Freedom: Not with the PMRC
There are so many people that stand for something I value. I choose Tom Morello. He is the guitar player for Rage Against the Machine, a political rock band that consists of two caucasians, a Chicano, and Tom, who has a white mother and an African-American father. This is a band that has many different views and beliefs that appeal to me, but Tom appeals to me the most because of his firm belief in freedom of speech and the elimination of censorship.
Tom grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, and even though he was half-white, he was seen as being an African-American in a predominately white town. Tom’s father who was Kenya’s first ambassador to the United Nations and a leader of the Mau Mau uprising, left when Tom was only one. Tom’s life in Libertyville was filled with hate, racism, and censorship. Racial slurs were thrown at him, and on a few occasions nooses were hung from trees in his yard. When he would try to express his beliefs, he was told not to write these things by his teacher because he was into Marxism which was bad by his teachers’ standards. As a result, Tom found refuge in his music and in college, where he was able to express what he felt more openly. He graduated from Harvard with honors in 1986 with a degree in Political Science. Now he plays for a platinum selling band.
Through the band, Tom has been able to bring to the attention of young people the problems of censorship in music, television, and the media. One of his big adversaries is the Parent’s Musical Resource Council (PMRC), which was founded by Tipper Gore. This council promotes the censorship of albums and other products by placing parental advisory stickers on them and using television rating systems.
On the other hand, Tom’s mom, Mary Morello, formed an anti-censorship organization called Parents for Rock and Rap in 1987, with the help of her son. This organization was formed to stop censorship, especially in the music industry. In 1996 Mary won the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for work against censorship.
On one occasion, Tom and Rage showed their firm stance against censorship. At the 1993 Lollapalooza stop in Philadelphia, they protested the PMRC in a way that no one there will ever forget.
In her article she first use ethos to let the reader know that she is credible in this topic and knows what she is talking about on the subject censorship. By letting the audience know that she know that she is credible she use for personal experience threw out life by coming in contact with censorship a daily basis by being an author and also threw her childhood experiences. (I found john o hara name on my reading list. No a specific title by john o hara , but any title . I didn’t waste my time. I went down to the public library in Elizabeth, new jersey, that afternoon-a place where id spent so many happy hours as a young child, id pasted a card pocket on the inside back cover of each book I owned and looked for a rage to live. But I couldn’t find it. When I ask the librarian told me that book was restricted. It was kept in a closet, and I couldn’t take it out without written permission from my parents.(317)) she also use the other credibility of the past teachers who have gotten fried over censored and banned martials in their curriculum (Colorado do English ...
Everyone that has been through the American school system within the past 20 years knows exactly who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is, and exactly what he did to help shape the United States to what it is today. In the beginning of the book, Martin Luther King Jr. Apostle of Militant Nonviolence, by James A. Colaiaco, he states that “this book is not a biography of King, [but] a study of King’s contribution to the black freedom struggle through an analysis and assessment of his nonviolent protest campaigns” (2). Colaiaco discusses the successful protests, rallies, and marches that King put together. . Many students generally only learn of Dr. King’s success, and rarely ever of his failures, but Colaiaco shows of the failures of Dr. King once he started moving farther North.
The authors first reasoning to help support his claim was “Censorship can also protect us from the circulation of dangerous information.” Another reasoning the author had stated was “It is also wrong for information that is false or misleading to be easily available for anyone to find.” The author gives logical reasoning to support his claim, but does not give sufficient support. Not only does the author give insufficient support, but he also doesn’t organize the passage clearly, so that the reader can understand his reasoning clearly. If the readers were trying to detect the supporting evidence he used to back his claim up, they would take longer than they should. The author also uses exaggeration in his article. They say “Parents have no power at all over the entertainment.” This is exaggeration because they say “no power at all,” by saying this that means there is no possibility of any parent in the world having any control over entertainment. How about the people that work for entertainment industry? What if they are parents? Technology these days also allow parents to block
Tom and Dennard were able to express what it’s like to be a Euro American and African American males. The attitude that was showed by Tom in the film was eagerness, because all he knew was white identity and never really focused on how people of color felt about the society that we live in. After having conversations with Dennard, Tom came to believe that he didn’t know being a black man was very complex, because he wasn’t in the shoes of Dennard. Tom begin to look at his inner self and hoping to change his world view of what he have
The people who question censorship and the use of censorship are known as the people who are against or anti-censorship. People who are anti-censorship believes that nothing should be hidden, and that everything should be open to the public. Gavin Mcinnes is a 45-year-old (2016) who is a writer, an actor, and comedian. Gavin Mcinnes had written an article which was taken down because it “has been reported by the community as hateful or abusive content” (Brown 1). The people who read Mcinnes article didn’t have to read or continue reading it when they became displeased with Mcinnes’s view. Those people did not have to read it if they did not like it. “The publication can choose what to publish… no matter how much outrage that content provokes”
Before the war started, a wealthy white man by the name of John Hammond worked to integrate black and white music.1 Since his childhood, he enjoyed the music of numerous black artists, and he wanted to share his love with the rest of America. He used much of his inherited fortune to make this possible. He went against the general opinion of society and his parents, who despised black people. Hammond refused to ignore black artists’ musical abilities because of their color, “I did not revolt against the system, I simply refused to be a part of it.”2 He used his money to organize the most eclectic group of musicians ever assembled, for an integrated audience of his time. Hammond’s efforts made an indelible impact on the music industry. The musicians Hammond introduced in...
