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1

Actually, it was country music that the McDonald's on Third used, not classical.

Posted by Willis | July 31, 2007 1:46 PM
2

Actually classical music is as much a *generational* repellent as a racial one. Throughout the whitest parts of the Midwest, for instance, classical music is often used to keep the (white) preteen and teen set from loitering in front of convenience stores, on street corners, etc. Big Band and Lawrence Welk also works. It's a bit simplistic to analyze it strictly as racial...

Posted by ebsur | July 31, 2007 1:48 PM
3

So, Charles, you're saying that blacks are criminals and do not ever listen to classical music?

This is anti-criminal, not anti-black. Sorry.

Posted by supergp | July 31, 2007 1:50 PM
4

that's hilarious. they are playing music they think will force people away. why not blue grass then? it's perhaps just as disliked and equally as white.

Posted by infrequent | July 31, 2007 1:50 PM
5

Some black people listen to "classical" music. Some even play it.

Posted by Fnarf | July 31, 2007 1:51 PM
6

Yes it was country music on third and what's the deal - black people can't be into classical music (Wynton Marsalis!)? That is truly moronic...but to be expected from the person who writes "weapon againt the"

Posted by mushmouth | July 31, 2007 1:52 PM
7

Charles, if they were streaming Toby Keith or Kenny G, then I might agree with your racial observation.

Posted by Mahtli69 | July 31, 2007 1:52 PM
8

And it's "kryptonite" not "cryptonite" unless you're being cryptic. Or Crypt-tic.

Posted by bill | July 31, 2007 1:53 PM
9

Wait, hold on. Charles, are you calling gang members the "blackest Americans"?

I can't wait to see ecce homo's head explode.

Posted by dirge | July 31, 2007 1:53 PM
10

So Charles, Blacks do not/ can not listen to classical music? Isn't that a tad racist?

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | July 31, 2007 1:54 PM
11

Like @2 said, I don't buy that this is a racial thing. Convenience stores back in my hometown played easy listening to keep some of the local kids (most of whom were white) from hanging around out front. And Saars Market on Rainier has been doing the same thing for a while, apparently with some success.

Posted by tsm | July 31, 2007 1:55 PM
12

enough about the blackest americans... i, for one, am sick and tired of aryan's and their street corner pinochle games.

Posted by infrequent | July 31, 2007 1:56 PM
13

I lived half a block from that McDonald's back in the day and the music was played at a volume that could only be described as obnoxious. When it got smashed in during the WTO protests, I found it to be a nice break. When the new building opened up at that location and a fresh McDonald's moved in, I was disappointed.

It should also be noted that it wasn't radio, but licensed music from Muzak.

Of course, this is the same where it's illegal to sit down on the curb, right?

Posted by Christian | July 31, 2007 1:57 PM
14

You know, it's faint, but on Bach's Cantata BWV 101 (Nimm von uns Herr, du treuer Gott), he clearly inscribed ""Dem höchsten Gott allein zu Ehren,
Dem Homeys, draus sich zu belehren." ("To the glory of God alone in the highest and the edification of my homeys.")

Posted by MvB | July 31, 2007 2:03 PM
15

Man, I can't wait for the first "Clockwork Orange" moment, when a gang of thugs (any color, I don't care) gives a taste of the old ultra-violence to some homeless old guy while the strains of Beethoven wash over the scene.

I think we'll find that people go down under clubs and boots just as easily regardless of the soundtrack.

Ahh, Kubrick!

Posted by steph | July 31, 2007 2:08 PM
16

Most of the people I know who are into classical music are black, so I'm guessing this may actually work in reverse.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 31, 2007 2:12 PM
17

Yes, Charles, classical music is so much worse than gang shootings. Wouldn't want to interfere with that now, would we.

Posted by Justy | July 31, 2007 2:14 PM
18

"I'm singin' in the rain, just - "

*PUMMEL! KICK! SMASH!*

" - singin' in the rain! What a glorious feeling I'm - "

*THROTTLE! POUND! CRASH!"

" - haaaaaappppppy again!"

Posted by Alex DeLarge | July 31, 2007 2:14 PM
19

I find the suggestion that black people hate classical music to be almost as racist as the suggestion that white people like it. Musical taste does not have anything to do with skin tone.

Posted by Ryan | July 31, 2007 2:17 PM
20

What does it say about a particular group of people when it takes the audial equivalent of Raid to keep them at bay?

