The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #122570   Message #2690424
Posted By: M.Ted
30-Jul-09 - 01:55 PM
Thread Name: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
I might have called this thread "Music is NOT the Universal Language", because of the often extreme reaction people often have to styles of music that are foreign to them--

Music has always been one of principle activities that people share, and is a way that people identify themselves as a group. That makes it easy for people outside the group to identify them, too, and so musical genres can be easily identified with the racial/ethnic stereotypes--

It isn't socially acceptable for people to say, "I don't like African-Americans" anymore, but no one bats an eye if you say, "I hate Rap and Hip-Hop." And of course, when a song by Jennifer Lopez or Shakira comes on, and someone says, "They play way to much of that..."
it is a socially acceptable way of saying "There are too many of "them" in this country."