Beyonce and Black Women's Empowerment

Educated Sistah Girl asked me some really good questions about
the Beyonce Post from a couple of weeks ago.

I kept trying to respond in the comments but blogger wasn't having it,
so I have made it into a blog post itself. Below is my response to her
comments.
Enjoy.


ESG,

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Your
responses have me thinking. I am going to try and respond to the
questions/comments that haven't been answered already.

You said:

The up and coming artisits like Jazmine Sullivan and Melonie Fiona are sickening to me with songs like Bust Ya Windows and that song on the radio abt 'I dont care if you are cheating I just want to be with you'. They are pop artists. They are much more detrimental to our culture byt not the White Ptriachal Capitalist System that you speak of...more like in a Willie Lynch Kind of way.

This is interesting. What do you mean by this? Why is it sickening?
What do you mean by a Willie Lynch kind of way?

You said:

I woudl argue that Beyonce says that she needs a baller because she is a baller. Do you mean to tell me that a woman worth xxM should be dealing with a guy worth xxH? It makes for an imbalanced relationship and is much more unheathy.

Why does Beyonce need a baller when she is married to Jay-Z and recently made
$87M 2007-08.

Why not sing about her marriage? Whose interest are being served by this?
What does this mean given the ways in which Black women who date ballers
wind up dead or in jail?

You said:

I happen to think that Beyonce is close to the modern-day Tina Turner... to the media

You are right and I am going to root Beyonce in a Tina Turner, Josephine Baker
and maybe even Lena Horne lineage. However, we must look at
image AND content. Tina and the Yonce ain't sing about the the same shit.
They were also produced by two very different historical moments and that
has to be accounted for to.

You also made two really profound comments that I am going to respond to at length.

The first:

Even Upgrade you is a testament to being with someone who is
"on your level" and bypassing those guys who will be bad for you.
Not because he can't give you anything but because you need to
have similar level of ambition (if not interests) to be in a HEALTHY
relationship. Many of her songs (Irreplacable, Me, Myself and I, Diva,
Put a Ring on It) are about empowering women to be independant.
This is needed in our community because there are way too many
women in unheathy relationships because they think they need a man.
Their ambition in life is to be someone's woman. The reason that

Beyonce appeals to so many is because she can sing about that
strength, that fierce independance and then show vulnerability in love
with a song like Flaws and all.

The second is:

Many of her songs (Irreplacable, Me, Myself and I, Diva, Put a Ring
on It) are about empowering women to be independant. This is needed
in our community because there are way too many women in unheathy
relationships because they think they need a man. Their ambition in
life is to be someone's woman.

We have are working with different assumptions. I am glad that you commented
because it is forcing me to think through my assumptions and state them
explicitly.

Assumption Number 1:

I do not assume a patriarchal view of the family or relationships.
More about patriarchy here.

Black women asking Black men for money for the rent is not
empowering.

This is really akin to two people fighting for crumbs from 'Massa
bosses table.

Our economic system serves the interest of the ruling class, a ruling class
made up of White people, to serve the interests of White people.

Beyonce's music serves the interest of the ruling class because it talks
about "empowerment", in terms of the most historically oppressed people
(aside from Native Americans) in the United States, arguing with each other
over paying the rent.

Black men and women beefin' with each other about money,
instead of focusing on an economic system that is created by White
people to serve the interests of White people is the complete antithesis of
empowerment because it has us looking at ourselves, instead of the system
that creates these conditions.

I'm realize in reading your statement that if I had a patriarchal view of
relationships THEN it would be true, this may seem empowering.

In this society, if we were going to "ask" any men for money, logically it
should be gay White men. They are White men, so they tend to be better paid,
and because they are gay, they tend to choose when they have children, as
they are is less likely pregnancy accidents. This is material because having
children is a high predictor of poverty in the US.

Our American economic system presumes that a group of people will
be financially exploited. Historically, this group has been black men
and women.

Empowerment arises in a system that pays Black men and women enough money
to survive, or even one that pays Black men and women the same amount
that White men earn, for the same jobs.

Empowerment arises in a system that forces some folks to live simply so that
OTHERS may simply live.

Women do 2/3rds of the worlds work for 1/10th of the pay. I want MY
9/10ths of pay back. Black men didn't take it from me, so they can't give it back.
Getting it from Black men isn't the issue.

Assumption Number 2:

Black men have been woefully underemployed since after WWII, so
walking around expecting them to have money simply isn't the issue.
Its an insult to measure ANY person by what they have, Black or otherwise.

Human beings are children of God.

What you have and who you are are two different things and Pop music/culture
in general and Beyonce's music in particular is harmful because it normalizes
the idea that relationships are based on financial transactions, fuck love.

This is not to say that we shouldn't have standards and just date anyone but we
must ALSO look at how the system limits the options that Black people have
in this society.

I hear you, as women we are socialized to put relationships ahead of everything else.
I have worked VERY hard, and still work hard at making my spiritual life, my artistic
life, my work at the center of my day to day , not just my relationship. In order to do this,
I had to do a lot of unlearning what I was taught as a young girl about who was suppose
to be when I grew up. I wrote about it in this post titled, "On Waiting Around for a Man."

I am going to repaste a part of the above quote again, because it reminds
me of something else.

