Bad Rap at Joe V G

Rap music that includes vulgarity and racially charged vocabulary.

Playlists that are not previewed, rather are merely selected and subscribed to.

Commercial establishments across society that insist on playing music while customers shop, eat and do personal business.

News- or sports-casters who unapologetically insert vulgarity during their reporting.

People, young and old, whose daily conversations unthinkingly incorporate formerly “dirty” words.

Are we being forbidden to be and feel offended by this in the public sphere?  Cannot we shop and interact in commercial arenas without someone else forcing noise on us?

Recently according to accounts available to the public a campus official complained about music overheard on an establishment’s sound system - the words of the so called music accosted him while stopping by a campus eatery for a snack.  An employee reportedly apologized for the selection of “music”, insisting that she had not previewed it prior to playing it over the eatery’s sound system.  (I wonder that she, a Black woman, was not herself offended by the vocabulary of the Rap.)

What followed from this exchange is not altogether clear, at least from the accounts available to me.  WRAL News, Duke Chronicle, and even Stephen Colbert, seemed to have gained access to the facts, since they all pronounced verdicts about the exchange between the official and the employee, and the other University officials with the management of the establishment.  Even the President of the University seemed to have quickly “gotten to the bottom of the matter” when he wrote to the University community soon afterward:

… I will simply say that I am deeply sorry that we are not where we want to be as a university. I am, in particular, sorry that the words of one of my senior administrators recently resulted in two individuals working for one of our on-campus vendors losing their jobs; and while I am pleased that the vendor has taken steps to reverse this action, I apologize for the precipitous and unfair treatment these employees experienced. We must do better.

We have somehow lost the sense of compassion and human tolerance that should define our community. This is reflected in the ways we interact with each other, the ways we hold ourselves and others accountable for our conduct, and in our words and deeds as scholars, students and employees.

At the same time, we cannot and will not succumb to a rush to judgment that demands instant retribution absent context and deliberation….

I am disappointed that the president took the said “senior administrator” to task so quickly and in so public a fashion. 

The president offers an apology for the unfair treatment of the establishment’s employees.  From my reading of the various accounts available I learned that the employer fired the employees; the University did not actually fire them.  Yes, the question of the relationship of the University’s dining hierarchy with that of a franchise who contracts to operate a store on campus property – perhaps that needs reviewing.

I am concerned that in the ensuing “news” reporting and in the protests of concerned students what is already being lost are also important subjects: the unquestioning presence of noise and the loss of civility in our society, the overvaluing of individual freedom, and the minimizing of vocabulary such that certain words have lost their meanings in an anything goes/anything can be uttered society.

Indeed, Mr. president, how do you propose to chart the best way forward?