Being Socially Sold Down the River

We've all been socially sold down the river by our friends because of their fear of social ostracism.

This is possibly felt most keenly in adolescence, though it can hurt at any age.

A friend with whom you shared your hopes dreams and vulnerabilities sometimes will turn on you when with others, acting like your expressions are stupid and laughable.

They do this because they are afraid of being laughed at and ridiculed by the group of people.

They sell you down the river emotionally in exchange for social safety and strength.

This can really hurt. (One consolation is that once these security seekers have sold out, they cannot possibly be too comfortable, knowing that there is no honor among the disloyal.)

I think that's where the callousness of rap and hip hop comes from.

True rappers (not counterfeit rappers, of which there are many) are afraid to make creations of great sensitivity and artistry because of their being a very inhospitable environment to such creations. Many of them come from hostile threatening environments, where displaying sensitivity and artistry can be physically dangerous, because it makes you look like a easy mark, a target.

They understandably disguise and morph their sensitive artistic emotional selves into the equivalent of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle or a Tornado Chaser (see left) in order to protect their inner selves, in the same way that porcupines evolved quills.

Where are the sensitive creative inner city individuals who see this situation for what it is, and decided not to sell their sensitive selves down the river for the hill of beans of gangsta recognition, who instead quietly and alone have created things of beauty and aesthetic utility? Where are the artists and creators who are hiding in their social turtle shells, waiting for the hostile environment to changes? I know they are out there.

It appears very clear to me that the hostile environment for music and other healthy open and innovative creations descended upon us around 1969 or 1970.

The music (I used this word advisedly) reflects this. Nihilism has been deified in punk and rap. Melody is not nearly as popular or applauded.

Rappers who clearly know better, and adopt a tough rap persona not out of an practical and understandable need to protect themselves in a physically hostile environment, but simply to cash in on an art form, and the lowest common denominator, are social maggots, and should be smeared on a rainy sidewalk with a workboot that is pivoting on the concrete, hard.

I find myself thinking of Eminem.

He doesn't have to spew that craps he pollutes the environment with. He doesn't have an excuse for what he does, unlike a true rapper from a physically and emotionally dangerous inner city environment does.

Don't let this clown Eminem fool you for a moment. He's a big put on. His real name is J. Marshall Mathers III, and he lives in a nice upper class suburb. He's the farthest thing from a real rapper.

He's a fraud, and he plays his fans like a fiddle. Don't buy into his crap.

He is a put-on, but far worse: He is intentionally fouling and poisoning our cultural atmosphere for money and recognition. Eminem is a coward who doesn't have the balls to be beautiful.
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