So an easy analysis, through the fast train’s glass, of rap as the latest occasion for the postliberal and highly vicarious guilt we find as exhilarating as it is necessary—that we like to play voyeur, play at being kept, for once, truly outside; it assuages, makes us think what’s inside that torn-down world refers to us in no way, abides here decayed because Meant To, the pain of the snarling faces the raps exit no more relevant or real than the cathode guts of Our own biggest window. The white illusion of ‘authenticity’ as a signpost to equity, the sameness-in-indifference of ’80s P.R.: Let
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