Clarence Page in Jewish World News takes a look at the role Hip-Hop culture played in Johnny bin Walker’s transformation from Marin County phatRapper to craggycrusty Islamofascist. A taste:

Whiteness somehow lost its appeal for young John and, somewhere along the line, so did patriotism for America and allegiance to western culture.
I’ve seen Walker’s type before. Black street culture, a byproduct of historical exclusion and oppression, has long offered an attractive alternative for rebels against mainstream society.

WSJ’s Opinion Journal provides an alternate take:

Perhaps Walker didn’t want to be black so much as he wanted to be a man. He grew up in a time and place where androgyny was at its apogee. The denizens of Marin County, Calif., we’d venture to guess, view traditional sex roles as strictly optional, if not downright regressive. Walker is 20, which means his adolescence coincided almost exactly with the presidency of Bill Clinton. And news accounts paint his father as a sensitive, New Age kind of dad–the sort who thinks “a big hug” is an appropriate punishment for treason.

For those of you who have yet to peruse Walker’s Usenet newsgroup postings, you can find them here.

Man (Dude? Yo? Bra’? What are the kids using these days, anyhow?), when I was a teen angst pirate, it was Judas Priest or Ozzy lyrics that were likely to get me in trouble — though “trouble” meant getting stoned and lippy to the folks, and maybe going out and buying a boa constrictor and a four-pack of California Coolers. No ‘bangers I knew ever got so smokehappy that they decided to fight for a global terrorist organization with a medieval worldview (though I did know a guy who when properly provoked could knock a lit cigarette out of your mouth from fifteen yards with a Cool Ranch Dorito). ‘Course, no one I hung out with ever smoked opium…

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