Yesterday’s NY Times played the race card with an article on, well… black people who like indie rock. Or make indie rock. Or, um, skateboard. Cause white people totally do that! Idolator already has some choice comments about this strange piece (correctly pointing out that UrbanDictionary.com is a kind of lazy source, even for the Gray Lady), and some bloggers and journos have taken exception to the Times‘ unironic use of the term “blipster” (as in, “black hipster”). Some other blogs point out that blacks didn’t just saunter away from rock music because they felt like rapping (see Colonel K’s blog entry here).
Hmmm. I’m sympathetic to any attempt at unraveling the racial basis underpinning so much of how we define and categorize music, and, er, “lifestyle,” but this article doesn’t even try. Can we have some statistics of black artists on white radio? Racial makeup of hip-hop buyers? History of Billboard charts? Ultimately, if you ask how many black people make rock music, you have to define rock music. Oops. You end up back where you started: it’s white people music! Turns out the question reveals more than the answer, with the very terms being discussed laden with decades of racial bias. With racism so entrenched, and so many other factors at play (howabout girls who like boy music! Straight people who dance to Scissor Sisters!) it seems like the subject needs a little more attention and care than this lazy, condescending article gives it.
What’s the deal with the Times and cultural, specifically current music, coverage? Despite an occasionally amusing piece that comes out of nowhere, they just don’t seem to have any idea what’s going on, and so they end up trying to overcompensate, and we get these vague articles about perceived cultural trends that just end up being offensive. Too bad.
