Views on The Rap Music

From Yahoo News:

“More than seven-in-ten among the U.S. public, including large majorities of both blacks and whites, offer a [tag]negative assessment of rap music[/tag], with 71% of blacks and 74% of whites agreeing that rap’s [tag]societal impact[/tag] is bad. Fewer Hispanics, however, hold this view (48%). Among whites, men are much more likely than women to say hip hop and rap have a [tag]bad influence on society[/tag]. Among blacks, however, the gender relationship tilts in the opposite direction ? women are more likely than men to say this form of music is having a bad influence. [tag]Younger blacks[/tag] and whites (ages 18-34) are far less likely than older respondents to see a negative societal impact of [tag]hip hop[tag] and rap music. No difference is seen in the percentage of young whites and young blacks saying this. Of all the race and gender groups in the survey, black men are most likely to give a positive rating to hip hop (18%) and rap music (11%). But these levels of positive rating are still quite modest.”

And more extensively from Pew Research Center:

“[tag]African Americans[/tag] see a widening gulf between the values of middle class and poor blacks, and nearly four-in-ten say that because of the diversity within their community, blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race, a new Pew Research Center survey has found.

The survey also finds blacks less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983. Looking backward, just one-in-five blacks say things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. Looking ahead, fewer than half of all blacks (44%) say they think life for blacks will get better in the future, down from the 57% who said so in a 1986 survey.

Whites have a different perspective. While they, too, have grown less sanguine about black progress, they are nearly twice as likely as blacks to see black gains in the past five years. Also, a majority of whites (56%) say life for blacks in this country will get better in the future.

Similar race-based gaps in perception emerge on several other key topics explored in this survey. For example, blacks have much less confidence than whites in the fairness of the criminal justice system. Also, blacks say that anti-black [tag]discrimination[/tag] is commonplace in everyday life; whites disagree.

But there are also areas where the two groups largely see eye to eye. For example, blacks and whites agree that there has been a convergence in the past decade in the values held by blacks and whites. On the issue of immigration, blacks and whites agree that most immigrants work harder than most blacks and most whites at low-wage jobs. And on the popular culture front, large majorities of both blacks and whites say that rap and hip hop – two music styles with roots in the black community that have gained mainstream popularity in recent years – have a bad influence on society.

The survey finds that black and white Americans express very little overt racial animosity. As they have for decades, about eight-in-ten members of each racial group express a favorable view about members of the other group. Large majorities in both groups say that blacks and whites get along either “very” or “pretty” well, though in both cases a greater number say “pretty well.” More than eight-in-ten adults in each group also say they know a person of a different [tag]race[/tag] whom they consider a friend.”

See Also: Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes: Part I, CIA Gave Us Bum Rap (& America Too), Discussing The Decline on Hip Hop Radio, and Multiculturalism.