What's Going On?

The days of the pork fried rice and the chicken wingscoming to your house five years is over - Jin

Recently, Brent Batten at the Naples Daily News wrote an off-the-cuff column about a rap concert that was canceled in his hood. As you can see, Batten is what I like to call Wonder - as in white as Wonder Bread.

Was Batten's column in bad taste? Probably, and he did apologize for it.

Does it warrant the outcry it has received, such as this column from the St. Petersburg Times? Absolutely not.

While the column may be in bad taste, what the biggest brouhaha seems to be is that Batten is white. What differentiates his column from the hip-hop drive time shows in EVERY city in the country. As you can tell from my postings, I am an Old Skool rap lover - grew up with NWA, Run DMC, LL Cool J and my XMas wish list includes a copy of Krush Groove. But, the hip-hop drive time shows make me sick to my stomach.

The drive time personalities are like Stepin' Fetchit and Amos 'n Andy shows, but is it excusable since the personalities are minorities? I hope not - but the fact seems to be that people will turn a blind eye to the drive time personalities since they are minorities catering to their own communities.

A classic refrain from the late, great Marvin Gaye seems to capsulate my thoughts - what's going on when one person is attacked for a parody, but there seems to be no outcry for degrading and stereotyped radio personalities?
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