I dunno, I could see someone being more annoyed by music played by one particular race than another.

Personally, I'm most annoyed by music with a heavy bass. Because even if it is turned down low, it still goes thud, thud, thud, thud, thud...

That should read "typically played" as in rap and hip hop are typical black music, heavy metal or countrytypical white music, etc. Not that other people don't enjoy those musics, but we tend to associate music with certain subcultures, races, ethnicities, or other "types" that we might have positive or negative attitudes towards.

Wow; what a coincidence!

I just had "run in" with a black woman (I'm a white guy) yesterday at the Laundromat; and she turned my complaint into something racial.

She was playing music VERY loudly from a radio hanging on her hip; I asked her if she could turn it down. "I'm sorry, could I trouble you to lower the volume?" is what I said; I didn't think that was racist.

Instead she turned it up and said that I, a white guy, had no business telling black folks what to do and that it was "racist" of me to do so.

Fortunately, my clothes were in the dryer and I didn't have long to wait. I really felt sorry for the other folks stuck behind after me and especially for the owner and his staff - they will have to put up with her until she leaves.

Who does NOT have headphones or ear buds on their radios these days? Oh, I know - the folks who are like dogs marking their territory with their loud music. (there was THAT racist of me?!)

Believe me, plenty of white people listen to that horrible music with the booming base. Who the assholes are in our neighborhood transcends race. If anything, I've found that blacks and Latinos playing radios loudly outside one's house are, in general, more respectful when you (lie -- in my case) and tell them you've got a baby sleeping.

And yes, Charles, a number of -- if not many of -- the people doing this...booming bass so it shakes houses...are doing it because it's their only source of power over other people. Pretty pathetic.

Meanwhile, we have a terrific temporary postman and many problems at our post office. This guy -- what a wonderful guy -- found that the supervisor didn't even bother to look at the redeliver notices in the morning and my package I'd been expecting all day...sitting waiting for and running out to the gate at every sound...would not be delivered. This guy felt bad for me -- I really have been through a lot, postally, lately -- and came on his motorcycle on his own time after work to deliver my package!

Anyway, when I called postal inspectors numerous times to give them an earful about this and more (like the fact that the blue mailbox in our neighborhood is getting ignored, not picked up...which I knew because my packages were not scanned for three days...until I called a postal inspector), every single time I spoke to anyone in charge in Washington at the post office, I begged them to fire the supervisors and put this guy in charge -- the guy who two times, actually, in a matter of days, saw that my packages that were ignored by the supervisor were delivered or picked up. He cares about his job.

I also wrote to Petco to tell them about a great employee, who, it turns out, will get some kind of Petco award because of my message to them (which I also mailed in a letter to him).

The message behind all of this is that the real way to go places in this world is to do things, not just be loud. "An empty vessel makes the most noise."

I find noise and culture fascinating as a middle school special education teacher of primarily minority students.

My students are used to noisy environments and often have trouble adapting to quiet while I have trouble adapting to noise. I have apologized for getting frustrated and raising my voice or yelling. They are baffled. To them, I was just speaking in a regular voice.

I recently read a book on nueroplasticity which indicated that neural pathways prematurely seal off when babies don't have periods of silence. Babies then actually cannot discern between certain sounds. This affects aural understanding which has a cascading effect impacting reading, writing, and vocabulary development.

Since education is now statistically driven, we are accused of underidentifying Anglo students while overidentifying minorities, especially African Americans. Wouldn't it be fascinating if the cure could be as easy as an hour of silence per day for babies?

Start asking them to "Please check your privilege." instead of whatever it is they doing rudely.

Should at least get a blank look.

Where can I find everything I need to know about this issue?

Here.

What you really need is a directed EMP device. With sufficient juice, you could fry their stereo...and car, cell phones, whatever electronic devices on them or in the car.

You may have to apologize but it's the thought that counts.

Much easier on the ego to accuse me of being a hater than to be accountable for being rude. Apologize and all.

I've said this here before but it reminds me again of this über-feminist woman I was with about five years ago (she made up for being an üf by being hot in bed.) When we'd argue about something she'd inevitably accuse me of "not respecting women", just because I disagreed with her.

No, lady, the problem isn't that you're black. It's that you're loud, rude, assholes.

In my neighborhood, in my experience, they seem to go together. Let me explain. I've lived in my neighborhood -- Rainier Beach in South Seattle (Rainier Beach is the southernmost part of Rainier Valley) -- since 1990 when I bought my house. It's racially mixed. In fact, this Seattle Neighborhoods website says:

In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the 98118 ZIP code – which includes much of Rainier Valley – is America's most diverse. A third of the population is African American, a third white and much of the balance includes immigrants from across the globe –Spanish to Somali, Vietnamese to Chinese, Japanese to Malaysian. More than 50 languages are spoken here.

