Beyonce Incorporated: R&B, Thugs and Whiteness

Here is the thesis and intro ya'll. Peace to Birk and Jess for helping
me organize the beginning, I swear that's the hardest part, because the
rest of the framework flows from there.

In writing this I was reminded that its not enough to have something
to say. Its not enough to have read the books to be informed. It's only
enough when I can frame and deploy a convincing argument.

If you have any questions, leave them below, and I will try and work them
into the paper.

~Renina

Beyonce Incorporated: R&B, Thugs and Whiteness

Since the 1998 crossover breakthrough of Destiny’s Child, Beyonce Knowles has

been a star on the rise. Since then she has released numerous albums, both with

Destiny’s Child and as a solo artist, she has starred in or served as a supporting

actor in several major motion pictures, and has married a multiplatnuim selling rap

artist. In short, Beyonce is everywhere, including the bank. In fiscal year

2007-2008, Beyonce reportedly earned an estimated $87 million dollars.

Given that black wealth is incredible rare in the United States (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006),

the reasons for Beyonce’s incredible success are worth exploring.

In exploring the reasons for Ms.Knowles’ success, I am primarily concerned with

the intersection of popular culture and the day to day lived experience of African

Americans. Often times we listen to music without considering the fact that it isn’t

neutral and that it also has an affect on the ways in which we go about our lives.

Beyonce Knowles is an accomplished, talented and attractive, singer, actor,

entertainer and fashion designer.

She is also is fast becoming an entertainment empire in and of herself. While she

“grew up in a four-bedroom home in Houston's upscale third ward with her father,

Mathew, a salesman at Xerox and Johnson & Johnson mother, Tina, a hair salon

owner, and sister, Solange Knowles, sings.”According to Forbes magazine,

Ms. Knowles has “sold upwards of 118 million records, won ten Grammys,

starred in seven films and headlined three solo tours” (Rose, 2009). Her endorsement

deals are extremely lucrative. She has had them with “Tommy Hillfiger L'Oréal,

Giorgio Armani Diamonds perfume, Samantha Thavasa handbags” and in the last

year, “she's added deals with Crystal Geyser and Nintendo DS to her résumé” (Rose, 2009).

Further more, the blue chip corporation, General Mills just underwrote her most recent

tour, I AM (Rose, 2009). Rose goes on to note that “Beyoncé constantly works and

reworks her act, watching every two-hour performance on tour--even after her

hundredth appearance--taking notes on how to improve. "I'm never satisfied," she

says, adding with a nervous laugh, "I'm sure sometimes it's not easy working for me."

Then, seriously: "I've never met anyone that works harder than me in my industry”

(Rose, 2009). Indeed, given the fact that she employs four hundred people and

arguably many more through touring and merchandising, she, in many ways is a

corporation.

According to Marxist theory on cultural hegemony, “the class, which is the dominant

material force in society, is at the same time its dominant intellectual force”(Strinati, 131).

Beyonce Knowles earned an estimated 87 million dollars in fiscal year 2007-2008 not

only because she is talented and attractive but also because her most popular work

serves the interests of the white ruling class elites, such as the presidents of Fortune

500 corporations and Madison avenue advertising firms, wall street investment bankers,

television and record executives. She serves the interests of the ruling class by

normalizing and never questioning the impact that white supremacist patriarchal

capitalism has on black heterosexual relationships. Lyrics such as “pay my auto

bill, pay my telephone bill”, thug worship such as “ if his status ain’t hood, I ain’t

messing with him, he better be street if he looking at me” and “them hustlas keep

on talking, they like the way I’m walking” reify the stereotype of the black, male,

sexy thug. These lyrics also deploy the patriarchal notion that African American men

are only worth what they can contribute financially. Furthermore such lyrics are

problematic because they place the economic issues facing black heterosexual couples

squarely on the shoulders of individuals while obscuring the structural forces acting on

the lives of such couples such as a historically segregated educational system, a

segregated housing system, a discriminatory bank lending system, an oppressive

police system, historically discriminatory judicial system, the war on drugs, the war

on poverty and a largely self serving non-profit industrial complex.

