For Class, Jan 23rd

This is the start of an essay. We're going to pretend that you, in a fit on non remembering (perhaps drunken) haze, wrote this beast and now it's your job to edit it into something useful.

Therefore we are looking for (at the very least):

strengthening of thesis
Strengthing of introduction
look at first person
cutting useless info
adding info/research needed
shifting - moving paragrpahs or sentences to better fit.
better clarity of ideas!
better sentence structure!

So please print out the following and bring it to class. We'll do the first bit as a class, then the second part is up to you!

As a teenager growing up in the small town of Vernon I have not be readily exposed to the outside world. I still live at home and I go to a college not five minutes from my high school and fifteen from my old elementary school. Many of the people that I am friends with are in the same situation. The one thing I find different between myself and others are that I am not a big fan of rap music. Most of the people I hang out with are, and they insist on playing it everywhere. I attempt to look into why it is that white urban males primarily purchase rap records.
If I was to explain using the Structure functionalist view I could conclude a number of things. Rap music portrays a certain lifestyle that is very easy and fast. There are lots of women lots of drugs and lots of alcohol. Through the media, TV espically, such factors are glamorized and created as the norms of our society. Youth’s see this and want to live the way that rap artists are portrayed. A lot also has to do with the conformity in high school, a very important institution in any young person’s life. Certain music, clothe s, attitudes etc are drawn out as “cool” in high school and all other opinions are often dismissed or ridiculed as they depart from the norms.
What we see now is that rap music has become the norm and considered “cool” in high school. High school is very much like a biological system. It has various parts (students, teachers, principal, secretary etc) that fit together. The students are just trying to fit in with the other students. High school is built on pressures to conform and fit in so naturally other people will fall in line. Some manifest functions are an increase in violent acts and profanity. Because rap music relies so much on bass lines I have also seen an increase in the cost and amounts of stero systems being put into cars.
Because rap music often portrays black people being oppressed that also feeds in to the idea of teenagers. It is the idea of alienation. The world is built around adults because that is where the majority of the people reside. Teenagers are very much on the outside a lot of the time. A Social Conflict theorist might say that rap music holds a lot of rebellious material and that is why it is so effective in reaching out to children. Teenagers are almost excepted to not get along well with their parents growing up. Many situational comedies, movies books etc are based around the idea of parents and teenagers fighting. It is the power structure in our society, which put adults in a position of great influence because of their experiences with life. They can rebel with rap music because it breaks everything that is parents have told us, conflicting the very power struggle instituted by society. Rap music gives them something to relate to, shows that inequality and struggles that exist in everyday life. Through all sorts of media (i.e. Internet, TV, radio) we are shown that this lifestyle is the place to be. Rap videos are some of the most requested on Music stations.
To look at the problem from a Symbolic Interactionism viewpoint we would have to shrink our scope from the macro level to the micro. Teenagers are constantly interacting with people. I interact with people of authority roles (i.e. teachers, parents, and adults in general) everyday. I deal much differently with them then I do my peers as I actively interpret those figures as more powerful and therefor demand more respect. Authority figures tell me what to do. Parents tell me to clean my room. Teachers tell me to complete assignments. The boss tells me when and how long to work. Because I have so many people telling me what to do through my “looking glass self” I see a very powerless small person. Rap music shows that there are ways of breaking that perception of oneself but does it through violence and swearing for the most part.