While Wilkins was studying at the university, there was a brutal lynching of a black man in Duluth, Minnesota. The episode had a profound effect on the dire...
In 1996, famed rapper and entertainer Tupac Shakur[1] was gunned down in Las Vegas. Journalistic sentiment at the time suggested he deserved the brutal death. The New York Times headline, "Rap Performer Who Personified Violence, Dies," suggested Shakur, who was twenty five when he died, deserved his untimely death. - (Pareles, 1996) A product of a fatherless home, raised poor in the ghettos of San Francisco, Shakur, notes Ernest Harding of the L.A. Weekly, "lived in a society that still didn't view him a[s] human, that projected his worst fears onto him; [so] he had to decide whether to battle that or embrace it." (Hardy, 1996) As these fears forced Shakur into a corner, Shakur, in the music magazine Vibe, alludes to his own interior battle noting "there's two nigga's inside me," adding "one wants to live in peace, and the other won't die unless he's free." (All Eyes on Him, 1996) While many of his lyrics sensationalized gang violence and ghetto politics, dramatizing the murder of fellow African Americans and, especially, police officers, he also labored over trying to come to grips with African American self-realization, breaking free from imposed societal chains. Unfortunately, as Barry Glassner muses in his book The Culture of Fear (1999), �it seems to me at once sad, inexcusable, and entirely symptomatic of the culture of fear that the only version of Tupac Shakur many Americans knew was a frightening and unidimensional caricature.� (127) In o...
...yed a show in Philadelphia. Several local officers of the law threatened to go on a local television affiliate to defame rage. They backed down when they heard that two members of the band would be there to debate them.
...Dr. Sara. "How the Mind of a Censor Works: the Psychology of Censorship." School Library Journal, January 1996, p. 23-27.
C. Delores Tucker, chair of National Political Congress of Black Women, said, "No one and no industry should be allowed to continue the social and psychological poisoning of the young minds of this nation that occurs with the music industry" (91). This belief of musical content being "poison" is prominent all over America. During the 1970's, record burning was a popular way to speak out against music content, and today protests are quite popular. Other ways of stifling these problematic artists may be through the pressure of having to use a parental advisory label or legislation passing bills. The head of the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression, Jim D' Entremont, explains one of the bills passed by Governor George W. Bush Jr. as "Prohibiting the state of Texas or any of its agencies in investing in any private concern that owns at least ten percent of any corporation that produces music which describes, glamorizes or advocates violence, drug abuse or sexual activity" (111).
Tom is a character many people in this generation can relate to. Although the play was written many years ago Tom is just like any other millennial from this day and age. He basically hates his job because it’s not fun. He can’t cope with the fact that he has to pick up all the slack his father left behind. He even seems to think that running away will fix everything. All of these things are very common in society today.
One reason the internet should be censored is because there is content on the internet that kids shouldn’t partake of. Opposing points of view are presented on whether violent lyrics or censorship is more harmful to children, whether rap is unfairly targeted for censorship, and whether advisory labels are effective. ( Should Music Lyrics Be Censored ). Rap music has cursing and profanity in the lyrics that kids shouldn’t partake of. The groups, whose text and pictures range from midley risque to exceedingly raw, make up a significant tributary of the river of newsgroups that flows constantly through the world’s computer networks. (Can The Net Be Censored?). Kids should not be able to see inappropriate pictures or anything like that that pops up for ads on some websites and inappropriate text. It's obvious that there is many things on the internet that should be censored.
Censorship has been around in one way or the other in America. Certain forms of music, poetry, and dance were banned by Spartan rulers during ancient Greek times (Newman, 2000). These sorts of actions towards material seen as objectionable have repeated themselves throughout history. Since the 1950’s, and continuing today, music listeners across the country have protested some of music’s content and/or lyrics.
...aches his children to see through people’s disabilities and skin color. He stands for what is right without disrupting the town, but isn’t afraid to voice his opinions when it was necessary. He creates equal rights for everyone by helping Tom Robinson during his trial while everyone else didn’t.