Rap music deadly

I know that rap music is deadly to me and I will do almost anything to avoid it, but it seems that it is also a fairly risky business. On the periphery of my universe of interesting things lies the fact that a number of blacks in the rap music field wind up shot to death. Here is what a liberal editorial board editor from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (Cynthia Tucker) has to say on the subject. It is fair to mention that this could well be the only thing she and I will ever agree on.

In the last 12 months alone, several young black men linked to rap music have been killed in disputes stoked by a code of conduct that finds respect in retribution and mistakes slaughter for strength.

The deaths have received at least cursory news coverage, a tribute to the celebrity status of most of the subjects. But there have been no sharp denunciations of the violence from the black institutions that matter, no groundswell of anger or disgust on black college campuses, no marches or demonstrations led by self-appointed black leaders.

Had just one of these young men been killed by white police officers, the machinery of black protest would have revved into high gear, with press conferences, marches and demands for justice. The relatively muted response to the string of dead rappers — the suspected perpetrators are mostly other young black men — suggests that a dead black man matters most when his murder can be used as political propaganda.