You write:

As far as the videos she has "Normalizing consumption and exchange-based
heterosexula relationships, she has plenty of other songs that are just as
popular, if not dancable (which doesnt realy mean much...ppl dont LISTEN
to dance songs for the lyrics), songs that speak to giving your all to a
relationship, appreciation for your partner, and recognizing the person
he/she is. Dangerously In love, Flaws and all, and Halo. Even Upgrade
you is a testament to being with someone who is "on your level" and
bypassing those guys who will be bad for you. Not because he can't
give you anything but because you need to have similar level of ambition
(if not interests) to be in a HEALTHY relationship. Many of her songs
(Irreplacable, Me, Myself and I, Diva, Put a Ring on It) are about
empowering women to be independant. This is needed in our community
because there are way too many women in unheathy relationships
because they think they need a man. Their ambition in life is to be
someone's woman. The reason that Beyonce appeals to so many is
because she can sing about that strength, that fierce independance
and then show vulnerability in love with a song like Flaws and all.

This is a profound statement.

Where is the middle ground for a heterosexual Black woman between
refusing to be a doormat and loving Black men in the face of limited
employment options that they have?

Is the issue that we need to learn love ourselves?

What is the connection between black women's empowerment and self love?
Is the issue that Black men need to learn how to love themselves as well?
Would Black teenage boys kill each other the way that they do if they loved
themselves?

Black men with Awesome credentials, Ivy League etc, have a hard time getting
and keeping a job. If Ivy League Black men can't get a job, and if we value men
by how much money they have, then don't we have a problem? Is the problem
us our the system that we live in? What will it take to redefine what it means
to love?

I am pushing this conversation to get us to think along the lines of the system
that we live in, along with, thinking in terms of individual relationships we have.

All in all, I hope this was responsive.

~Renina

BET's School for Nappy Headed Ho's: BET, Drake & Lil Wayne

The jump @ 3:55 sec

"I like a long haired thick red bone."
~Lil Wayne

No nappy headed ho's allowed.

I have been having a conversation with Moya and Nuala about
BET, Drake, and Lil Wayne.

The conversation has been interesting in that I have been
pushing hard against being reactionary. Its challenging, because when
you react you feel empowered.

But, we, the masses, always have the power, whether or not we use
it is another question. We outnumber the executives and the politicians.

Always.

Black Women
It is important to note that there are Black women who
are only angry because Drake's video features light skinned
Latina's and White women. From the Sandra Rose website,

"Sandra as a woman I am offended that this is all Kanye West, the director, could come up with for one of the hottest songs of the summer. He should be ashamed of this depiction of females. This video in a nutshell basically says a woman’s beauty is defined by how big her boobs are and light her skin is. And Kanye being a black man raised by black parents and Drake being bi-raicial (half black and half white) why are they only showcasing ALL Hispanic girls in this video? I don’t get it, they couldn’t get ONE pretty chocolate sister up in the video like Lanisha Cole, Jessica White, or Natasha Ellie to be in the video alongside the Hispanic girls?..."

I read this, thought about it, read it again then realized that,
getting more Black women to care about rap videos, simply takes
only featuring Latina's and White women. Hmmmp.

In fact, on Tuesday. I tweeted that in some ways the the only
way for Black women to be upset about rap videos is if they
are excluded. I was surprised that five people responded. We
have allies after all.

What does it mean, and what does it say about Black women,
and the recognition of Black beauty in mainstream media,
if we are only mad because a clearly sexist video doesn't have
any brown skinned women in it?


Apologies and Boycott's
BET and Drake have both apologized.

An apology without an action is worthless.

Especially when the apology does nothing to materially impact
harm that has been done.

Lets review the facts.

BET has received its ad dollars.

Advertisers commercials were exposed to 10M viewers.

Some Black people have written letter and a petition and get an apology.

The first two points have to do with an exchange of money,
the last one doesn't.

One question for BET? What is your apology worth?

In my conversation with Moya, we are talking about boycott's
and how they are reactionary. The idea is that if we spend
all of our time reacting to what some one is doing to us,
then we will have no energy left to advance our own agenda's.

The advertisers for the Bet awards were, Dodge, Procter & Gamble,
Target, CIROC Vodka, Ford, Coors, Pepsi, Verizon Wireless and Akademiks.
You know, in case you were wondering.

According to Target Market News, In a recent mulitmedia engagement of 5,000 African American adults, Simmons market Research Bureay found that BET viewers are 21% more ad receptive when they watch ads on BET, and 31% more ad rece[tive when they see ads on Bet.com, versus other networks.

[Sidebar. Why do corporations cause harm and governments
stay taking forced free labor and or ad dollars, and giving
us apologies? It's rhetorical]

While there are many people who are angry about
what BET has done, just because folks are angry,
does't mean that they care enough to take
non-reactionary action.

Take Imus, he was censored temporarily,
there was a big hullaboo, and he is back on the air.

Capitalism stay eatin', nothing stops it.

Imus nor Wayne, nor Drake, are the problem. They
are symptoms of a larger one.

Moya astutely pointed out we often say that "Them rappers
ain't talking about me", she then noted that, Wayne just said he
"wish he could fuck every girl in the world", that includes all of us,
you too Love.

BET?

