Leading activist Revered Al Sharpton has lashed out against the appropriation of offensiveness for profit in the rap music industry.
He singled out three entertainment conglomerates - Time Warner, Viacom and Vivendi - who release music which Sharpton believes to be laced with racist and misogynist sentiment.Three words in particular have raised the ire of the former US presidential candidate - "nigga", "bitch" and "ho". The campaign urges the withdrawal of government-run pension fund investments at the companies.
"The opposition has tried to use the argument of free speech, but they don't have the freedom to use peoples' pension funds against their own will and interest," Sharpton told the Reuters news agency.
During a 150-strong protest outside New York's Virgin store in Times Square, protester M. Morton Hall said, "These young people are destroying the fabric of black history and black culture for a dollar."
