Of late I've been seeing a number of Facebook posts of Dr. Boyce Watkins discussing his increasing despair over Lil Wayne's antics. The last one I read was in regards to the BET Awards (I've never watched one) and a hypothetical 10 year old who watches that instead of reading a book and goes on to a life of criminality and out of wedlock pregnancies. High drama indeed.
My problem with this is that nowhere in the linked pieces I saw did the good Dr. point out the primary responsibility of parents. It is the same decision that the majority of the Supreme Court came to when they ruled that California could not ban the sale of violent video games. It is not the place of government or the television or the record label to parent your children.
My first thought when I read these pieces was why would a parent allow their child to listen to Lil Wayne in the first place? Let us be clear here neither Lil Wayne or any other artist or record label exec came to your house and popped Wayne in the iPod. They didn't tune in BET, VH1 or MTV. They didn't put a gun to your head and make you put the radio on Hot 97 or Hot whateverinyourtown. Just like did no white man or klan member roll up in your hood and drop bottles on the street or spray graffiti on the walls.
No, the people directly responsible are the parents (or increasingly in the black community: Parent). I'll give an example. I was at my mother's house and a woman pulled up in her Ford Expedition with some really foul material blasting from the speakers. Now never mind that she was damaging her child's hearing. Never mind that. It was clear that this parent thought it was OK for her child to absorb this kind of language as normal discourse. That is a problem. You can find idiots on YouTube showing their very young children dropping it like it's hot. You can find videos of mother's (and unfortunately it's usually mothers)sons throwing money at her while she dances for him (or for the camera). It is clear that some parents simply do not understand the implications of what they are doing.
Does this mean that every child who grows up in a "good" home is going to turn out right? Absolutely not. Does it mean that every child that grows up in a bad environment is going to turn out bad? No. Human variation and pure chance will always provide exceptions. But the correlations are known.
Lil Wayne is a problem for parents who fail to inform their children about what is out there in the world. Lil Wayne is a problem for parents who do not understand that it is their responsibility to filter what and who has access to their minds. If you hand your child a media player and do not control or monitor what is on it, you have failed as a parent.* If you put a TV in your kid's bedroom with full access to cable TV that is your failure as a parent. Hand your kid a laptop with unrestricted internet access? Yup another fail. Your child's access to unregulated media should *only* come as they have shown responsibility and an ability to understand what they are hearing and seeing. Not before.
So long as there are parents who do not understand their role as parents, guardians and gatekeepers of the minds of their children, you will continue to have children who grow up into irresponsible adults. Should Lil Wayne be talking about killing bitches. No. Does he have a right to do so? Absolutely. Do I have the right to not purchase, listen to, or allow his material in my house, car, iPod or child's iPod, laptop, etc? Absolutely. Should I exercise that right? Absolutely.
*Just about every internet router has a firewall program built in which you can program to block direct access to any website you wish. Furthermore the Mac OS (and Windows I'm sure) has a parental control option to block access to websites at the OS level as well as restrict when the web is accessible and which particular programs may be used at any given time. The iPod has a parental control function as well that will restrict access to "explicit" music (as tagged by the iTunes store). You should be enabling these things if you have given your child access to the internet. If you do not know how find someone who does.
(17 years of informed commentary)