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May. 10th, 2006 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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slightlymadman
If you don't like rap, are you a racist?
Stephin Merritt is an unlikely cracker. The creative force behind the Magnetic Fields, Merritt is diminutive, gay, and painfully intellectual. His music is witty and tender. He plays the ukulele. He named his Chihuahua after Irving Berlin. And yet no less an influential music critic than The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones has used that word—"cracker"—to describe him. Frere-Jones has also called him "Stephin 'Southern Strategy' Merritt," presumably in reference to Richard Nixon's race-baiting attempt to crush the Democratic Party. These are heady words, part of a two-year online campaign of sorts by Frere-Jones (also a former Slate music critic) and the Chicago Reader music contributor Jessica Hopper to brand Merritt a racist. The charge: He doesn't like hip-hop, and on those occasions when he's publicly discussed his personal music tastes, he has criticized black artists.
Honestly, I've never heard of the guy, but to call someone racist based on their musical preferences...and note that the guy has also criticized white pop artists...is insane.
It's like someone saying that I'm prejudiced against the Japanese because J-pop makes my brain hurt. (I'll amend that to say "all of the J-pop that I've heard" makes my brain hurt.)
In other news, only related because it's about music... Archive is releasing a new album this month!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *squeaks*
slightlymadmanIf you don't like rap, are you a racist?
Stephin Merritt is an unlikely cracker. The creative force behind the Magnetic Fields, Merritt is diminutive, gay, and painfully intellectual. His music is witty and tender. He plays the ukulele. He named his Chihuahua after Irving Berlin. And yet no less an influential music critic than The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones has used that word—"cracker"—to describe him. Frere-Jones has also called him "Stephin 'Southern Strategy' Merritt," presumably in reference to Richard Nixon's race-baiting attempt to crush the Democratic Party. These are heady words, part of a two-year online campaign of sorts by Frere-Jones (also a former Slate music critic) and the Chicago Reader music contributor Jessica Hopper to brand Merritt a racist. The charge: He doesn't like hip-hop, and on those occasions when he's publicly discussed his personal music tastes, he has criticized black artists.
Honestly, I've never heard of the guy, but to call someone racist based on their musical preferences...and note that the guy has also criticized white pop artists...is insane.
It's like someone saying that I'm prejudiced against the Japanese because J-pop makes my brain hurt. (I'll amend that to say "all of the J-pop that I've heard" makes my brain hurt.)
In other news, only related because it's about music... Archive is releasing a new album this month!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *squeaks*
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Date: 2006-05-10 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 11:54 pm (UTC)