“I don’t much care to argue about whether George Zimmerman is racist, though running around warning neighbors about the threat of black people and saying “these assholes always get away” while reaching for a gun strikes me as pretty much the literal definition. “

….

“But the people falling all over themselves to defend Zimmerman, the ones aggrieved that Trayvon Martin had a Twitter handle of no_limit_nigga, the ones dancing around yelling “see? see?” at his penchant for quoting rap lyrics, everyone insinuating that the (im)morality of killing an unarmed 17-year-old who likes Lil Wayne is a hazier issue than killing an unarmed 17-year-old who likes, say, Taylor Swift? Oh yes, those people are racists, and their racism is as obsessed with rap music as any 17-year-old ever was, and it is vicious and cowardly and the very worst that America has to offer.”

……

“Hip-hop was a problem because an underclass that had been left to die didn’t, and instead created a music decrying their conditions that was vivid, troubling and beautiful, a declaration of existence in the face of those who’d condemned them to oblivion. It screwed up the narrative, and thus was born an anti-rap racism in which symptom became cause, laments of violence and deprivation becoming justifications for violence and deprivation. Anti-rap racists hear rap music as proof that black men pose a uniquely violent danger to the American status quo, even as the entire trajectory of that status quo suggests it’s the other way around. As theories of history go it’s both aggressively incorrect and depressingly unoriginal.”

——-

“And I’m not just talking about the American right, I’m talking about all the well-meaning white folks who’ve told me how they want to like Lil Wayne but lo, the misogyny, the violence, the drugs. But, but, I’ll say:Bob Dylan aced misogyny; the Rolling Stones sang about violence; theVelvet Underground knew their way around some drugs. Yeeeah, but it’s different, they’ll say, elongating that “yeah” with conspiratorial inflection: you know what I mean. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Rap music doesn’t get unarmed kids shot to death, “it’s different” does. “It’s different” infuses “these assholes always get away” and gives solace to people who hear that sound bite and nod their empty heads in agreement. “It’s different” is the same logic that suggests a teenager’s skin color combined with the music he listened to means he had it coming, and it’s the same logic that lets a bunch of people feign outrage over a teenager’s use of the n-word to describe himself when they’re really just outraged that he beat them to the punch.”