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Last week Dessa of Doomtree gave a presentation at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in MPLS. I listened to it last night and just had to share it. She is a very inspiring and driven person. Her presentation was on the rap and hip-hop community and it's social/moral issues of oppressing groups of people with the language and lyrics. It made me want to go through my iTunes and delete all the mainstream trash in it no matter how catchy it may be.

The biggest thing that hit home to me was the portion about where you come from affecting where you end up in life. Dessa talked about these artists making it sound like just because you come from 'the hood' or whatever that means your life is going to end up a certain way and you're going to act a certain way. The stereotypes of growing up in a certain neighborhood. When in fact, there are plenty of people who are growing up in unfortunate situations who are turning their life around and making something positive of themselves.

Why is it okay for songs to degrade and humiliate people with horrible language and words? Why do we listen and endorse it?

"If the choices are: feel discomfort for sharing well-considered, fundamentally held moral views, or feel discomfort for NOT having shared well-considered, fundamentally held moral views, than I choose the former discomfort."

Props to you, Dessa, for speaking your mind and being an inspiring person.

P.S. If you look back at any old posts and see a doubled signature, just ignore it. I figured out how to have it automatically put in and didn't want to go through over 300+ posts to take out the original...