Examples Of Censorship In America Today

“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.” This quote from Potter Stewart exemplifies how censorship is used to control society and the freedom of speech. When freedom of speech and expression are limited, everyone is very similar and there are no differences in society, which does not help society grow as a whole. No one has any contradicting ideas, which sounds like a good thing, but realistically is not. The expression of ideas and ideologies often forms groups in a society, and people look to these groups for comfort and social validation.

Censorship has been adopted in many societies as well as the governments of our world. As the history of the world expands we see many countries try to censor what their citizens see. When the countries do this they are not assisting the country, they are leading it into a self-destruction. A good example of this would be America in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. This nation is destroyed in a futuristic war that only lasts a couple of minutes, if not seconds. Other fitting examples include the Nazi regime and the Soviet Union, both governments censoring their population in what they could read, write, and see. As we know both of these governments did not succeed and ultimately were obliterated and the countries were punished. Government censorship not only wounds the ability for people to grow and expand in their thought process, but it eventually causes the ultimate self-destruction of the nation.

Censorship dates all the way back to 443 BC in ancient Rome with the Office of Censor. In that time this was an office of great repute, the Office of Censor was charged with the shaping of the character of the people. Thus it was considered to be an honorable task, since then the connotation of the word and such an office has changed greatly. Today censorship is the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc. and suppressing “unacceptable parts” based on whoever is defining “unacceptable.” Unacceptable has been considered to be a wide range of concepts from ideas to sexually explicit content. Historically in the USSR most leaders used censorship in every form as a means of suppressing whatever or whoever was perceived as a

Examples of this include the frequent scenes of police harassment towards the NWA members, applying a race related agenda. As a consequence of the perceived agenda, the group created their most famous song titled ‘F--- The Police’, which gained nation-wide popularity.

Many African Americans had no way to express themselves, in fear of the cops brutality getting worse than before. So in return many rap groups targeted police with violent references and stories from the ghetto. Many talk about murder, selling narcotics, and having sexual relations with prostitutes. But their explicit content worked by catching the younger crowd. And eventually sparked a fire with the media and blew up across the country and made it to news some people thinking that there songs were gross.

The release of the the album “Straight Outta Compton” was the beginning of the new gansta rap with the release of the record F**k the police which spoke on the hardships people were receiving from law enforcement. The power of their rhymes sparked a social revolution and influenced people all around the world. Straight Outta Compton the movie goes on to depict the lives of the five group members and the trials and tribulations that they are faced with being in a group along with living in the community they did being African-American males. The movie shows the rise and fall of the group, ultimately showing the split of the group, the loss of a group member and the solo music and industry careers of fellow members. Socially Straight outta Compton shows its audience the inside of the change of the hip hop culture forever.

These groups created controversy in the world because they related their life events into their music. Their lyrics were about tough real life issues they dealt with and things that happened in their personal lives; how they were treated with hate and brutality. They were considered “thugs” and “gangsters”. These were young African American artists that lived in poor neighboring communities from the rest of the world. To no fault of their own, they were looked upon as bad people and automatically stereotyped. Their treatment was different for them than it was for others living outside of these specific troublesome areas. They changed the whole culture of music altogether. Other music genres followed suit by making their music about real life events too. It

Censors were instituted to tell the general population what should and should not be viewed and thus began this

With the violent diction, many people were put off by it. “Although violence, sexism and obscene lyrics have always been a part of American popular culture, what made gangsta rap intimidating was its lyrics…The lyrics came instead from the minds of what many white Americans considered to be the most violent and threatening segment of America-‘young angry inner city black men”(Canton 245). Much like today, the incarceration rate for black men was incredibly high, which can be seen through the aftermath of the Watts Riot, the formation of the Black Panther Party as well as countless other civil movement events. Gangsta rappers’ goal was to appeal to the masses of their culture. As many of them at least knew someone that had been put in jail, making songs about what got them there pulled a strong audience. For example, prominent gangsta rap group, NWA combined the violent rhetoric and political charged diction in their song, “F*ck tha

The word censorship is from the Latin word root of censere, which means to give an opinion or expression to be judged upon. Censorship is the restriction of certain material, and due to its expression it is seen offensive to someone else. The origin of expression of censorship can be tracked back to the Roman Empire when Roman officials assessed the conduct and attitudes of other Roman citizens. The Roman government viewed that in order to have a strong government, the behavior and conduct of the peopled had to be changed according to what they thought was correct. Censorship continued to be a controversy over time. It remained a controversy over time, through many empires, the age of Enlightenment, World War II, and even today. As censorship progressed through the ages it still continues today. Today, censorship occurs at schools. It occurs in libraries, classrooms, and even in student publications. Even though censorship can occur to a certain extent at schools, students’ First Amendment rights are still protected at school. The First Amendment protects freedom of expression, speech, press, religion, and assembly. Students are allowed to express themselves freely at school as long as they do not affect the education and as long as it is not an activity supported by the school system.

Public Enemy’s lyrics were dissected by critics in light of Chuck D’s statement. Their song called Fight the Power, recorded in 1989, caused uproar because of the blunt attacks of celebrities such as Elvis Presley and John Wayne. They called these two celebrities out on being racist instead of being a hero to them, Public Enemy or it could be generalized to the black community, as they were to everyone else. This song created a unified message that could apply to everyone, not just the African American community. Beneath the lyrics lie powerful messages about history and politics. When people listen and don’t understand the lyrics, it causes them to maybe want to do research to be more informed. Rappers such

Censorship in America is about the freedom of speech. And how people in America are limited the freedom of speech people who are Muslim can’t draw a picture of Muhammad. If Muhammad knew who drew his picture then the person would get executed. In America people are limited the freedom of speech. In schools people try to block out what other people are saying. Kids in schools are proble scared about what other people

Censorship on television in the United States has been an issue ever since the television was invented. The public holds a variety of stances on the topic, and no matter what law is ever passed regarding censorship, it will never suit the needs of everyone. Some believe that censorship violates individual rights in the law, and others believe that censorship should be available through members in the family, not the government. On the other hand, some people strive to maintain government regulation of censorship. Television censorship is significant because it holds the future of our country. If channels continue to be censored, our rights will be violated. If not, then the future generations may change

Censorship may be protection from inappropriate materials, but it also limits free speech. For the limitation of free speech, it is reasonable why people are emphatically against censorship. It is understood that there is a need to filter some of the materials released in today’s society, but too much is being done by people who have no right meddling with everyone’s rights. Civilization has always been plagued by a never ending battle being fought over what is deemed right and wrong. In today’s culture, censorship oppresses everything in the media. From movies and music to television and even news stories, most of the content viewed today has been filtered one way or another. Restrictions have been in place since early societies have been

The few words that were swear words were completely altered but a strong purpose to the song was still there. The same can not be done to today’s music because the song would make next to no sense at all. Music in general “is powerful at the level of the social group because it facilitates communication which goes beyond words” (Francis). In other words, music projects ideas and words that people would not ever think to say. A very famous rap group called N.W.A is a clear example of how their song F*ck The Police went well beyond just words. “The members of N.W.A. were hustled away from the arena by their security and whisked off to the safety of their hotel rooms — only to be arrested later” after performing said song on stage because the police were concerned about the impact it would have on the audience members (Hinds). And that is exactly why N.W.A became so huge; they were not afraid to push the limits. Ice Cube, a member of N.W.A, spoke on the impact of their songs, saying “some songs were just the craziness of the neighborhood, and we weren't always positive, but we were always honest” and that attitude appealed to people. However, it seems now that artists in the 2010s are not very into the whole honesty part of their songs but more their own image and just throwing something out there that has a catchy