What do you think of the women being angry because
no brown skinned women were featured?

You see the awards?

Have you thought of alternatives to reactionary
boycotts?

Thoughts?

100 Visionaries? Yes!

The End of Journalism, the Beginning of the Future

A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, Toure went back and forth with
several people, one of which was Aliya S. King, on the future or
the end of journalism.

Given the dismissiveness of Toure's tone, I was reminded
of calling Derrick Bell a couple of years ago, as I was fighting
being dismissed from law school. Yes, I picked up the phone
and called him, told him my situation and requested some
advice. My aunt was on me to advocate for myself, to not be
a victim and to show me how to be empowered. It is an
important lesson that I carry with me every day.

While Professor Bell, was kind and encouraging, he is also a
lawyer, and as such he asked me period point blank "Are you
sure you are meant to be an attorney?" My feelings were hurt
and I blinked back the tears. It felt like he was assessing my
ability, without knowing me very well. In reality, he was explaining
to me how I would possibly be perceived and, hence forced
me to think about what was the best option for me, not simply
what I wanted to do.

He also understood and explained to me the pedagogy of law
school and the ways in which it isn't beneficial to Black folks,
or so called "at risk" populations.

He changed my life that day. Professor Bell is a man who
resigned from Harvard's Law School in the mid nineties
over its unwillingness to tenure "a" Black woman
professor. I respect him. He put his money where his
mouth was, which influenced my willingness to call him and be
vulnerable. At that time, I was still considering going back to
law school. His point was that people, implicitly white
people, from my school with excellent grades can have
a challenging time finding work, so he urged me to really
think about my whether being an attorney was meant for
me.

Well. I told my then partner, *David, about our conversation,
and his response was, "You are a child of God, it is not for
him nor anyone to say what are you are to do with your
career or your life." I instantly perked up and felt protected
and little less sad.

I thought of this child of God moment when I read King's
piece on on her exchange with Toure.

I was also reminded of an editorial that I came across recently in
Art Voices Magazine. In April, Terrence Sanders, the publisher
wrote an eloquent, powerful and vulnerable editorial letter
last month, that in many ways captured the sentiment of the
you are a child of God moment. He writes,

I was told by my mother that when I was three months old, my biological father attempted to suffocate me while she was out shopping. She left him and relocated to NYC, where she re-married a Marine who had just completed a tour of duty in Vietnam. I was raised in tenements and housing projects on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I was exposed to asbestos and lead poisoning. I was categorized as a “have not,” I attended Head Start, I hated school, I was sent to schools that taught me just enough. My neighbors were Chinese, Jews, Italians, Hispanics; I was physically abused by my stepfather until I was 16 years old, when ran away from home. I slept in 24 hour movie theaters on 42nd street, park benches on the FDR drive, rooftops of housing projects, and trains. I was exposed to petty criminal elements during my informative years. I was lost, I had no skills to survive in a capitalist regime; my role models were actors, athletes and Jesus....

...In retrospect, I never gave up on myself, I didn’t want to be a slave or live in fear, I didn’t want to walk amongst the walking dead. I’m an Artist, my son’s an Artist in his 2nd year at Cooper Union. Art and Art alone saved my life; it completes me. It is my therapy, my weapon of choice; it helps me to cope with the day-to-day struggles of being a human being. My contribution to humanity will be my art, my voice, and in that and that alone I am alive.

Never let anyone tell you what you what you can and cannot do, let my life be an example. Listen to that inner voice, and not power-hungry elitists with hidden agendas. While they are the fraud, Artists are the truth. We are in the game, and they are on the sidelines. So, I stand before you stripped naked and not afraid to bare my soul. I created my own jobs, my own opportunities, and now I’m living the dream.

Best Regards,

Terrence Sanders, Editor & Publisher more here.

Yes. Terrence gets it. In many ways he is like Camus
in his understanding of how art and humanity functions.

Yet, that doesn't take care of the messiness of figuring out how
to make a living as an artist.

Don't get it twisted. I understand that the news, journalism and
advertising landscape will never look the way that it has in the past.
Three reasons come to mind, based on ideas from people who
are experts in their respective areas.

Kevin Kelly says that data linking is the future.

David Simon says that corporations screwed newspapers
by treating copy with contempt, worshiping advertisements,
and passing along corporate profits to shareholders instead
of investing in journalist who could and arguably would
create copy that people would WANT to pay for online.

Chris Anderson says that there will be two versions of
everything available on the internet. He was
quoted last week saying that, "Everything that becomes
digital will become free. There will be a free version,
either you will be competing with free or giving it
away for free and selling something else. If it is
not zero today, it will be zero tomorrow."

And lastly, The Washington Post just fired one of the most
analytical, largely bipartisan and accessible cats covering the
White House, Dan Froomkin.

The ground is in fact moving beneath us. But I was raised
with earthquakes, so we know what it is.
At the end of the day, If one wants to write, write. If you want
to write, and can't, don't do it. It will work its way out. For true,
if writing has gotten a hold of you it will not turn you a loose.

Trust me, I learned this the hard way. For example, last March,
I wrote about Honey Magazine, Kierna Mayo and my personal
process of accepting the fact that I am a writer.

