Take for example the fact that hip-hop clothing — baggy pants that show off underwear — is an extension of the baggy prison clothes originally intended to keep prisoners from running off. Prisons — which no one will accuse of being Black-run — implemented these kinds of outfits for practical purposes, but then ALLOW cultural adoption and enhancement of them. The prisons could very well say “you can’t tattoo yourself, you can’t wear your colors, you can’t cornrow your hair, and you can’t change our uniform into something that gives you a negative cultural identity.” This is the way prisons were run in the past. You wore the uniform, but could not customize it. The aim was to promote social obedience and order(we can argue that one separately.)

But the prisons DON’T limit those things, because the intents of today’s prison are vengeance and free labor, not rehabilitation. If Blacks adopt prison culture on the outside, all the better: it pre-disposes them to crime and readies them for prison long before they ever commit a crime. So the extension of prison culture through prison dress, they walk like they are in ankle chains, they tattoo and brand themselves, etc.

In short though, there ARE ample Black music and cultural components that do not rely on concepts like gangsters, pimps, hoes, gangbanging and Pimp Juice, but these are not entered into the mainstream, and in many cases directly prevented from mainstream dissemination.

As for the Black producers who continue the downward spiral, they are willing participants who simply don’t care about the origins of the negative impact on current Black culture, either because they are personally benefitting from it, or they are too dumb to know better. The same social suicide occurs when redneck whites vote for gun rights over labor rights. History is filled with people who actively do things against the better interests of themselves or their own people.

However, I was unaware that there was top-down micromanagement of hip-hop content imposed upon black producers and performers, and through their sheer “obliviousness” not recognized until it reached the ears of a target audience too foolish to discern the difference between a song they like, and an imposed sham culture. Are you saying that somewhere Viacom has a plan laid out to wreck black culture, and that modern hip-hop artists are their unwitting pawns? And if so, what does that paranoia have to do with some SUV’s “pimp juice” sticker?

I think any goofball intent on putting a sticker on his car (or a tattoo on his body) should be called out for his ridiculousness. It wouldn’t make Greg an oblivious white guy to do this. And yeah, in the 80′s Greg probably would be doing a post about the homo-obliviousness of “hell bent for leather.”

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Some other facts to compare with :

Not a single major record company is owned by an African American.

The overwhelming majority of record label stock holders are white.

The overwhelming number of radio station owners are white.

MTV and BET- the predominant media outlets for Black culture – are owned by Viacom. Until yesterday – literally – Viacom did not have a single Black person on its Board. (Charles Phillips took a seat on January 1.)

Finally, let me add this. A literal interpretation of a pop culture phrase like “Pimp Juice” is silly.

In the seventies people put “BOSS” on their cars. During the heavy metal days, cars said HELL BENT FOR LEATHER or BALLS TO THE WALL. Any attempt to do a literal dissection of those phrases would result in a similar bout head-scratching.

If your other reader is right, and you are doing comedy schtick, well then I apologize for not getting it. I don’t see this blog as a satire site, and I would hope I (of all people) would recognize one when I came across it. Maybe you should do what I do, and throw in a poop joke.