Posted by Caca Roache | July 31, 2007 2:20 PM
21

Where in that article is it ever said that the gang members causing the problem are predominantly African-American? And who on earth thinks classical music is "white"?

What strange leaps of illogic you do manage to make...

Posted by Geni | July 31, 2007 2:24 PM
22

Folks, please! Only white people are the R-Bomb.

Now, Charles: Will KING's advertising rates go up or down as a result of the new listenership?

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | July 31, 2007 2:41 PM
23

While it's true that many blacks do like classical music, it's also true that this "crime prevention" method is based on cultural and racial assumptions about music, the "value" of one form of music versus another, and some really insanely bad reasoning. Americans will always try to find the easiest bandaid solution to any problem. Instead of tackling complex issues like poverty, we can place cameras everywhere and blast classical music all day to keep the poor all nice and tidy in their cages.

Posted by Jay | July 31, 2007 2:42 PM
24

@21

When you see the phrase "gang members" in the newspaper do you think of the T-Birds from Grease? Or perhaps the Jets and the Sharks from Westside Story?

Also, when you think of a classical symphony and visualize the audience what do they look like?

Charles isn't ENTIRELY illogical on this one.

Posted by Sstarr | July 31, 2007 2:45 PM
25

please tell me the music will make chucky run/swim/flee back to Africa and leave us alone...

Posted by ddv | July 31, 2007 2:50 PM
26

@23: Trying to fix the problems doesn't mean we can't treat the symptoms too.

OP: Classical music has been used in many places to thin out crowds of young people, those most likely to hate "old people" music. Trust Charles to decide that it's an anti-black thing.

Also, Charles, did you seriously say that gang members are the "blackest" of Americans? Is there some attribute of their lives which makes them black-er or more black than other African-Americans? You're not really black unless you're in a gang? Seriously?

I sometimes think Charles is a conservative plant, espousing the most indefensible and radical positions and lefty stereotypes. (although I'm guessing a conservative could have spelled kryptonite correctly...)

Posted by torrentprime | July 31, 2007 2:53 PM
27

This method has been used to keep ave rats away from certain areas on University Way, effectively. And fuck those guys. I'll cover my ears to buy some shit if it'll keep a horde of drugdealers, thieves, and shitheels form blocking my path out of there.

Posted by christopher | July 31, 2007 2:53 PM
28

There's usually classical music playing at the bus stop in front of Benaroya. Coincidentally, or not, that stop isn't plagued with the same loitering problems as the bus stops at Pine and Pike.

Posted by keshmeshi | July 31, 2007 3:02 PM
29

Don't let anyone know that Bach did time. He spent a month in jail in 1717 for trying to get out of a job with a Duke. Seems that composers didn't rank too high in the white power structure of the time.

Posted by dreamflying | July 31, 2007 3:37 PM
30

You know who hates classical music? Kids who hang out in front of stores. It's a no brainer.

Posted by Jason Josephes | July 31, 2007 3:37 PM
31

when i visited seattle for the first time last summer, i was aghast at the selection of music on the radio [tip: kurt cobain has been dead for almost 15 years now. get over it, people.]. i asked our host, "what do the black people here listen to?", to which he responed, "what black people?"

anyway, i always thought classical music was pumped into places to make people feel at ease, not scare them away.

Posted by brandon | July 31, 2007 3:44 PM
32

They did this in Olympia, too. It didn't work.

Posted by Nicky | July 31, 2007 4:54 PM
33

@31-
Some black people listen to KUBE, which is unbelievably vomitous garbage played on a twenty minute rotation. Black people with taste probably listen to iPods and the like. Only black people I've known in the last decade were somewhere in between, leaning toward iPods and burned CDs, but more tolerant than I could be of Beyonce's squealing and Fifty Cent's monotone thuggery.

Posted by christopher | July 31, 2007 5:02 PM
34

Hey, it worked in South Park. When Cartman needed to stop the jam band hippies he just put on death metal...

Posted by J-Yo | July 31, 2007 6:30 PM
35

I adore easy listening, and miss the days when Muzak played everywhere.

But I don't think I'm in a gang. Someone would have told me by now.

Posted by Catalina Vel-duray | July 31, 2007 10:23 PM
36

How this guy gets paid to write is beyond anyone's comprehension. Mitch Albom makes more sense.

Posted by Matt | July 31, 2007 11:42 PM
37

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38

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