Last fall, I used some of my blog posts on hip hop, feminism
and labor and other personal experiences as fodder for my
grad school applications. This is material because, if I am
passionate enough to spend my time blogging about it, then
studying the same issues in a classroom setting arguably
is for more enticing than say, civil procedure. I am happy to
say that I will be a graduate student in the fall.

I mention this because I had to accept that I was a writer.

No one could do this for me.

When I accepted this, I set out on a course to act like one,
to choose my goals and take the necessary steps to
try and achieve them.

I hope that this helps you accept the writer, the artist in you.

Related Post's
Is Blogging Journalism?
Cognitive Surplus: Did TV Kill the Book?
The Curse of Being a Black Artist


Thought about being an artist lately?

How do you shut out the critics, but take their advice
about being cautious seriously?

PSK, what does it all mean? <<<>

How has '09 been?

*Not his real name

Re- All That Crack I Sold, I Lied.

Incarcerated Scarfaces Part 1 Of 6 - The funniest movie is here. Find it

"Can you just imagine going to jail in 1989 and them telling you you
release date is February 2004? Its crazy."

Malice Video Blog 1 from Malice of the Clipse on Vimeo.

It has certainly been a week.

Saturday, I finally realized that I was going to have to publish
my work myself. Don't get it twisted, I am still going to pursue
other avenues, but the resistance that I received with regard to
criticizing art and capitalism confirmed that I was on to something,
and that I needed to create my own lane(s) instead of asking
for someone to let me ride in theirs.

Having had such a writing heavy load the last two
weeks, Gentrification and Asher Roth I am both tired
and reinvigorated.

Asher Roth has provided a kind of needed fodder for me
to talk about race, capitalism and gender
Saturday, S.bot and I started talking about the resistance to my
critique of the white consumption of black death and
corporate rap. Like me, she is a survivor. The South
Bronx's Finest. She was like "Yo, peep Sylvia Rhone,
she came in with a Black face and changed the
the game with regard to boom bap. Oh and peep
Universals assets, Jay Z wasn't endorsing that Darfur
water for nothing." She went on to tell me that Universal's
parent company has other holdings related to water and
purification. I was like word are you trying to get me got"?
I dug around on Wikipedia, and Rhone did play a role in
the elimination of Boom Bap from Elektra. Then I turned
around and Robbie at Unkut posted an interview with
Dante Ross, former A & R at Elektra. I felt like the arch of this
story was pulling me along.

When I received Gordon Gartrell's terse comments
I was like, uhhh, why the anger?
I just couldn't figure out why folks were so resistant
to accepting the fact that corporations play a material role
in shaping our music. They play a material role in shaping
just about everything else in our culture, why should rap music
be exempt?

I asked S.bot, "Am I going to have to make a United Corporations
of Hip Hop chart?" She responded, you can but you might
wanna do it under your pseudonym. I got shook. You know
I'm paranoid. You can't be from Oakland and not be a little 'noid.
We got cointelproed in the 70's. Don't ever underestimate the
power of the Black communities historical memory.
Its our survival 101.

As I contemplated doing a Hip Hop Corporations chart
and essay, I was like, dude, is this gonna be my Jim
Webb moment?

S.bot then reminded me of the Incarcerated Scarface's video.
And we began to talk about how when people get a taste
of violence, they develop a bloodthirst, like bleeding in
sharkwater.

It's almost like the kids are running towards a fight.

Given the fact that both S.bot and I have lived on blocks that
had Black blood running running the street, the conversation
was both intense, intimate and informative.

After I got off the phone with her, I thought about how
many of the images in hip hop are rooted
in early American stereotypes that are extremely racist.
Black men as thugs, beasts, rapists, animals.

So I sat back and watched all of the Incarcerated Scarface's
videos on Saturday. And I came away thinking,
what do these men, these men who have been stabbed up,
wounded and shot at, these men who have spent , 10, 15,
20 years in prison, I wonder what they think about the
Thug/Pimp/Ho corporate rap music and how it may
influence the young bucks coming up behind them?

I told Birkhold about the resistance to my critique, he read the
comments and was like "yo Ne, you know what you can do, you
can do a historical piece on Rap and Corporations.
Read Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop and S. Craig Watkin's
Hip Hop Matters."

I was like "dude first of all I am reading three books
for a post already.I have like four other pieces in the pipeline. A 'Lil Kim
piece I have been itchin' to write, this sustainable green economies
piece, a piece on my problem with white privilege, I'm backed up."

But see, that's the beauty of writing online, the feedback loop
has the capacity to force you to change your game up and be nimble.
The writing, the work, becomes a living breathing animal.

But back to Incarcerated Scarfaces. You see. I am a huge Clipse fan.
I like the Clipse as much as I like Mobb Deep. In my Asher Roth post
I wrote about how things haven't been the same since the "Tree huggin'
bitch" skit on their last mix tape.

Well, this past weekend the Clipse's former manager turned himself in
after having been charged with leading a 10 million dollar drug ring.

Malice of the Clipse, went on to make a video announcing that
how "he has been part of the problem [in rap], but he likes the
foolishness in his rhymes and his music."

Given my corporate rap/Asher Roth last week, I was
curious about how folks wold receive Malice's
statements about not having sold crack in a very long time.

Many people thought that he was coming clean.
Others felt that he was admitting to being a liar.

