Another day, another wackadoo political pundit trying to blame worldly issues on rap lyrics …

Another day, another wackadoo political pundit trying to blame worldly issues on rap lyrics …

A few days ago television and radio host Sean Hannity — probably best known for having one of the most elusive hair parts on television — brought up the whole Confederate Flag debate and tried explaining in circles why he feels rap albums should be pulled if mega-stores are opting to yank the flag from inventories in light of recent events.

“Some retailers — Sears, Walmart, Amazon, eBay and the rest of the retailers in the last 24 hours — have announced that they intend to discontinue sales of the Confederate flag,” says Hannity. “Now I have a question. Can you still buy a Jay Z CD at Walmart? Does the music department at Sears have any Ludacris albums? Can I download 50 Cent on Amazon? Can I do that? Can I get some Snoop Dogg albums on eBay? Because a lot of the music by those artists is chock-full of the ‘N word,’ by the way and the ‘B-word,’ and the ‘H-word,’ and racist, misogynist, sexist anti-woman slurs none of those retail executives would be caught dead using.”

Which is strange, for many reasons, but more so because this is a statement coming from a man who makes a living barking up storms based on individual rights and the ability for people to be able to make choices when it comes to things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness …

But if we’re to believe that corporations are people, shouldn’t those people be able to make the rational decision to pull a flag if they feel the product is going to be an issue for them in the future? It’s not like the nation is “banning” anything, as anyone likes to point out — the consensus is just simply saying en masse they don’t like something and profiteering behemoths are acting accordingly to protect their image.

Sears, Walmart, Amazon … they’re all in it for the money — the only colors they care about are the green and gold kind (okay, mostly just imaginary zeroes in a bank account, but you get the idea). They could give a shit about brotherhood or state dignities or whatever the fuck a piece of fabric is supposed to accomplish.

Saying rap albums — albeit lyrically problematic some of the time — should be pulled, fervently ignores the fact that hip-hop is currently a $10 billion industry. Confederate Flags? Likely those pull in about $10.99 on a good day … big difference in the eyes of corporations.

We get where he’s going: People need to stop being so concerned about what’s offensive out there in the big bad scary world of ours and opting to cherry-pick what we should and should not accept as a society if we’re not enacting those same concerns on other, non-buzzable things.

Where he goes wrong, however, is that each of us have a story, and we choose to tell those stories through imagery, art, music … comment threads … and for people to try and ignore the reasons why people choose to express themselves through a particular piece is a huge problem worldwide. It’s perspective. It’s always perspective.

Things should go like this once in a while:

“Hey everyone, I don’t like this particular thing for these reasons.”

“Oh, we’re sorry, we never saw it that way. Well this is why we like that thing you don’t like — no malicious intent behind it, honestly.”

“That’s alright, I can see your side. I also see that my side and your side are different. Although we’ll never agree, we should still be peers and get through this thing called life together.”

“Neat, yes let’s do that.”

“Neat. Carry on.”