Is this what the pioneers of the civil rights movement fought to achieve, a society where many black people are as trapped and isolated by their poverty as they were by segregation laws? If Sept. 11 showed the power of a nation united in response to a devastating attack, Hurricane Katrina reveals the fault lines of a region and a nation, rent by profound social divisions. |
When you're dealing with the entertainment business, a business that deals with marketing and ratings and profit, you have to be suspicious. You get ratings by touching on stereotypes, the titillating subjects people talk about — their anxieties, fears, longings and desires. That's why hip-hop sells. But at the same time, I don't believe in censorship. |