Personally, I was intrigued by the Don't Trust my Crack Raps
PSA tone of the video. I was kind of ironic. Like an SNL skit.

"Hey kids. Do as I say. Wait, don't do as I say, do as I do. Wait,
just figure out how to separate the fact from fiction."

With the Clipse, Black male masculinity and questions of
humanity on my mind, I had an epiphany today.

I realized that the reason why I write about hip hop the way
that I do, is because I see the people behind the music.

A former supervisor, a lawyer from legal internship that
I had 3 years ago,wrote me a recommendation recently.
He mentioned that one of the reasons why he knew
that I would not be happy with "the law" is that it would
require that I see people only as abstractions, and that
I have a propensity to see the human dimension of
relationships, especially as it pertains to power,
addiction and violence.

I think this is an issue at hand when I write about
hip hop, the white and Black consumption of Black death,
street harassment and Black men and prison.

Where many folks see rappers, victims, kids and race,
I see human beings, humans with agency, humans who will
need to be accountable to one another, if we are to live in
a sustainable democracy.

So yeah. I am tired yet, I have a new perspective. Here's
to embracing independence. Salud.

Thoughts?

How you been?

Why is it so hard to accept that our music thuggin'
and mean muggin' faux & real for profit?

Do I have to do a corporations chart to make
this 'ish real? If so, imma need an intern or
some help.

Asher Roth and Why Rappers Need "Nappy Headed Ho's"

Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Bryon Hurt
28:20 sec Women respond to being called Bitch's on the street at BET's Spring Bling
29:43 sec "If George Bush called you a Nigga you would think he was talking about you."
43:00 sec "You can't go to a label with self destruction, you will self destruct."
46:10 sec Jadakiss, "after seven hundred thousand records its all white people buying the records."

First off, let me start off by saying that I love hip hop. Love it.
Every since I was 8 years old and my brother gave me my first dub of
LL Cool J's "Radio." Then, when I was 11, I stole his Too Short "Freaky Tales"
tape and listened to it in my room with the volume low and the door
closed because I didn't want my momma to hear me play it.

That being said for the last few days I have been thinking about
Hip Hop, Black women and "Nappy Headed Ho's."

Five days ago Asher Roth Tweeted, while on Rutgers campus, that
he was hanging out with the some "Nappy Headed Ho's". He
subsequently deleted all the tweets and apologized
for making the comments.

Some of the user's comments that followed stated that
"he was just playing", other people said that they were
going to unfollow him on twitter.

I then thought, if Asher Roth's Black fans stopped following him,
it would be irrelevant, because corporate rap doesn't need
Black listeners anymore, in the same way the the United
States no longer needs Detroit.

Hip hop's unspoken truth is that white teens play a large
role in deciding which music will be signed, promoted
and distributed by record companies and played on the radio.

In the book Hip Hop Wars, Tricia Rose lays out the
theoretical framework for analyzing the current state
of corporate rap music. She writes,

The trinity of of commercial hip hop a whole: The trinity
of commercial hip hop- the black gangsta, pimp, and ho-has been
promoted and accepted to the point where it now dominates
the genre's storytelling view.

She goes on to to say that "what gets presented creates audience
desire as much as it reflects it."

In many ways her book has given me a theoretical framework
to analyze Asher Roth, why rappers need ho's, and the White
desire for Black death and I will refer to it throughout this essay.

Asher Roth has what may be called the luxury of being a white
rapper. As a white rapper he isn't forced to confront the choice of having
to take on the the myth of the "Black Thug, Gangsta and The Pimp"
in order to sell records.

Perhaps, it isn't a luxury, perhaps he is being treated like a
human being and the other rappers being treated like or at
least portrayed as subhuman. Yesterday, I was on Passion
of the Weiss reading Jonathan Bradley's analysis of Roth's
album and he basically concludes that the album fails because Roth
isn't being true to himself. Bradley writes,

Roth’s debut isn’t a hip-hop chronicle of the life
and times of a middle class suburban kid. It isn’t
like I was expecting an Illmatic for the commuter
towns (though wouldn’t such a thing be incredible?)
but given Roth’s insistence that he hasn’t been
feeling a quarter century’s worth of hip-hop made
by black folks from the inner city, I hoped he could
offer a more compelling vision of his lifestyle than
1) Smoking weed; 2) Hitting on girls; and 3) Playing
video games. Because I’ve never noticed hip-hop
lacking for songs about smoking weed and hitting
on girls....

Roth's, timing, alliteration and flow is different from most cats.
His flow is nice and he is a decent emcee. Would I play it on
a regular basis, no? I like my story telling a bit
more dense. However, what is relevant is that being White gives
him the option of being able to rap about girls, weed and college, to
forgo being a thug, and perhaps most importantly,
to not be relegated to Hip Hop's margins because of it.

Talking about the white consumption of Black Death is
downer of sorts but so is 800,000 African Americans in
prison. When a Black male artist decides not to represent the
Gangsta/Thug/Pimp trinity, he risks committing career
suicide, at the worse, or being severely marginalized at the least.
The Roots, Nas, Common, Kweli, Dead Pres, De La Soul, Doom,
Lupe Fiasco, Wale, Mos Def and Little Brother are relegated to
greater or lesser extent, to hip hops margins largely because,
by and large, of White teen male desire for Black death.

