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Comment by Bayart

That's sadly a recurring pattern with Black American pioneers. For example a lot of early bluesmen are known to be highly problematic and the completely clean ones are rare (Howlin' Wolf is one). I've been recently experimenting with rape as a structuring force in sociology and anthropology (when I say "experimenting", I'm mean as a work hypothesis) and I'm now thinking it's more determinative at scale than murder. After all murder takes someone out of the pool.

I wouldn't go around DJing an abuser's music but I find it insufficient to stop at signaling about it and cancelling. That's where the work begins, not where it ends.

Stopping at jailing abusers will force them to hide better and prevent the more cowardly ones from acting, but it won't stop before the process behind it is fully understood, internalized and treated. I don't know the story behind it but there's a very high chance Afrika Bambaataa was abused as a child.

parent Bayart 7 months ago

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