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Extremist Music, an instigator for youth violence?

For my piece, I chose to extend on Pratt’s work and discuss extremist music and its place in the “contact zone”. I talk about the role of the artist, and how their opinions impact young people. I specifically discuss extremist music in the context of how it has been connected to instances of violent youth behavior. I consider how the media has framed the developing discussion. I focus particularly on Columbine and the artists who were initially blamed for the massacre, as well as, the shooting that occurred in Ohio earlier this year. I was inspired to write my piece after hearing about the details of the shooting in Dayton, Ohio. The shooter was a young male who played in a obscure band, and the story reminded me of the discussion surrounding Columbine.

extremist music, an instigator for youth violence?

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Favorite Quotations

I discovered – with the help of some especially sensitive teachers – that through writing one can continually bring new selves into being, each with new responsibilities and difficulties, but also with new possibilities. Remarkable power, indeed. I write and continually give birth to myself.

– Mellix, “From Outside, In”, closing statement

Everyone who has a notebook or journal understands that they are in no way, shape, or form, perfect. My notebook has scribbles where I’ve misspelled words, I’ve got arrows all over the pages where I’ve tried to connect my thoughts, I have random lists in between heartfelt journal entries, and sometimes I’m writing so fast that my handwriting changes completely. It’s messy and sometimes unorganized but I find beauty in the way that I let my thoughts take over the pages. If anything, I think it shows how human I truly am.

– Ashley S, response to Lambeth – “The Three-legged Dog who carried me” – 9/4/19

Violence & Music, an ongoing discussion.

The discussion surrounding music and its implications on violence has been in circulation for about a century. The discussion itself is often linked to the discussion surrounding violence in video games and media. — However, the velocity of the discussion ramped up heavily following the school shootings at Columbine High School in 1999. In uncovered journals, by student killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, many lyrical references were made to a number of popular metal bands at the time. Columbine related music

Just recently, the tragedy in Dayton, Ohio linked music to violence again. As it was soon discovered that the killer, Connor Betts, was the lead singer in a “pornogrind” band that performed regularly in the Midwest death metal scene.

Digging into the psychology behind music and violence, there seems to be a large amount of disagreement. I wasn’t able to find any one article that summed up the discussion as a whole. However, there have been a number of scholarly articles published on the topic from both sides.

Consider the differences in POV: Violent music increases aggressiveness vs Violent Music doesn’t desensitize , or the abstract here: Extreme music and anger processing

I think this topic will be an interesting for the class to weight in on. I would consider music to be part of our “contact zone” that perhaps sometimes goes overlooked.

Unity in difference or hyper-vigilance of oppression?

Heller starts by recounting the happenings at Oberlin College where student activism is threatening the established “liberal matrix”. Recently, Oberlin College has seen a whole host of student backlash; including food fights, and student letters protesting faculty. He goes on to mention several significant liberal – arts schools who are struggling to cope. Over the course of the article, Heller interviews many involved in academia on both sides of the debate. It must be said that debates of this kind are often a slippery slope. Therefore, you’ll notice, Heller largely refrains from giving his own opinion. And instead opts to consider as many view points as possible.

This article was quite hard to digest, considering the range of points of view from individuals qualified to weigh in on the topic. I am left, in a sense, wondering about the state of self-expression. If we continue to suppress and nit-pick for inconsistencies who will be left to speak? Who will be willing to risk sharing their opinion in this climate?

Wasn’t free self-expression the whole point of social progressivism? Wasn’t liberal academe a way for ideas, good and bad, to be subjected to enlightened reason? Generations of professors and students imagined the university to be a temple for productive challenge and perpetually questioned certainties. Now, some feared, schools were being reimagined as safe spaces for coddled youths and the self-defined, untested truths that they held dear.

Language & Identity

“From Outside, In” is a honest discourse about language’s relationship with identity. Mellix tells the story of her evolution from child to full-fledged academic through literal excerpts of her past writing. During her youth, she became privy to a distinct dichotomy of language in her culture, which she defined as “black English” and “standard English”. She recalls an experience visiting relatives where she observed her parents operate under the unspoken prerequisite of using “standard English”. She describes her parents as “looking small and anxious during those occasions.” Because, as she would go on to reveal later, “The language was not ours, it was something from outside us, something we used for special occasions.” Mellix’ concern about this idea is reiterated during her recollection of her first college class. She wished only to belong, and to understand, but was left with similar feelings as her younger self. She said, “My concern was to sound as if I belonged in a college classroom. But I felt separate from the language – as if it did not and count not belong to me.”

This piece is also a statement on the relationship between language and power. It was disheartening to learn her language caused her feelings on inferiority. She understood her father’s success was somewhat contingent upon his ability to use “standard English”. Furthermore, she understood that if she was to make in an academia, she was going to have to overhaul her understanding of language, and somewhat, part of her identity. The reshaping of her identity caused her feelings of imbalance. In her last paragraph, she says, “To recover balance I had to take on the language of the academy. The language of “others”. And to do that, I had to learn to imagine myself a part of the culture of that language.”

I found this publication to be very worthwhile, it’s a fantastic insight for those who didn’t experience this problem growing up. Personally, I make small shifts in the content of my speech depending on the individual, and these become more obvious in group settings. However, the idea of reorienting my language to the degree she spoke of is foreign to me. This article raised several questions, and ideas for further thought…. How does language infer identity? Can you infer identity from language? Do I lose myself if I assimilate to “their” language? Or is thinking of it as “their” language a deeper issue? How can we measure quality of language when it’s not objective?