks on the computer, but not everyone does that, and kids know other kids with access to all sorts of forbidden things. You, Cardi B, have put this out in the world and you are responsible for it. It’s not just children who are harmed by it.
But here’s her rationalization, which I think is interesting:
The rapper said the song must be doing something right, saying “it’s what people want to hear”.
She added: “Because if people didn’t want to hear it, if they were so afraid to hear it, it wouldn’t be doing as good.”
So feeding the worst aspects of human nature means you’re doing something right. I guess you are, if you measure such things in terms of your income and fame.
And I think this final sentence of the interview is humorous, in a bitter way, considering who is speaking:
“I have a whole list of things that I want our next president to do for us,” she said. “But first, I just want Trump out. His mouth gets us in trouble so much.”
[NOTE: Speaking of “greatest hit,” there’s this:
…[W]ith 93 million, the streaming sum for “WAP” is the greatest ever for a song in its first week of release.
That’s where we’re at. The sexual revolution, feminism, family decline, the hookup culture – I could go on and on, but you get the picture.]