About a week ago, I bought my preschooler a Happy Meal at McDonald's. The new toy is a Kidz Bop music CD. Cool! Something we might actually use and not throw out. Genius. For those of you who don't know Kidz Bop, it is pop music with the questionable lyrics taken out, replaced by acceptable ones and sung by kids. It is supposed to allow your kids to listen to popular music without the junk. It's a brilliant idea. All kids love pop music, but most parents don't want them listening to it because of the cultural rot. Answer? Kidz Bop. Well, until now. After allowing my daughter to listen to it at least 5 times before I paid attention to the lyrics, I caught one line that made me sit up and gasp. "I'm known in the ghetto....welcome to the slums."I've dissected the lyrics for you that are on the CD in the Happy Meal. (It's disc number 1, song one, "Take You There")
we can go to the tropics,
we can party in the sun,
chill and have fun,
shorty i can take you there
we can take a trip to the hood
it's no problem girl it's my city
I can take you there...
so just roll with me in a hurry
I can show you where
as long as you're with me baby
you'll be alright
i'm known in the ghetto
just stay by my side
or we can leave the slums
go to paradise, babe it's up to you
shorty come wit'me there's no worry
you come by my place
you can have your friends come with you
it'll be okay
don't be scared of the West Indies
It's Jamaica where i'm from
if you see something you're not used to
welcome to the slums!
What?????
Here's the best part. I called McDonald's corporate office today in Oak Brook, IL (1-800-244-6227, EMAIL here) to voice my concern about the glamorization of the crime-infested, drug infested ghetto to our unsuspecting children (whether in Jamaica or here, it doesn't matter. A ghetto is a ghetto is a ghetto.) The customer service agent I was transferred to was, quite obviously, a black man. Don't everybody gasp at once. I'm saying it because it is what it is and it's relevant. If any of you want to cry RAAAAAACIST because I can discern a "black accent" when I hear one, then I will call you a liar for claiming not to hear our different dialects. We've all been schooled in "Ebonics" have we not?
Fo' shizzle.
So I told this gentleman my concern that the lyrics of this particular song glamorize the ghetto and the slums and that it is inappropriate for children to start fantasizing about going to a place that is riddled with crime, violence and drugs. The customer service agent started arguing with me. A big mistake. Instead of writing down my concern and sharing it with his supervisors he told me that it was a good song and didn't mean anything except that the singer is telling his girlfriend about where he comes from and that I didn't understand the ghetto. I assured the rep that living in Chicago (quite near a ghetto and at times actually in one) that I know exactly what a ghetto is and I don't want my children to go there! Ever heard of Cabrini Green? Well, I've been there. Many times. Long story. Don't ask. It's not a nice place. It's not a safe place. It isn't a place that even the residents would stay in if they didn't have to. It was so bad that most of it has been torn down now because of the horrible crime and desperation that comes with slums of all kinds. So I said this to the rep and he said, "You're stereotyping."
This is what political correctness has done for us. We are no longer allowed to call blue, blue, if it could be considered "stereotyping" (which is just another word for RAAAAAAACIST) we aren't allowed to say it...even if it's true. Folks, I'm here to tell you a truth right now. The ghetto is a bad place. It's a dangerous place, full of crime, drugs and horror. Are there people there who live decent lives? Yes. If they could live anywhere in the world, would they pick that slum? You answer that one.
And more importantly, do you want your daughter going to a ghetto with a boy from the hood who can "protect" her? You know what that means...he's connected. He's in a gang. So what we have here is McDonald's encouraging your daughters to date gang-bangers. I don't care what color you are, but if you're in a gang and are "known in the ghetto", stay the hell away from my daughters. You won't be taking them anywhere. But McDonald's thinks it's responsible to paint rosy pictures of slums and ghettos in your preschoolers' heads. Or maybe we should blame Kidz Bop...but McDonald's should have listened to the music before mass distributing it to millions of children.
I researched the song and found the actual lyrics too. They are below. Clearly, even the artist knows how bad the ghetto is. He tells us in the lyrics that "killas get hung" and "gunshots" are fired...how good could that be? But according to the "customer service" rep at McDonald's, I don't know what a ghetto is and it's just another name for a neighborhood. Yeah, okay. Why does this remind me of Global Warming vs. Climate Change? We'll just call it something else so no one notices the stink. Good plan. After asking to be transferred to his supervisor (and getting left on hold indefinitely) I hung up, called back and got an actual supervisor who understood her job, agreed with me that those lyrics are clearly disturbing and promised to get my complaint to the marketing department.