Common, The Roots, Dead Prez, Little Brother, and Talib Kweli do
not have platinum albums.

Tribe (Beats Rhymes and Life, Low End Theory and Midnight
Marauders) and De La Soul (Three Feet High and Rising), do.

Nas has five platinum albums (Nastradamus, Illmatic,
Stillmatic, God Son, Streets Disciple) one multiplatinum
album, (It Was Written).

In Byron Hurt's film, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Jadakiss
states very plainly (46:10 sec) that after selling 700,000
records "you are only selling records to white kids... the
white kids love the murder."

Last year, I wrote about my love of Mobb Deep and my
final conclusion was that Mobb Deep fed something
dysfunctional inside of me. Listening to Mobb Deep
reminded me of where I came from, it reminded me that I
survived, that I went to school and escaped
the trenches of the crack epidemic that had deep East Oakland
on lock. It is also a reminder of the fact that so many of the people
that I came up with are either dead or in jail.

What exactly is 50 Cent, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne, feeding inside
of white suburban teens? A fear of Black men? A hatred
of Black people? Or is it just entertainment?

Free Speech
Yes, I understand that rappers do tell stories that would
normally be ignored. However, the Pimp, Gangsta, Ho trinity
has come to be synonymous with corporate rap and it needs
to be addressed head on. Professor Rose articulates this
point when she writes, "Understanding and explaining are
not the same as justifying and celebrating, and this is a crucial
distinction we must make if we stand a fighting chance in
this perpetual storm. She goes on to explain,

"Thug life is a product and given our history of racial
stereotypes young black men are the ideal sales force
for it. So if we are going to talk about investment and
opportunity we have to admit that there is a large
market for these images and attitudes, a market far
bigger than black people can be held responsible for."

"Multimillion dollar corporations with near total control
over the airwaves and playlists which never release
objective and complete information about callers or
song requests, refuse to openly discuss how they
determine their playlists or explain the cozy and illegal
relationship between many record companies and radio
stations uncovered by various investigations over the
years. They want us to believe that we the listeners
determine what gets played....In the Early 1990's
prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996
programmers played popular songs an average
of 40 times per week, By the end of the decade
that number had jumped to 140 plays per week.

Yes, we live in a country that protects free speech
but, with freedom comes responsibility.

No, rappers do not raise the children, the parents
raise the children, however it is disingenuous for rappers to
claim that they are not role models. They have the cache,
buying power, influence, because they have created a
persona that young people want to look up to. If young people
did not look up to them, they wouldn't imitated them, buy their
mix tapes, buy the products that they recommend.

Its ironic. Young people have tens of millions of dollars of
advertisement thrown at them, then they are told, "Well
don't try and be like us, we aren't role models."

The marketing industry is a trillion dollar industry because
marketing works.

Thinking about the ways in which rappers influence
young Black people doesn't let parents off the hook. Professor Rose
articulates both the responsibilities of the parents and artist when
she writes,

Parents alone couldn't possibly be responsible for all
the social influences and pressures that communities
must weather. Yes, parents must do their best, and they
surely bear primary responsibility for raising
their children. But to assume they have total
responsibility- to deny the impact of larger social forces
that profoundly limit some parents ability, including what
highly marketed celebrities say and do in our celebrity
driven culture- is to deny the powerful communal
responsibility we all have for one another.

Some may argue that to tell rappers to change
their rhymes constitutes censorship, but rappers
are already censored.

When Mos Def said on, The Rape Over, "Tall Israeli's is running this rap
shit " the song was removed from the second pressing of the
album. Mos Def rapped,

All white men is runnin this rap shit
Corporate force's runnin this rap shit
The tall Israeli is runnin this rap shit
We poke out the asses for a chance to cash in
Cocaine, is runnin this rap shit
'Dro, 'yac and E-pills is runnin this rap shit

Rose also quotes Lisa Fager Bedaiko from Industry Ears
on the ways in which rappers have been censored. She writes

Freedom of speech has been spun by industry
conglomerates to mean the b-word, the n-word,
ho while censoring and eliminating hip hop music
discusses Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, Jena 6,
the dangers of gun violence and drugs, and songs
that contain "George Bush" and "Free Mumia." In
2005, MTV and Radio Stations around the country self
regulated themselves to remove the words "white man
"from "All Fall Down." The lyric demonstrated the far
reach of capitalism by exclaiming: /Drug dealers buy
, crackheads buy crack/ And a white man get
paid off all of that/. When asked why they decided to
dub "white man" from the lyric the response from MTV
"we didn't want to offend anyone."

I also remember listening to a Kanye's "Gold Digger, and noticing
that it was censored, at the end of the verse. On Gold Digger, Kanye raps,

He got that ambition baby look in his eyes
This week he moppin floorz next week it's the fries
So, stick by his side
I know his dude's ballin but yea thats nice
And they gone keep callin and tryin
But you stay right girl
But when you get on he leave yo a** for a white girl

Rap doesn't need to be censored. It already has been.

