I found this interesting. When I first read the "rap" I must say that it was not offensive but rather pointless and stereotypical. I felt it was offensive only to the extent that it did not address bourgeois sensibility. It rather spoke vaguely of an urban reality of life in American ghettos. It is a reality that does not agree with America's white middle class.

I found the rap pointless simply because rather than adressing the root causes of the "rapper gangsta" reality it merely internalized the gangsta behaviour. The writers of the rap seemed to behave merely as if being a gangsta rapper was cool, rather than talking about the social causes of life in American ghettos. There is some very high quality rap that does act as a form of social protest rather than some distorted idea of what "cool" is.

Well, I felt that banning and hiding the posts was uncalled for simply because there is such a thing as freedom of speech. I might find that their rap does not agree with my petit bourgeois sensibility. However, my individual views are unimportant because freedom of expression is more important than what makes me uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is not about stroking somebody's middle class ego or writing about some sentimental ideal of the romantic.

Well, I considered posting some of my poems here, but I refuse to do it if the only writing allowed is that writing that agrees with a middle class view of the world.