I really want to move past all this racial tension baloney. But as long as there are people out there more interested in defending cultural idiocy than they are in the truth, then we will always be divided. Just keep on making excuses for your ghettos and your slums and see how far that gets you. Keep protecting the gang-bangers and glamorizing the drug dealers and see if it protects you from the stray bullets. Keep buying the records made by criminals and misogynists and allowing your little children to have those values imprinted on their brains. Keep devaluing education in your home keep staying away from parent's nights at school. Keep doing these things and it will never change. Everybody wants change CHANGE CHANGE...but no one is willing to make changes in their own lives to stop this insanity called "culture". Really, who is proud of the gang culture? Who is proud of young men who want bullet scars? Of neighborhoods too dangerous to walk in at night? What is wrong with this country? All I know is, while I'm still free to say it, I'm saying it. IT'S WRONG AND IT'S KILLING A GENERATION. We are losing millions of kids to gangs and violence and drugs and all you people can worry about is "STEREOTYPING!"
You know what the kicker about a stereotype is? It's usually true. Ask me how many Irishmen I know who like to tie one on and sing in bars (Maureen, I'm talking about you), or how many blondes I know who can be ditsy (okay, that's me), or the Polish folks I know who put way too many chochkys on their lawns, or the Italians I know with inflated macho egos, or the black folks I know who like fried chicken and bbq, and don't forget the rednecks I know who have gun racks in their trucks and use the exclamation, "yeehaw!".
Don't tell me that a "ghetto" isn't a dangerous, poverty-stricken, crime-infested slum. I've seen them with my own eyes. But liberals insist that you ignore your own eyesight, like when Obama bowed to the Saudi King I was supposed to believe he was simply bending over to talk to him face to face....not bowing and scraping before a brutal dictator even though there is photographic evidence. They insist that you ignore what is plainly before you and accept their explanations of victimhood and slave-mentality and disenfranchisement, colonialism and big bad whitey being the source and cause of every law-breaking minority.
My grandmother happens to be an ex-British citizen, born and raised in Jamaica until the age of 17 when she married an American and became one herself. I asked her if the ghettos and slums in Jamaica are somehow different than the ones we have here, just in case I could be wrong. She confirmed they are even worse. Ruled by the kings of the machete they are killing fields. Most of my family has fled Jamaica because the violence and crime is so bad and my Grandmother stopped visiting her birthplace years ago for the same reason. All fear the machete. Here's a recent blurb from the AP wire about Jamaican slums printed yesterday.
| |
Jamaican police say street gang members tossed gasoline bombs into houses in a troubled area of the island's capital, setting them ablaze and killing an elderly woman. About 30 people are now homeless. Police Superintendent Altimorth Powell says four masked gunmen randomly fired shots in the Grants Pen community of north Kingston early Tuesday and then set fire to several ramshackle homes. He says the body of Beatrice Campbell, 85, was recovered in one of the charred buildings.
There have been no arrests.
Gang violence is a regular occurrence in Kingston's slums.
Don't tell me a slum is not a slum and a ghetto is not a ghetto.
Take You There
by Sean Kingston
[Chorus]
We can go to the tropics
Sip piña coladas
Shorty I could take you there
Or we can go to the slums
Where killas get hung
Shorty I could take you there
You know I could take ya (I could take ya...)
I could take ya (I could take ya...)
Shorty I could take you there
You know I could take ya (I could take ya...)
I could take ya (I could take ya...)
Shorty I could take you there
Baby girl I know it's rough but come with me
We can take a trip to the hood
It's no problem girl it's my city
I could take you there
Little kid with guns only 15
Roam in the streets up to no good
When gun shots just watch us, run quickly
I could show you where
As long as you're with me
Baby you'll be alright
I'm known in the ghetto
Girl just stay by my side
Or we can leave the slums go to paradise
Baby it's up to you,
It's whatever you like
13 comments:
Omg people come on its a song. If you don't like it don't listen its that easy... no need to get all hysterical about it
But it's not "just a song". It's our entire culture. A culture that thinks it's okay to glamorize drugs, violence and poverty. A culture that says it's okay to glamorize behavior that will land you in jail or six feet under. It's more than just a song. It's an anthem for thuggery and it's infecting people. It's infecting education, our ability to teach, our ability to tell the truth...and much more. It's people like you who think it's "just a song" who deny deny deny until it's too late for the rest of us. I hope you wake up one day and rub the culture rot from your eyes.