How Hip Hop Affects How Black/All Men Treat Black Women
I was walking on 125 and Lexington Sunday, the first 90 degree
day of the year. I came out of the train station, I remarked to myself,
out loud, that it was really hot. A Spanish man who was posted up,
on the train entrance banister looking down on me remarked,
"Yeah mommy, its hot, how you doing?" I said nothing. He then
said. You can't speak? He became aggravated. I said nothing.
You smell like fish. I said nothing. You too good? You smell
like fish. Louder as I walked away. It was 1:33pm.

I then took out my pad, and decided that I was going to
record the time and place of all unwarranted harassing
comments for the next few blocks.

Next, I had gotten to 125th and 5th. A young Black man,
about 18, was walking behind me mumbling, "I want to
put my dick in your butt." I kid you not. Yes. He said,
"I want to put my dick in your butt."

Frankly, I thought he was singing a rap song, and kept
walking to the corner.

He then said it a couple other times, a little louder. There
was no one else around, so he was talking to me. It took
me two seconds to asses the risk, because you never
know if you will be assaulted when you question they
way someone treats you in public. I then turned and said,
"Why would you say something like that?" His response?

"Because I like you." And he waived for me to come towards him, then
he paused and kept walking away. It was then that I knew he was sick.
This happened at 1:44pm.

Many folks would like to believe that the music doesn't influence
the way Black men interact with us. Can we prove that? Do we
need to prove it in order to accept it as being true? That being
said, if seeing can Black president can make someone want to be a
better person, then doesn't it extend logically that listening to
Lil Wayne would make someone want to thug harder?

Then there is the music and how we deny that rappers are talking to
us. Often times, Black women will try and say that the rapper is
not "talking to me" similar to the woman in Beyond Beats and
Rhymes [28:34 sec]. Professor Rose addresses why in rap
songs, the rappers are talking to all Black women. She writes,

The line between women who "deserves" to be called
these names and those who do not does not exist.
Winding up one side or another of this imaginary
divide is at the discretion of the males and sometimes
the females around you; its not a choice you get to
make. Remember the "classy" women at BET's Spring
Bling whom J-hood confidently identified as "bitches"?

"This separation of black women into the good ones
(the ones we are not insulting) and the bad ones (the
ones we have the authority to label and insult) is a primary
means by which sexism and other forms of discrimination work.
(Remember "good blacks and bad blacks"? "Good
Immigrants and Bad Immigrants"? Model Minorities
and the problem ones. The idea is to establish negative
group terms for the dominated or discriminated group
an then find the good members, the ones who are
wind up serving as the exceptions. This proves the rule,
thus perpetuating the group discrimination for everyone."

Rose goes on to make the amazing assertion that rappers need
"ho's." This analysis blew my mind and was acutally the passage in
the book the confirmed that I needed to write this essay. She explains,

Rappers are not under assault by black women whose
behavior they do not like. The gangsta rapper image
needs "bitches and ho's," and so they continually
invent them. Women so labeled add lots of status and
value to gangsta and pimp images. If you can't have lots
of women servicing you, then how can you be a real
player, a real pimp? So the process of locating, labeling,
partying with, and then discarding Black women is part of
the performance that enhanced gangsta-and pimp
status and thus their income. If, as Jay-Z raps in "99 problems,"
"I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one," then why bother
telling us about her inability to give him problems- unless
controlling bitches is part of his power.... If there so good at
identifying women they insist should be called bitches and
hos then it shouldn't be too hard to stay away from them.
And if they are able and want to stay away from them, then
there is no reason to rap about them constantly.

Think about it this way. What would rap videos look like without
Black women? Then you see my point.

At the end of the day, corporate rap music affects how Black men treat
us, and if it doesn't hurt, it most certainly doesn't help.

They Just Some Nappy Headed Ho's
In March of 2007, I wrote a post titled, "My Duke/Imus Moment".
The post is about sitting in an evidence class in law school
when my professor decided to use the Duke rape case as a
teachable moment on the inadmissibility of evidence in
rape cases. I wrote,

One of my colleagues says,

"Well can we offer into evidence the fact
that she dressed like a prostitute [I paraphrase
but this is the gist of his statement".

There were good hearted chuckles in the class as well as
several female class mates looking around. Like. What? Did
he just say that for real.

Personally. I felt my HEART raise up in my throat and I KNEW
that I had to say something.

I raised my hand. She didn't call on me and 30 seconds later
the moment passed. She asked, "Did I see a hand raised in
the back?" Did I wanna be the Black girl, talking about the
Black girl topic? NO. But, my hands were sweaty so I said,
"Yes" and proceed to talk. I stated,

"In response to my colleague David's
statement [class laughter] regarding the
admissibility of the fact that the dancer
wore "prostitute like" clothing.

David's response. "Oh I was just kidding."
I didn't think to say it, but it was the Imus defense in class.
He said it. He meant it, he would have had some integrity and
stood by his statement.
I responded saying,

I know, however, some things need to
stated explicitly.

One has to be very careful when making a
statement regarding a womans clothing in
relationship to rape, because it can lead to
the very dangerous inference that how a
woman dresses invites her to be raped.

Imus tried to play it off and say, he was just kidding.
My classmate tried to play it off and say he was just kidding.
Asher Roth tried to play off saying on Twitter, saying that he didn't
mean to offend anyone when he said he was "hanging out
with some nappy headed ho's."

They are not kidding. They are serious as two strikes and
possessing five grams of crack.

