Pimps, Ho's and Chris Brown

It happened on Sunday. The news first broke.
I was on Twitter, reading messages about The Grammys,
with the TV turned off, when someone wrote a tweet saying,
"Looks Like Chris Brown put his Pimp hand Down on a Ho."

I unfollowed the person that made this statement.
And continued about my business. Then I thought.
That's odd, why is Chris Brown beating on a woman,
and isn't he dating Rihanna?

Then I learned, via Twitter, that Rihanna canceled her
Grammy performance, and of course, unless you have
been under a rock for the last few days you are aware
of the news, rumors, speculation, surrounding
what happened to them during the early hours of
February 9th.

The details of what happened between them are
not as interesting to me as what our response to
him allegedly beating her says about us.

Clarence Thomas.
Bill Clinton.
Elliott Spitzer.
The Duke Rape Case.
R Kelly.
Imus.
Mike Tyson.

Now this.

When race, sexuality, violence, power and gender combine with
pop culture it has a tendency to force us to choose sides and
our thoughts about the aforementioned issues are laid out
for the world to see.

I grew up in a house where The Mack
and Sparkle were dubbed onto the same VHS cassette
tape. I grew up in a house where adult family members
watched The Mack and pointed out streets and family
friends who played extra's in the movie.

That being said, I have been exposed to the world of
pimping as an every day, largely uncritizied, acceptable
phenomona from a young age.

There is something frightening about the ways in which
some folks have uncritically accepted and tried to explain
away what he has allegedly done. "He is young, he is a good
kid." But then again, we have done the same thing with pimping.

What does our unwillingness to criticize both Chris
and Hip Hop/ R & B say about us? Is R & B and Hip Hop our Daddy?

The tendency to explain away Chris Browns alleged
behavior reminds me of the habit within the hip hop generation to explain
away hip hops misogyny, with out fear sounding incredibly hypocritical.

The things that we listen to shape our world.

In the same way that many people, both Black men and women
felt that Chris allegedly beating her is an acceptable response
to finding out that she allegedly gave him herpes.

Many of us were raised getting spanked or whuppins by our
parents. Our parents loved us, but they were also beat
us as a form of discipline. Consequently there are many of us
who walk around scared and violent because our parents beat us.
Some of also think that it is normal for a person who loves us, to beat us.
There are many of us who cannot connect intimately because
of our fear of being hurt. This is the legacy of violence.

Many of us conflate being hit with being loved. They are not one
and the same. Being hit constitutes abuse and violence.
Period. End of Story.

Which brings me back to The Bay and pimping.
The Bay Area is notorious for its reverence for pimp
culture and it shows in our music.

I am a firm believer that we use language to organize
how we relate to one another in the world. I was
reminded of the danger of normalizing pimping when
I read the following passage in Taking Back God American
Women for Religious Equallity by Laura Tannenbaum. She writes,

...inclusive language is needed because words and the images
they evoke, have the power to shape our attitudes: male dominant language creates and reinforces a hierarchical order in which women are regarded as subordinate; words indicate our basic belief and assumptions about ourselves, about others and about God.

The pervasive use of the term pimping serves to normalize
the expression of hatred towards women.

Pimp my ride.

Pimp Juice.

Pimp my myspace profile.

P.I.M.P.

Big pimping tells me a lot about what I need to know
about how women in general and Black women
specifically are perceived in our culture.
There are some of us in the Black community that feel that
some women deserve to get beat for their behavior. This is exemplified
by the tendency in Tyler Perry Films for a woman to be slapped or
beat, and for the violence to go unaddressed in the film.

Which leads me to ask a few questions. How can a culture have
such pervasive reverence for pimps and Black women in the same breath?

Have you seen a pimp beating a woman? Have you encountered
a young woman who thought her pimp loved her? I have, and
it is a heartbreaking sight. Where is the humanity in this treatment?
Furthermore, not only is it heartbreaking, but I found nothing
entertaining about her life. In fact it made me feel powerless.
The documentary film, Very Young Girls, by David Schisgall about
13 year old prostitutes, illustrates the vulnerability of young women.


I was not surprised when a friend told me yesterday, (a friend
who said he was being a feminist because he felt that under
no circumstances should a woman be beat) that he was
surprised that women defended Chris Brown's alleged
right to hit Rhianna, if she did in fact have an STD.

I stay away from the "Men shouldn't hit women" logic because
if you believe that then what stops you from saying that men
can do things to woman "Because she is a woman." That
logic goes both ways.

I responded to him saying why should you be surprised,
why should women be any less patriarchal then men? He
mentioned a previous conversation where we concluded that
misogynistic parents raise misogynistic children. That being
said, there are some women who think that violence is a
reasonable response to certain situations. My reasoning is that
we only know what we are taught and when we know better we
(presumably) do better. I contended that both Oscar Grant and Rhianna
are human beings, and thus deserve to be treated as such.

To get into "women are more fragile, men are more strong,
some women are stronger than some men" is some part to
whole reasoning, that only serves to mystify and obscure
the issue at hand, which is that every person is a human
being and deserves to be treated as such. Violence is not the
way to go, be it the male or the female as the initiator.
Period. End of sentence.

Let's be clear. I am not writing from the inside out.
I come from a place that stipulates that you shoot first and
ask questions later. If you think I am lying see the Oscar
Grant Riots five weeks ago. I am talking about myself. I have
the strong urge to stick people with hot thangs when I feel
that they have wrong me. I also know that rage is destructive.

The issue of how to articulate responsibility between men
and women fighting in public is a hairy one. I have written
about that here as well. In fact, it was almost exactly a year
ago to the day that I wrote, "Domestic Violence, What Would
You Do?" where I mentioned a discussion with
my brother about how he decides whether to get involved if
he sees a woman being assaulted in the street.
Powerful stuff. My general stance is that oppression is oppression
and the no one should be beating on anyone else.
Period. End of sentence.

It seems that many of us are trying to make a connection between
Chris Brown's alleged beating of Rhianna and our personal lives.
I read a post today by Jozen Cumming about Miles Davis and
Chris Brown. I was reminded of my Patriarchy and Mobb Deep essay
when Jozen, tries to reconcile what it means to listen to
and enjoy Miles' music knowing full well that he unapologetically
beat Cicely Tyson. Jozen, splits hairs and ultimatly concludes
that the man is not his music. He writes,

What I learned with Miles Davis is that my loyalty is not to
the man but to what the man created. As a matter of fact, I
don't even know who he really was except for what he told
me in his autobiography. So why would I write off the very
thing he's made for me (his music) to enjoy simply because
outside of his job he was (from what I read) a complete jerk
who gave the world the middle finger?

For me. The music isn't just about the the artist or my enjoyment,
but about what our young people are learning about what is
acceptable behavior in relationships.

For me, fucked-up teenagers make miserable, and many times
addicted adults.

This awful incident gives us an opportunity to think about how
violence against women is normalize thorough our casual use
of the term pimping to describe everything from actual pimping
to the act of making a car very attractive.

I hope that we can see the ways in which our response
to Rihanna's alleged assault shows us who and what we value,
and the role that tolerated violence plays in our relationships.

Your thoughts?
I'm sure you have one or two. Big {Teef} Smile.