Think deeper people.
I agree. When I was in highschool... I brought this CD to my friends house. Her parents saw the CD and asked to see the cover. They actually TOOK IT OUT in front of me and read the lyrics to the song. Then asked me to go home and come back when I did not have the CD anymore... I'll skip a lot of the story - but basically... when I went back to school, I was in my classroom one day and I went around to each student (it was an alternative school and EVERYBODY listened to music) and I asked for everybody's CD cases (when people actually bought CD's and listened to them on the CD player) and I was SHOCKED at what I was listening to. It wasn't until I looked into it more than I realized how much this "innocent music" with a great vibe shapes our thoughts, our character, opinions, etc. Now I am VERY SENSITIVE to songs and will listen to very select things. When I am out - I hear the words to a song and not just blindly not think while I listen to the melody. Do you know what we take in everyday???
M.Fox is right! So right.
To many who say "it's just a song, and it's no big deal", watch them change their tune if you throw an alluminum can in the trash and say it's no big deal. ; )
Hey, Anonymous...
The bell rang, time to get back to class.
Ben Kimbrell
Great post, Megan! I love the part about stereotyping. We are so politically correct now that we feel ashamed to say that anything is right or wrong. Including whether young girls should be taken into the "hood" for no other reason than to be there. My daughter will hang-out in the hood with some boy who can keep her safe over MY DEAD BODY - and I mean literally over my dead body.
Stephanie and I are helping a lady who this happened to. Her daughter felt safe for the first couple months hanging out with a boy from the 'hood'. Now that the daughter wants to move-on the monster is threatening her family with violence - and he has a history of violence to back up his claim - including gun violence. The family's house is watched by the police and they have installed a new security system. He comes from a family of crime and the police are trying to wait until he turns 18 (which is soon) to pick him up so he can be tried as an adult. Her other kids live in fear. It's the saddest thing. This is what happens when you play around in the ghetto culture and make it part of you. You become apart of it!
Hey Ben, you forgot to say that your daughter might possibly hang out in the ghetto with "The Church Man" doing good deeds. That's the only acceptable scenario.
(For those of you who don't know, Ben is a minister and he brings a lot of real hope and real change to the ghettos in his neighborhood through the redeeming power of Christ. God Bless Ben.)
Thank you for having the courage to talk about these issues that really matter to today's youth.
Ladydi well excuse me just because I think ifd someone hears a song dosent mean they are gonna end up like what the song says means I am uneducated right? Wrong I graduated high school. And went to college pre med to be exact. I probably have a better education than you. Which is how I know that listening to a certain type of music has nothing to do with who you are as a person. People have the right to listen to what they want. Like I said you don't like it then don't listen.
you do have a right to listen to what you want. but you also have a responsibility to yourself and your children to recognize that just because a certain music exists and sounds good, doesn't make it good for you or your soul. you may not think you have been affected by this kind of music, but the very fact that you can't see the rot in it proves that you have been infected and you don't even know it. it has taken your moral compass for a ride and now it's spinning. you have a hard time deciding what is right and what is wrong because everything is right...for somebody, right? that's called moral relativism. And that's where this will lead for everyone. And if you don't understand the danger of moral relativism, then you need to back to history class.
Ben
Wow, Megan, your article really hit a nerve with a lot of people.
We don't take our daughter to that neighborhood except on very rare occassions - only twice in almost two years. I think it's very important for her to see us helping people. However, she can see that when we take those people out of that neighborhood. We've decided to err on being safe. Our daughter is depending on us for her safety.
Meg, I too was shocked and apalled at the new "toy" being mass-distributed by McDonalds to our innocent children without any form of regard for said innocence! I played it on the way home from McDonalds the first time we got it (we have McDonalds Mondays at our house...after school treat) and didn't even make it into the neighborhood before I ejected it and threw it in the trash bin in the back seat! The lyrics of the song that pushed me over the edge were talking about how someone was lookin' good with their gold rings and their Mercedes. I for one am not going to help my children base a false sense of self-worth on their gold rings and Mercedes. Sick. These songs were completely inappropriate! I nicknamed my trashcan "spot", and I can say that these CDs really hit the spot!
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