Agree…disagree…agree

In my last blog I agreed with Michael Suede as he addresses the outrageous bureaucracy in California and it’s negative effect on small business. But I just read another article by him and I can’t say I agree this time around.

In this article Michael Suede informs us that “white power” music has been banned from Spotify. A Spotify spokesperson tells us the music has been removed because it contains “illegal content or material that favors hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality or the like is not tolerated by us”. I took the time to research some of the bands that were removed from Spotify. In less than 5 minutes I discovered that many of the bands, such as Ad Hominem and Skinfull, were self-proclaimed white supremacists. After looking into some of their lyrics it became clear to me that these bands have no place on Spotify- a privately owned and operated company. This is where my view begins to differ greatly from Suede’s.

Suede begins the article with the title of “Spotify Bans All Music That Uses the N Word” followed shortly by “Just kidding. They banned ‘White Power’ music”. He continues to say “While I certainly don’t condone the message of ‘White Power’ music, it does strike me as morbidly hypocritical to ban one flavor of offensive music while allowing others.” I fail to see the relationship between “niggers” say “niggers” and white-supremacists wishing death upon a human being. I listen to hip-hop music and they say “nigga” all the time- mostly in a nonviolent manner. However after familiarizing myself with these white-supremacist bands it became clear to me the comparison could not be made between these two groups. The bands that I previously mentioned specifically talk about inflicting violence and death upon an individual- a key component that isn’t found in all hip-hop music- but is shared among each band that was removed from Spotify. I’m not quite sure where Suede was going with this article, but it seems he has run a mile while only having an inch.

https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/08/17/spotify-bans-all-music-that-uses-the-n-word/