U.S. scholar: rap music should not be scapegoated as source of American violence

BEIJING, June 16 (Xinhua) -- As some politicians blame the violence in the United States on entertainment culture, a U.S. scholar has said rap music reflects the crisis instead of its source.

In an article posted on the Australian website "Conversation" on Tuesday, A.D. Carson, assistant professor of Hip-Hop at the University of Virginia, said rap has long been used to conspicuously stereotype, caricature and reinforce mythologies about Black people, which continues to this day.

His article comes as some U.S. politicians, such as Representative Ronny Jackson, blame rap music and video games for school shootings.

As a rapper and scholar, Carson said rap seems to explain criminal behavior and signal moral decline for critics, but these are misunderstanding and stereotype of this kind of music, and these "harmful assumptions" affect the ways ordinary people who experience tragedies are described.

Carson noted that those who still seek to vilify rap should focus on the sources of the violence crisis in America rather than blaming the music that reflects it.