The "American Dream" is all about excess. That's why the average American is a paycheck from bankruptcy or poverty. People confuse income with wealth and assume that a middle to upper middle class income means something. Then you also have a large percentage of the population that is working poor or at the poverty line.
So if white people want to sit around talking about the black community and this supposed culture that the rap industry is fueling, remember that all forms of entertainment (literature, music, art...) are the result of the society that breeds it. Every type of music (in various societies in this world) has misogyny and excess. It's just manifested differently. That's not to say there isn't room for change, but the black community has been arguing change long before C. Delores Tucker took on hip hop. So spare us the song and dance, white people and easily-swayed black people.
As for the childish "you all do it, so why look at us for doing it" game, the ever-so-wonderful Tim Wise has an excellent piece out in which he repeats everything that blacks have been saying for years. But of course since Wise is a white man, people will assume he's unemotional and learned enough to be paid attention:
http://blog.qusan.com/2007/04/tim-wi...n-on-imus.html
Sorry, T La Rock, LL killed it. 
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