The
Hip-Hop Summit Action Network
tookto Capitol Hill on yesterday (Wednesday Dec. 6th)
to question findings in the recently released
by the Federal Trade Commissions study on the
entertainment industry’s marketing practices.
Minister
Benjamin Chavis Muhammad, CEO of The Hip-Hop Summit
Action likened the commissions findings to racial
profiling. Minister Muhammad and Ed Towns, a Democrat
from New York and member of the Congressional
Black Caucus, were troubled that over three quarters
of the music that was reviewed by the FTC was
Hip-Hop music. The Commission suggested that the
music was inappropriate for teenagers because
of the content.
"The
FTC is engaging in a type of racial profiling
aka Rap Profiling," the Minister said. "It
is coming in the most terrible form: censorship
of freedom of artistic expression."
While
the report blasted the music industry, it did
commend Hollywood studios for a number of marketing
reforms after blasting the movie business in their
September 2000 report for marketing R rated films
to kids.
The
FTC has insisted that it is not focused on the
content of the music, but on the marketing practices
and who the target audience is. Critics maintain
that the content is the issue and that the FTC
is making judgment as to what content is suitable
for children and what content isn’t.