As I read James Peterson’s opinion article, I wanted to agree with the points he was making, but in my heart I knew he had no idea what he was talking about. It seems that he read about Mr. Cosby’s speech somewhere (possibly from the “Boondocks” comic in Toons) and made up his mind that “yeah that sounds about right.”

The problem with Peterson’s opinion is that he really doesn’t take into account any socio-economic factors. He lumps many of the problems inner-city youth face and the lack of “will to succeed” together and blame it on pop culture.

Imagine this: You wake up in the morning and there’s seven inches of snow on the ground. You know your classroom has no heat, you have no jacket to wear and all your roommates decide to stay home and get drunk. I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t want to go to class that day.

Now imagine this is just about every day of your life, and, on top of all those issues, on your way to school you pass the local junkies, the local dealer who will make more money this week than your family will in a year and countless others with nothing to lose and nothing to gain. And somehow you feel that pop culture is to blame.

I could go on and on about these issues, but most are things you have to see and experience before you will ever understand. And while you may or may not like Nelly (I personally think he’s fallen off since “Country Grammar”), it stands that he has created two non-profit organizations — one that helps inner-city youth and another that has registered more than 1,000 people on a bone marrow donor database — he and donates hundreds of thousands of dollars more to other worthwhile charities.

The majority of rap music is purchased by middle-class white America, so think about the people who are glorifying what is talked about in Nelly’s music and think about the people who are actually doing something to improve the world that we live in.

Jason Smolka

Senior

Electrical Engineering