I live in a neighborhood where music, often loudly played, expresses violence, cursing, and misogyny as life’s normality. It is blasted by young boys on bicycles with attached speaker trailers, cars zooming down or parked on my residential street, or people in their homes, blasting the music for everyone within a two block radius to hear.
Listening to my personal music collection gives me hope and inspiration or makes me dance with glee until I realize that I am no longer the twenty-something who could move my body non-stop until the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes, positive phrases from my songs’ lyrics pop up without command when I’m in a tough situation. I wonder what pops up in the minds of those who listen to gangsta rap or other music, games, videos, or other media that promote chaos instead of peace.
Although I cannot prove a connection, I witness behavior and speech that appears to match the music played publicly in my neighborhood. The other day, I was pulling weeds from my yard. A man walked by and told me that I was working too hard. He suggested that I just “set fire to it.”
A death on the block caused the entire street to be completely taken over for a couple of weeks by people coming to pay their respects. They blocked driveways, double parked, opened car trunks that became open bars. They ate, drank, smoked, and openly sold or exchanged drugs. Kids ran and played like they were at a county fair, picking up bottles of alcohol like toys, using the contents to water lawns that weren’t theirs. Trash was left in the street and on private property. The aforementioned loud music was played until well after dark, when the police finally showed up to shut the partying down.
None of this is seen as abnormal or disrespectful. Residents’ rights or comfort are not considered. Requests to move cars and pick up trash and bottles are met with hostility. I think the music affirms and supports a generational culture of thinking and behavior that feeds dysfunction, limitation, crime, and mental, physical, emotional, and social dis-ease. This is how some people live. This is how they like to live and how they are comfortable living. And all of the laws and government programs trying to address racism, income and other inequality, health care, crime, and whoever’s life matters will have a short-term impact until whatever is going on inside of people is transformed, especially as regards the children.