Aug. 12, 2007
Stop Snitchin'
Rapper Cam'ron: Snitching Hurts His Business, "Code Of Ethics"
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Play CBS Video Video Stop Snitchin' In Full: CNN's Anderson Cooper reports on how the hip-hop culture's message not to cooperate with the police in any way has undermined efforts to solve murders across the country.
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Video Rapper Cam'ron On Snitching Rapper Cam'ron tells Anderson Cooper there's never a reason to help the police. He says he is so against the authorities, he wouldn't even turn in a serial killer.
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Video Cooper's Reporter's Notebook CNN's Anderson Cooper talks about the conflicting messages conveyed through hip-hop culture and how record companies are doing little to address these concerns.
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Kennedy works with communities and police departments all over the country. Nationwide, he says, police are able to arrest a suspect in about 60 percent of the homicide cases they investigate. That’s known as the "clearance rate."
But Kennedy says in some neighborhoods the rate is much, much lower. "I work in communities where the clearance rate for homicides has gone into single digits."
The unwillingness to come forward, Kennedy says, lies at the core of the problem.
"What does it say about what's happening in a community that if you come forward, you lose status in that community?" Cooper asks.
"In these neighborhoods, we are on the verge of, or maybe we already have lost, the rule of law," Kennedy says.
The snitchin' credo is not just a product of hip hop music, he says. Nor are people simply afraid to come forward. As Professor Kennedy sees it, and as Cam'ron portrays it in a movie, the root cause is a long-standing belief that law enforcement is the enemy.
Kennedy says that’s partly because of police tactics used to fight the war on drugs.
Asked if he trusts the police, Alex tells Cooper, "No."
Why not? "'Cause there's been numerous times I've been walking, just being a regular American citizen and getting stopped for no reason," Alex says.
"Is it possible that people aren't coming forward to talk to the police not because of what rappers are saying, but just because they don't trust the police?" Cooper asks New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
"Sure. There's always going to be an element that is not happy with what the police do," Kelly says. "But I think the difference here is the commercialization, if you will, of 'don't snitch.' The glorification of it."
"It's that sort of edgy, you know, kind of ghetto, everybody's kind of into it. It does package well, and it does sell well. And beneath, you know, beneath all of this stuff, there's huge corporate profits in the industries that feed off this," Canada says.
Many of the big-name rappers who rail against snitches are distributed on major record labels. Cam'ron is distributed through Asylum Records, a division of Warner Music.
When the rapper L'il Kim committed perjury rather than implicate members of her entourage in a shooting, Black Entertainment Television launched one of its most popular shows ever, chronicling her days before going to prison.
"Black Entertainment TV ran a reality series about her that was advertised with the tag line, 'She's going to prison with her mouth shut and her head held high,'" Professor Kennedy says. "This is a Joe Camel issue. This is big business selling death."
Black Entertainment Television has said its series on L’il Kim did not condone her crime, but rather took "a very serious look at her life and her choices…." As for Cam'ron's relationship with Warner Music, an executive there declined to comment.
"I dare any of those executives in the major companies to put one of those songs on in board meeting. I dare 'em. They'd never do it," Canada says. "You put on some song that has the n-word 50 times that talks about killing and murder, oh no. Board members don't want to hear that kind of stuff."
"I just think that rap takes way more slack than the video games and the movies. We don't make guns. Smith and Wesson makes guns," Cam'ron argues. "Like, white people make guns and bullets and all we're doing is rhyming and putting words together."
"If your record label said to you, 'Look, we're not going to promote you, we're not going to distribute you if you keep calling Curtis Jackson a snitch.' Or you keep, writing about guns and selling drugs, would you stop?" Cooper asks.
"No record company in the world would say 'We're not promoting if you keep calling somebody a snitch. They know what makes money," Cam'ron says. "A record company would never be that stupid. Ever."
"In 2005, I was a victim of a violent crime. I was shot multiple times without provocation by two armed men who attempted to carjack my vehicle. Although I was a crime victim, I didn't feel like I could cooperate with the police investigation. Where I come from, once word gets out that you've cooperated with the police that only makes you a bigger target of criminal violence. That is a dark reality in so many neighborhoods like mine across America. I'm not saying its right, but its reality. And it's not unfounded. here's a harsh reality around violence and criminal justice in our inner cities."
