Leila Pedersen

Every morning as I pack my lunch and fix my hair for work, my boyfriend reluctantly flips to MSNBC during Sportscenter commercials. We usually enjoy mocking Joe Scarborough for his biased remarks and the general lack of intellectual debate that tends to characterize most morning news programs, but this morning was particularly memorable.

At about 8:30 (little late getting to work this morning) Joe brought Al Sharpton and Toure, author of the book “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?”, to discuss the findings of the book. Per usual, Joe dominated the conversation his opinions as if they were universal truths. In a particularly ignorant comment, Joe demonized modern day “hardcore hip hop” for promoting drugs and violence. Toure, the intellectual that he is, likened his criticism of modern music to our own parents’ aversion to “scandalous” music like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, or James Brown. Joe, in his dismissive way, rejected the analogy based on no apparent reasoning whatsoever.