https://read.dukeupress.edu/radical-history-review/article/1996/66/124/79254/Fears-of-the-White-Unconscious-Music-Race-and
Barry Shank’s article, “Fears of the White Unconscious: Music, Race and Identification in the Censorship of ‘Cop Killer’” is effective for its continuous logic and critical analysis and use of rhetorical questions. It argues that the reason the song “Cop Killer” was so harshly censored was a white audience rejecting the culturally black message lyrical message. Best summed up by Shank’s own words -- “‘Cop Killer’ (and no other cultural product) became the object of a successful censorship campaign because it produced a structure of identification for white listeners that tapped into some of the deepest fears of the white unconscious. By presenting "Gangsta" rap lyrics within the musical context of a guitar-driven heavy metal Song, "Cop Killer" encouraged white listeners to identify with Black rage.”
Shank writes to a possible more educated audience as Duke University Press published it. His argument may open the eyes of the reader no matter their skin color to a social issue that goes beyond music. Ingrained in white minds is the “white unconscious,” a term Shank coined in 1992 in the wake of the LA Race Riots. The LA Race Riots were a series of riots, lootings, arsons, and civil disturbances that took place in April and May 1992 in Los Angeles County. The civil unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a trial jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department for usage of excessive force in the arrest and beating of African American taxi driver, Rodney King. Shank collected his thoughts and took time to analyze and published this piece four years after the riots on October 1, 1996. If he were to do an examination of the banning of “Cop Killer” in the heat of the riots, emotions would be running high and instead of a writing with a calm and cool manner, it would inevitably have a defensive and fervent tone. “My point is that to understand why “Cop Killer” drew such organized outrage resistance, we have to understand how popular music works at the level of construction of subjectivity” (Shank 135). He does use passionate diction such as “outrage” but his overall tone is pensive and logical. Throughout the article, he establishes himself credible in the subject areas -- history, music and American culture.
-Nicole Winiecki
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