OK, I finished the article, and while reading the last paragraphs I was kicking around my big-picture response. I had it! Then, as I read the little bio at the end, it was too good to be true: the author got his Master's in English in 2016. My overarching comment was going to be something saying the article was superficially impressive. It cited relevant material, it had a good amount of historical information, and as I said earlier, there were and are racist and racial aspects of pop music. But the whole thing felt like an assignment to me. I feel like if you told me to write a paper about how Pet Sounds contributed to institutional racism, I could have written this article (without believing much of it). Maybe this guy really does believe it. I assume so. But his conclusions throughout seems intellectually lazy if so. He's playing to an academic bias, as if he's making sure to reach the right conclusions and use the right phrases and citations to ensure this would be acceptable to an academic advisor or professor.
The only issue is that it's bullshit. It's a cleverly assembled article without much substance. A person could discuss the topic far better than this author did, far more convincingly.
The only issue is that it's bullshit. It's a cleverly assembled article without much substance. A person could discuss the topic far better than this author did, far more convincingly.
That's exactly what I thought. It reads like an essay I would write to sort of pull the wool over the professor's eyes, knowing he is not familiar with what I'm writing about. Make it long enough, use enough references and the right phrases and he's bound to give me a good grade, even if the point I'm trying to make doesn't really pan out at the end of the essay.
Aside from that, it goes along with a trend I've been noticing. Maybe it is being amplified by social media, but I've been noticing more instances of "white people shouldn't do this" as if white people aren't allowed to mix with black culture. It's ironic that these people are actually calling for reverse segregation, such as the UCLA students that want their own "Afro-house" for black students only.