Letters to the Editor
Newsday
THE EDITOR: I have been taking copious note of the music some retail stores play. In some cases, it’s really screaming and screeching dancehall or it’s really loud gospel. Some of the content is offensive to women of all races, even if some women revel in the audio debauchery and “gunman in she ho–” culture.
I have had to walk out of stores which blast/broadcast really uncouth radio DJs who are obsessed with gutter talk, most times laced with sexual overtones. Sometimes the music sounds like people quarrelling or dogs barking and as a discerning buyer I have taken a conscious decision to not patronise their establishments.
While most successful groceries and stores have gotten it right and patronage from consumers will be unchanged, there is a leading gents apparel store which had a habit of playing gospel that made me feel I was shopping in a church. Naturally, I took a detour and have done no business with them, unless I am in the mall.
There is a chain of cosmetics stores which, while conspicuously hiring people of every race, has transformed the stores into Jamaican nightclubs – daytime block fetes to appease the urban ghetto. I spoke to them and from now on I will definitely be pennywise as to how and where and when I shop.
I applaud them for playing bhajans before 9 am. That’s the time I will shop because after 9 o’clock it all goes downhill when someone changes the station to slam customers with music carrying violent, bizarre, indecent overtones.
In this regard, it seems like there have been more discerning people, since I have noted a trend to broadcast more civilised music stations which play adult contemporary, decent soca and calypso, rythym and blues.
I was sitting in an excellent store having lunch and it was so delighful to listen to some R&B and not the distasteful rap and hip hop, most of which glorifies black-on-black crimes, sexually objectifies women as prostitutes and can’t seem to move beyond classifying women as “bitc—” and men as “dogs” and uses the s-word liberally, as well as praises offenders for jail time, defunding and hating the police and killing for everything.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems as though there is a move to switch to a station that everyone can listen to. Of course, no one listens to the Indian-formatted stations, so you will never hear that in a mall, or in a taxi, maxi or a store or a restaurant. No, that’s the price of national unity. If you hear it on a bus, it will be stoned before it reaches its destination.
Be that as it may, I thank those business establishments that select decent, civilised stations for broadcast. I assure them it’s the right decision and they will reap the benefits.
Thanks for the music.
LINDA CAPILDEO
St James
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