Corporate rap sanctions the Bitch/Pimp/Ho' trinity.
The corporations hide behind the rappers, the rappers tell
the fans to "turn off the radio" and yesterday,
a young man on the street told me he wanted to stick
his "dick in my butt."

No rap music did not invent sexism and if rap music was
eliminated sexism would still exist. However we can no
longer hide behind the "just turn the radio off."

We are all connected whether we want to admit
it or not. I would imagine that the current state
of the global economy would be a reminder of this.

I close with these words from Tricia Rose,

The people most injured by the fraught, hostile and
destructive state of this conversation are those who most need
a healthy, honest, vibrant (not sterile and repressed)
cultural space: young, poor and working-class African American
Boys and girls, men and women,- the generation that comprises
the future of the black community. They have the biggest
stake in the conversation, and they get the shortest end of
the stick in it.

Thoughts?

You like how I snuck in the White consumption of
Black death?

Are Rappers addicted to "Ho's"?

I got 99 problems but a blog ain't one?

Bracing myself for the hate mail. Awesome!

*Correction: The post about Asher Roth, on the blog, Passion
of the Weiss, was written by Jonathan Bradley not Jeff Weiss.

A Visualization of NWA's "A Bitch is a Bitch" using Manyeyes

Every since I did the chart on humanity in the hood
a few days ago, I have been thinking about a visualization of
rap lyrics.

Above is a visualization of NWA's "A Bitch is a Bitch."

I was recently reading one of Bol's post's about women
in the rap game and I found myself wanting to count the number
of time's Black women were called Bitches, Hoe's and Tricks
and the like in the comments section.

I then knew that I would do a visualization of the NWA's "A Bitch
is a Bitch", and perhaps a post on those comments.

I think the most arresting thing about this image is that
it reaffirms the power that words have, especially when
they are seen and heard over an over again.

What do you think of the image?

...........Don't forget to tune into the podcast tonight on Black
San Francisco and Gentrification.

• Blog Talk Radio Podcast: Gentrification and Black San Francisco
  
• Sunday April 19th
• 7pm Eastern
• Special Guest, Faith, from the Acts of Faith Blog
• Call in number (347) 843-4723

Michael Baisden is a Misogynist Pig

I was riding through Ohio the other day on a road trip toMichigan.

Filthy was looking for NPR when we settled on the Michael
Baisden show. I was intrigued because the show was about
whether a woman, a wife, has the right to "Go on Strike"and
hold out on sex from her husband. Seeing as my research
interests are women and sexuality, I was intrigued about the
possibilities that the discussion presented.

So, I am listening to the show, and at 6:40 Baisden says to a caller, "If you were
my woman, not feeling like it is not a reason to give me some." Word?

At 7:53 Baisden says, "If you are not in the mood, just lay there and take it."
[Laughter].

The woman caller says that if she doesn't feel like it she isn't doing it.

Then Baisden's co-host says, "Your feelings are obselete, your feelings don't
matter for 30 minutes." [Laughter].

Record scratch.

I understand that withholding sex from your partner is a very serious
matter and typically indicative of other issues going on in the relationship.

However, "You should just lay there and take it" is a very serious line of
thought and action for Black women for many reasons.

Think about it this way.

We are raped at a higher rate than all other women in the United States.

We are murdered at a higher rate than all other women in the United States.

We are beat by our intimate partners at a higher rate than all other women
in the United States.

According to study conducted by the Department of Justice, African
American women:

• ...were victimized by intimate partners a significantly higher rates than persons of any other race between 1993 and 1998. Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races. Black males experienced intimate partner violence at a rate about 62% higher than that of white males and about 22 times the rate of men of other races.

According to the study published by the Africana Voices Against Violence, Tufts University:

• The number one killer of African-American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide at the hands of a current or former intimate partner.

• In a study of African-American sexual assault survivors, only 17% reported the assault to police.

I was waiting for Baisden to insert some kind of disclaimer, and
say, "Ya'll know I am just playing, I don't want you all to call here
cursing me out", but he didn't.

Baisden's comments got me to thinking. I am currently in the
middle of writing a review to Steve Harvey's "Act Like A Lady,
Date Like a Man" and I couldn't help but think
about about how the Black male talk show hosts are just as
patriarchal as some of the rappers.

Really what is the difference between Snoop saying "Bitches
Ain't Shit But Ho's and Tricks" and "Just lie there and take It?"

Granted the show mellowed out a bit when Baisden brought
on a therapist, Dr. Gail Saltz who specializes in relationships
and sex, but the statement had already been made.

Baisdens comments are also interesting because,
in the United States, it has historically been permissible for
a husband to have non consensual sex with his wife.

We had no legal standing to refuse to have sex with our husbands.

The courts position was that getting married meant a lifetime
of permanent consent. This meant that a wife could not be raped.

So you mean to tell me we have rappers, blogs and talk
show host's trashing us? I'm cool on those.

My contention is that every time you visit a site, play a tape,
listen to a show, you are voting.

Why vote for a man who thinks that non consensual sex with your husband
is okay or that you should just lie there and take it, is okay?

Why do we passively accept Baisden's actions?

What does a healthy Black Female sexuality look like if we
are just lying there and taking it?

Who is he getting money with?