This comment was from Neil Jung, who explains he is “de-lurking after about a year reading the GMP to comment for the first time” to comment on the post “Beastie Boy Adam Yauch Passes Away.”
I’m 42, and to me, Adam Yauch is the very model of a “good man.” A lot of this relates to the “growing up” that Lance mentioned.
I think of the transitions he made in the space of less than ten years, from his early 20’s to his late 20’s: from “Fight For Your Right to Party” to organizing the Tibetan Freedom Concert (which I was lucky to attend). From the juvenile misogyny of License to Ill to calling out the increasingly more violent strain in hip-hop with “I wanna say a little something that’s long overdue / The disrespect to women has got to be through.”
And yet, he never lost the impish humor of his younger years. That’s something I want to emulate. I actually thought of him often over the last year, because from the window of the meditation center in Santa Monica that I go to, there is a clear view of a skateboard park across the street. I think he’d have loved that.
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Let’s face it everyone is predjuced to a greater or lesser extent. Compartmentalisation is how our brains cope. it is a natural tenedancy that should be fought, that is why blanket disrespect of certain groups (and respect in fact) needs to stop.
Disrespect, like respect, is earned by what you do, or do not do. No-one is entitled to either.