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High Quality Nonsense
High Quality Nonsense
Sarah Abdalla
In this modern day and age, it becomes so easy to influence and create impacts
through small subtle habits. Social media expands the horizons of the reach its content
has every day by thousands of new members. Music is blared through speakers in
restaurants, malls, and any other public place of leisure. People are constantly
surrounded by messages being implanted in their minds and the media men are great at
doing it. Inherently, people will begin to follow this message that has been embedded in
their thoughts subliminally. Although most music is found to be lighthearted lyrics over
a mellow beat, there are morally demeaning songs that tear own other ethnicities and
races through cultural differences, skin tones, and traditional values, through “coon
songs” which were common in the music halls (Anti-Black Racism, 1).
This practice isn’t a recent phenomenon either, but it has been building for
centuries off of the backs of immigrants and foreign laborers. In 19th century England,
music began wildly popular during the Age of Imperialism. New technology, new found
freedoms, and new markets, so the cherry on top was new music. However, the music
created this time had very disturbing immoral undertones that surfaced more blatantly
with every round of success. “This was blackface minstrelsy. Where other forms of
known at the time as “nigger minstrelsy”, was wholly built around the stereotyping of
As much as this music disgraced the image of the black man, it didn’t stop there.
It made constructing an identity and finding a place in society so much harder for
colored people. No longer were they welcomed to have their place, they were shoved out
and onto the streets for what everyone thought they were like. Their identity was
demolished in the eye of the white man, so finding a home in the midst of all this chaos
was ridiculous. “The minstrel was a clown figure who, at the same time as reinforcing
negative stereotypes of black people, gave delight to the audience by mimicking and
making ridiculous established elite figures, such as the politician or headmaster.” (Anti-
Black Racism, 6) Nobody wanted to have such a burden such as that of colored people in
ethnicities that aren’t being taken advantage of. Instead of dwelling on the division
between races by skin complexion, traditional values, or work force, music production
should endorse the unification of these different races. A larger audience with a better
message is all these companies have to lose. Take the risk, they might like what they
find.
Abdalla 3
Works Cited
doi:10.4000/rfcb.674.