Now, this is like the most-Muslims-aren't-terrorists-but-all-terrorists-are-(or-most-seem-to-be)-Muslims thing.

Most black people in my neighborhood are, I'm sure, not assholes. But almost every single time I come across someone acting like an asshole in my neighborhood, it's a black person. The person giving a checkout clerk at Safeway a hard time? A black person. The person screaming at the McDonald's clerk because it's 10:29 am and they've run out of breakast items and the sign says they serve breakfast until 10:30 am? A black person. The kid playing music at the library and being obnoxious at the librarian when she tells him to turn it off? A black kid. The person leaving their laundry in the dryer without coming back to check on it and then bitching at me because I got tired of waiting and took it out and put my clothes in? A black woman. The person blocking the road with his car while chatting with a friend and giving me the finger when I honk? A black guy. People speeding -- way over the speed limit -- down my street? Almost always a black person.

I'd like to think this is a class thing. My neighborhood is one of the lowest income in Seattle. But if this was the case, wouldn't I be seeing proportionate asshole behavior by whites (one-third of the population) and Asians/Latinos/other (also one-third of the population)?

I dunno, I could see someone being more annoyed by music [typically] played by one particular race than another. Personally, I'm most annoyed by music with a heavy bass.

Same here, Nicole. I hate that thudding bass sound (and, unfortunately, hear it often with the cars driving down my street.)

The three types of music I can't stand are rap/hip-hop, metal and opera. If there was a hell, and it involved listening to one of those for the rest of my flaming life, I'd probably have to go with opera as the least worst.

Obviously, Amy, what you should have done as soon as you saw that that noise-polluters were black was shut up and let them go about their business, because they're BLACK, dammit, and they've gone through slavery and Jim Crow and every second of every day of their lives is filled with racism because America is a racist country, so how dare you hold them up to the same standards as you do all other races! You racist!

I love Opera. It's also a happy medium for me and my husband... he likes symphonic music best, I like musicals, and Opera is kind of halfway between the two...

I should start blasting Opera at people who blast Rap at me.

I should start blasting Opera at people who blast Rap at me.

It might work. Rap fans don't seem, to me, as if they'd like opera.

About two years ago, I started corresponding with a woman in the Bay Area. She's on a Seattle-based blog I also post on, and I was heading down there for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival so I had suggested we meet. We got to talking about music and she mentioned that she loves opera. I told her I didn't care for it at all and she kept telling me, "if you just listen to it more, you'll grow to like it." I told her I've listened to it enough, I've tried to like it, but it just doesn't do anything for me. She did have a point in that, sometimes, with more exposure to something -- like a food -- one can grow to like it. But other times, a person knows that something is simply not to their liking, and no amount of added exposure is going to change that. Rap would probably be that way with you. Even if you listened to it a lot more, you'd never grow to like it.

This reminds me of reading about how they used music as a weapon against prisoners, captured in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo Bay. I couldn't remember what type of music they played, so I just did a web seach and came across this article in Speigel Online: The Pain of Listening: Using Music as a Weapon at Guantanamo. It appears they threw all types of music at them (although there's no mention of opera.) I wonder what type of Western music a rabid Islamic fundamentalist would despise the most? Pavarotti? Herman's Hermits? Megadeath? Merle Haggard? Kanye West?

On this particular day, there was also a boom box in the small, eight-square-meter (86-square-foot) interrogation cell. The soldier inserted a CD by rapper Eminem, turned up the volume and left. . . . The next time Ahmed was taken to the interrogation cell, the music was heavy metal instead of Eminem. . . . Prisoners were strung up by their wrists for days while being blasted with music by artists like Dr. Dre. They were bound, with headphones placed on their heads, and forced to listen to Meat Loaf for hours. They were locked into wooden boxes and forced to endure "Saturday Night Fever" by the Bee Gees for entire nights at a time.

I loved this part:

And in 1993, when the FBI was preparing to storm a ranch near Waco, Texas, where members of a sect had barricaded themselves in their compound, the agents blared the Nancy Sinatra hit "These Boots Were Made For Walking" from loudspeakers.

I should start blasting Opera at people who blast Rap at me.
Posted by: NicoleK at May 26, 2014 4:52 AM

It might work. Rap fans don't seem, to me, as if they'd like opera.
Posted by: JD

Doenst work with orchestra, I've tried

I dont particularly care for opera, I've got sensitive hearing and most voices just rub me the wrong way.

I've yet to hear anything in Italian that I like. Thus far the only one I can get thru in its entirety is Lakme, in french