"But my experience in no way justifies what I said. Looking back now, I can see how those comments could be viewed as offensive, especially to those who have suffered their own personal tragedies or to those who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens from crime. Please understand that I was expressing my own personal frustration at my own personal circumstances. I in no way was intending to be malicious or harmful. I apologize deeply for this error in judgment."
"We expect and encourage all of our artists to behave responsibly and lawfully and we were gratified that Mr. Giles apologized for his remarks. We applaud "60 Minutes" for shedding further light on these important and complex issues and believe that the resulting dialogue among artists, law enforcement, community leaders and the media industry has been and will continue to be a constructive one."
Produced By Andy Court and Keith Sharman
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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The report seems to conclude that Stop Snitchin is strictly about street image and business. That may be so what about trusting the police and mindless consumerism? The response was overwhelmingly %u201Cno%u201D in trusting the police. The opening scene of the Godfather shows this brilliantly. %u201CThere were courts of law and you didn%u2019t need a friend like me. But you don%u2019t ask for friendship, you don%u2019t ask for respect. But now you say Don Corleone bring me justice. What have I done to have you treat me so disrespectfully?%u201D
So is %u201CStop Snitchin%u2019%u201D really just about image and business or is it more about who can you trust and consumerism gone awry?
Tony Montana %u201CDo you know what capitalism is? Getting f#*&^ed.%u201D
"The World is Yours". But what kind of world you you want?
They would have to pay for that placement or sign a release for the usage. One would think that the Yankee organization would not support the anti-law enforcement message but they must be comfortable with this. Cam'ron must sell thousands of baseball caps for them.
Does this mean you go out & buy a gun & take the law into your own hands? That makes a lot of sense.
Another pearl of wisdom from bayyyboiii:
"Didn't your mom ever tell you, "DON'T BE A TATTLETALE"!! Well, that is exactly what snitchin is doing...TATTLETALING."
You know exactly what your mother was talking about. The stuff that brothers do to their sisters & vice versa. Somehow I don't think your mother was referring to murder & rape. Felonies.
They're nothing but a negative influence. You're surrounded by stupid, ignorant people.
Black people are doing it to themselves.
Re something else someone brought up. No American black is going to Africa to live.
The worst poverty in the USA is nothing
compared to the poverty in Africa.
ALL GANGS HAVE THE SAME CODE" posted by karimah2
I never knew the black community as a whole was considered a gang. I guess you missed the interviews with the young kids or did you consider them gang members as well? Were the 25 blacks who witnessed the murder where none will talk all gang members? Wake up! This is not a gang issue it is a black issue. It is also asinine to think that some rap singers are responsible for robbing so many blacks of their moral and ethical sense to the point where they would FREELY CHOOSE to let murderers go free so as not to harm their oh so precious image amongst their peers.
This story simply drives home the most important behavioral difference between blacks and whites and that is the overall difference in moral and ethical behavior and it is this lack of morals that is responsible for keeping blacks as outsiders in their own country.
ALL GANGS HAVE THE SAME CODE.The CosaNostra/Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood, Kkk, Ms-13) a large Latino gang, and Asian gangs.
By pointing the finger at the Black rappers, etc,
you are making all neighborhoods vulnerable.
As the one guy, said, the owners of these music companies are making millions, and to them that is all what counts. ALL YOUNGSTERS ARE LISTENING!!!!AND LEARING, AND WILL COPY CAT WHAT THEY SEE AND HEAR.
Police are not good, they are necessary.
Big business is not bad....in this case the end result would be identical if the recording companies made thousands instead of millions.
The AfrAm community feels that they have had no input or impact on the rules and laws of our society, and they don't accept them. They want to be different, and they are making up their own rules. This is no different from adolescent rebelling, except that it has grown into a coltural and racial entity that we will have to deal with in the decades to come.
There is no point in ridiculing it, pretending that they are wrong, and telling ourselves that this is incomprehensible.
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