Why do we let Bill O’Reilly get away with these constant attacks on hip-hop? My IQ is above 75, therefore making me predisposed to hating Bill O’Reilly. I wonder about the type of person that listens to this sort of rhetoric and is actually amused by this attempt at a joke. Bill’s condemnation of hip-hop is nothing new, but his attacks are becoming outright disrespectful to the entire culture of hip-hop and have absolutely no substance to back them.

Love him or hate him, Diddy is a power player in the hip-hop industry and epitomizes the success that is obtainable in the business. To put the man on the same playing field as Paris Hilton or to characterize him as a socialite is unfair to someone who has worked hard to achieve success. Furthermore, O’Reilly’s inability to give a reason as to why Diddy will be able to continue to do whatever it is he does, demonstrates that O’Reilly is once again taking a cheap shot at hip-hop to stir the pot, with no political rationale to support his statement.

There’s no denying the fact that O’Reilly is a threat to hip-hop. Most shrug off his remarks as having little impact on the industry because of the assumption that most of the people watching his show don’t listen to hip-hop music. They’re right. But that mindset is a little too obtuse because it ignores the trickle down effect that these attacks have on the people outside of the industry who, unfortunately, gain insight on hip-hop culture from people like Bill O’Reilly. His derogatory remarks about hip-hop cut off potential revenue streams outside of the musical realm, as was demonstrated during the Pepsi-Ludacris fiasco a few years back.

How is it that we can be so powerful as a culture, yet can’t silence a man as weak as O’Reilly?

Jay-Z was honored by the United Nations this week for his humanitarian work that has helped bring clean water to various villages in Africa. When was the last time O’Reilly was recognized for his positive contributions to anything?

Joe Budden made a good point about O’Reilly in the October issue of XXL when discussing the inexplicable reason we let O’Reilly play the role of the hip-hop police.

Who does the checking in hip-hop? In hip-hop? There’s nobody out there. Nobody does it. And then we leave all these people, like Bill O’Reilly, that have no idea what hip-hop means, or what it stands for, or what it’s about, to check hip-hop. They can’t do that. They don’t know shit about hip-hop.

It makes no sense that we have yet to create our own outlet, outside of the music itself, that can counter-balance the viewpoints of people like Bill O’Reilly and others who share misguided opinions on hip-hop. Why is it that any rapper willing to make a fool of themselves on national TV can get their own reality show, yet we don’t have a single show that regularly features hip-hop artists speaking intelligently on the actual reality of the world and issues that are important to us?

We can blame the large corporations, the networks, or the Republicans in general for our lack of progress in presenting an educated hip-hop culture to the mainstream, but I don’t buy it. The power is there, it’s on us to take the initiative to create the outlet. Regardless of what people will say about the intelligence of hip-hop music today, you cannot deny that there are plenty of artists capable of presenting and defending an argument on the same issues O’Reilly talks about every night.

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I dream of the day a rapper can make an intelligent statement on a social or political issue which will be appreciated by the mainstream media for the profound thought and original viewpoint that is being expressed and CNN doesn’t have to create a special segment that says “Look! A rapper had something smart to say!”