If politics is downstream from culture, and it is, we have a lot to worry about. This is frankly because American culture has long been rotting like a 10-day-old avocado in the sun. A good example, appearing in my X notifications yesterday is a video of a white girl sporting corn-woven hair and speaking “Ebonics”-style while giving a cop a hard time. “Why is she talking like that?” asks the original poster of the 54-second clip.

X users reacting to the video were unsparing, with no small number attributing her behavior to low IQ. And one seemingly incredulous respondent asked, “Seriously, how does a white person become like this? How do you turn into the most degenerate stereotype of another race?”

Well, call me crazy, but it could have something to do with that stereotype being all over media and entertainment, presented as the quintessence of cool. (Heck, Calvin Broadus Jr., aka “Snoop Dogg,” was hosting at the Olympics last year.)

Add to this that whites have long been demonized as the bane of humanity (think “erasing whiteness”). Also add that in our secular time, kids are often raised without faith, unmoored from Truth, awash in relativism and immersed in vice. Their identity isn’t “child of God,” but is found elsewhere—many times via popular culture.

The white ghetto-rat-wannabe phenomenon is nothing new, either. In 1993, the Independent published an article about how middle-class Caucasian youth were adopting “black street style.” “‘To put it simply, black is where it's at,’ says Marian Salzman, president of BKG Youth, a New York consulting firm that offers product and marketing advice to companies…,” the paper related at the time.

The good news is that other reprobate forces worked against this. For one thing, whites’ adoption of black culture has in recent years been stigmatized as “cultural appropriation” (truly one of the dumbest concepts conjured up by the cultural devolutionaries, a truly dumb lot). For another, ghetto-rat wannabes surely learn that no matter how well they replicate the degeneracy, actual ghetto rats will still despise them for being white. (Think here of the young poser white guy in Gran Torino who ran afoul of the three black hoods. Such pretense reflects weakness; any hatred felt for you is then compounded by a total loss of respect.)

Here’s the kicker, though: The “black street style” isn’t even really black. As the great Thomas Sowell revealed in his 2005 book Black Rednecks and White Liberals, this so-called “black” culture (manner of speech, behavior, etc.) can be traced back to that of low-class whites 500 years ago in England. And even then, Sowell stated, such people were demeaned as rednecks and crackers.

In other words, white ghetto girl from the video is now a white redneck—imitating black rednecks imitating white rednecks. Only, profoundly ignorant, the black rednecks think “their” culture is theirs and the girl thinks “their” culture is cool. Meanwhile, the descendants of those original white rednecks may now be doctors, lawyers, and other accomplished people with refined tongues.

It all really is, too, a function of a demonically destructive DEI. White rednecks would have an incentive for self-improvement because their subculture is stigmatized; the same behavior in black rednecks, however, is glamorized.

Then there’s the matter of stereotypes. The old sitcom Amos ’n’ Andy was taken off TV in the early 1950s, under pressure from entities such as the NAACP, because it supposedly promoted negative black stereotypes. Yet while main characters George “Kingfish” Stevens and Andy Brown were goofballs, Stevens was essentially an amiable grifter and Brown a lovable dope. Moreover, the show otherwise presented a well-functioning, safe black community in Harlem, NYC, populated by intelligent, successful residents.

Contrast this with the “gangsta”-type black character so often portrayed today. Shouldn’t this be embarrassing for black Americans and, in fact, for all of us, as it’s disgorged by our nation’s entertainment realm? Where is the NAACP to protest this stereotype? They’re identifying as crickets?

No, actually, they’re as morally corrupt as everyone else who isn’t repelled by such portrayals. But, really, if you had a child, would you rather he be influenced by Amos ’n’ Andy or gangsta’ rappers?

As for white ghetto girl, she clearly didn’t have parents with the wisdom to insulate her from our corruptive popular culture. She also didn’t have a civilization with the wisdom to not let that culture become popular. This said, we could question her commitment. If she really desires authenticity, she needed to start cursing at and fighting with the cop, kicking and screaming and adding “resisting arrest” and “assault on an officer” to her trespassing charge. What a poser.

Making all of this worse is that what I’ve been inveighing against is just one aspect of our degraded culture, which today is rife with vulgarity, perverse sexuality, gratuitous violence and left-wing social messages. And why this matters brings me to my title.

Entertainment is probably a more significant influence on kids than is schooling, contrary to popular belief. Just consider how much schooling children get (and how little they may pay attention) compared to how much entertainment they imbibe. And how influential is the latter?

Ancient Greek philosopher Plato warned in Republic, “When the modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them.” Changes in musical styles can subtly shift societal values, which eventually will influence laws and governance, was his point. Now imagine what he’d say about today’s so much more seductive entertainment: television and the internet. (As to this, a study years ago found that in any and every part of the world, violent crime rose precipitously within 15 years of TV’s introduction.)

Plato also emphasized that children should be raised in an atmosphere of nobility and grace—and wholesome entertainment is part of this—so that they’ll develop the proper moral attachments at the ages when these affections are formed. For when they’re extremely young, kids won’t be able to understand virtue’s necessity intellectually. But they can develop an “erotic,” as Plato put it (i.e., emotional) attachment to virtue. When they then reach the age of reason, they’ll be more likely to accept reason’s dictates—and gravitate toward reasonable ideologies.

If children are raised in a corruptive environment, however, they will develop an emotional attachment to vice. And because as “the twig is bent, so grows the tree,” they will then glom on to ideologies that correspond to vice. Any wild guesses as to what such an ideology might be in our time?

This gets at the problem confronting us: We can’t make America great again if popular culture is making the world late-stage Rome again. It was Andrew Breitbart who said “Politics is downstream from culture.” But we must be mindful of a corollary: Political destruction is downstream from cultural corruption.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr, Instagram or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.