Nelly-racist?

It's funny how the Eminem controversy came and went but everybody just shrugged their shoulders and said "Em's not a racist!" and there were arguments back and forth about how black rap artists demean women in videos.

But talk about ridiculous. Nobody will finger point Eminem but now people are taking the backwards approach by attacking all other artists. It seems that some campus intellectual wants to accuse Nelly of being "racist". Yeah, right.

Professor William Jelani Cobb took a shot at Nelly and rappers overall in the body of his dissertation, Past Imperfect: The Hoodrat Theory, saying videos like the St. Lunatic's "Tip Drill" are not just sexist, but racist too. Earlier this month, Nelly had cancelled his appearance at a planned bone marrow charity event when word got out that some students, outraged at the portrayal of black women in his video for "Tip Drill," would protest the charity event.

Apparently, these self righteous moral crusaders are fighting for one "principal"-"anything that harms black women harms black people"

In my opinion, this is entertainment plain and simple. The reaction to the Eminem incident, and this as well, makes it clear to me that people are just taking rap music and artists like Nelly way too seriously. I don't expect to get any moral clarity from Nelly, I was offended by the Eminem tape but not suprised, but though having naked girls in your video is questionable, nobody should impose their values on others to tell people what they should and should not do.

Besides, half naked girls doing the shimmy in entertainment is nothing new; it was practically the backbone of all those "Beach Party" flicks of the 60's. The best part of living in this country is that people are free to put that in movies, videos and so forth. If you want moral clarity, read a book, or better yet, read a Bible!