On Monday I received an e-mail from the university informing me that Three 6 Mafia is performing this Saturday, Sept. 27. To say the least, I’m ashamed of UCSB and the Associated Students Program Board. Anyone who’s ever taken a listen to the Three 6 Mafia knows that its music, although melodious, is laden with misogyny and violence. I’m so proud of my university for sanctioning this event and even prouder that they decided to make it free; I wouldn’t want my tuition dollars spent any other way.

What a funny world we live in, one where hate music can establish such a following that a world-class university would deem it necessary, and in it’s best interest, to condone and finance a concert by Three 6 Mafia. What’s next, A.S. Program Board? How about you invite Rush Limbaugh, or a Nazi heavy metal band, or some other act that offends a rational person’s sensibilities?

But whatever, I guess their logic went like this: “This is UCSB, we’re a ‘party school.’ College kids love their rap… Hmm, let’s invite Three 6 Mafia. They’re over the hill and within our budget. Good meeting guys, let’s go walk around DP and holler into the night.” And there lies the problem, alas, the biggest problem this university faces. How do we transform our school into a world-class research institution, especially in America’s unstable condition, by having gangster rappers perform at our most sacred of monuments, Storke Tower? I wonder if Chancellor Yang will go to the concert. I wonder if he has a secret passion for rap filled with racial epithets and gender bias.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m appalled with the ASPB. But that’s what you get when you elect a bunch of people whose competency for office is tested by their ability to paint fancy signs on the bike path. You get kids who like to paint, rather than students who like to learn and have a deep sense of commitment to improve their institution.

I’m not familiar with the players on the Associated Students board, but I don’t have to be. Their decision-making abilities are evident through their desire to constantly
raise tuition proxy fees to finance things like Tech N9ne last year and Three 6 Mafia this year. Jack Johnson was a good call, but I’m positive that Associated Students had nothing to do with securing Jack a stool and a crowd to jam to.

If you find yourself a fan of Three 6 Mafia, and thus offended that I question its presence here on campus, I couldn’t care less. You wouldn’t dare play Three 6 Mafia around your mother, nor would you address a regular person with the type of language and perverse racial intensity that Three 6 Mafia exhibits. Maybe you like to dance to a bunch of guys talking about how they’ve got “the keys to the bakery,” but then maybe you’re just one of those people who’s not that bright and gives in to peer pressure. Personally, I don’t think misogyny is the price I have to pay to dance, but maybe you do.

So while I’m upset at the university for condoning the Associated Students’ decision to bring these glorified thugs on campus, this concert will happen regardless of my opinion. So I ask you, students of UCSB, but more specifically the impressionable freshmen: Will you, for the sake of preserving a sense of morality within yourself and decency on campus, avoid the Three 6 Mafia concert and restrain yourself from being sonically bombarded by hate-speech?

Some of y’all students threw a fit last year when the military contractors had a meeting on campus; this is a parallel situation. If you walked in that protest last year, and you go to this Three 6 Mafia concert on Saturday, you’re an ideological fraud. If you skipped class and caused a ruckus because some military businessmen were having a meeting, and you decide to go to this concert, you are indeed a lost cause, driven by the sounds and mass delusion of an Isla Vista Saturday night. I prefer to be driven by the ambition that I’ll leave the world a better place than when I found it, not by the vile ramblings of some over-the-hill rappers. But, youngsters at large, you decide. Pokross out.