I am making this argument because I am concerned with the package that her

message comes in, the content of message that is deployed and the impact that

this has on the masses of society, as popular culture is where most people learn

about society by deploying lyrics that focus on black women asking black men

for money for utility bills, that celebrate black men as the mythic thug, Beyonce

Knowles both reifies the stereotype of rugged, violent, black men who work in the

underground economy. This is important because applying white hegemonic market

ideology is harmful to Black heterosexual relationships, given the fact that historically,

Black workers tend to be some of the lowest played workers in the United States

economy (Oliver and Shapiro).

Thoughts?

Jay Z, Dyson and Me

For Hip Hop News & Entertainment at DimeWars.Com

Jim Jones on Jay Z @ 1:18 seconds

I was on Twitter last week when the New Jay Z song,
Death of Autotune broke. But peep, I didn't listen
to it until Sunday.

When I heard it I was floored. I couldn't place the horns.
It sounded like the horns from Jennifer Lopez's Get Right.
You see, as I child I played the clarinet . Yes, pre-Crack, Oakland
Public Schools had band classes. So, I learned how
to hear the difference between a clarinet, flute, trumpet tenor and
alto saxophone. My ear is mean. I had to learn to distinguish the
sounds and read music in order to play in band recitals.

I am also a huge Resurrection fan and have been curious
as to what has happened to No ID. Voila! Here he is on a Jay Z
track.


So, listening to that Jay song, I was like word? Yet. I was
underwhelmed by it. I didn't feel like he said anything.
The beat was nasty. But I wanted more.

Birkhold, of course, disagreed and loved the song. He couldn't see
why I liked the beat but not the song in its entirety. I said,
"Well, with a beat like that, I wanted something sincere like Dear
Summer, from Jay, I mean when was the last time you heard a live
horn on a track outside of The Roots and Kanye?"

He responded saying, "Well, I have stopped expecting anything
from a rap song, so if I hear a banging track or a hot 16, I just
appreciate it for what it is. I stopped believing in hip hop's
political potential a long time ago."

I was stuck. Because that was the disconnect. I had
expectations that he no longer had.

Previously, I had mentioned to him how writing about the white
consumption of Black death in hip hop was both tiring and necessary.

I told him that Dyson has a new book out and he said that
if Dyson would just critique hip hop's money
over bitches ethos or its awful gender politics once, publicly and
clearly, it would change the terrain of our work.

His rationale is that when folks who have larger platform's
offer up any kind of resistance to the dominant narrative,
it makes it easier for those who are grass roots to make
headway. Dyson would be the appetizer and the folks who do
work on gender and social justice could be the main course.

I thought of this when I saw Jim Jones saying that Jay was
trying to knock his hustle by dissing autotune in the above video.

Peep if I say something about auto tune, its one thing, if Jay Z
does, it's a whole other ball game.

It reminded me of how when folks who have larger platforms
offer resistance, it can force their peers and the people who follow them to
think about resistance as well, or at least to question where they
stand in relation to the narrative that is being resisted.

I was speaking with K1NG regarding my most recent post,
and it became clear to me that it is hard to admit that hip hop
certainly does some good however it does an incredible amount of
harm, specifically around gender and race, as well.

k1ng:I think hip hop is one of the biggest cultural bridges
there has EVER been in America

9:38 PMIf it wasn't for hip hop i'm sure i wouldn't be as open
minded as i am today

me: thats cool

9:39 PM k1ng: Unfortunately with all the good it's done, it's done
alot of bad for the upperclass view of inner city
african americans

In all honesty

me: you think

k1ng: What they see on the TV is what they believe

i KNOW

lol

me: you feel me

k1ng: i've been around them

me: ME TOO

hence the name, model minority

lols

Hip hop has always been been a little ignorant, and that's cool.
The issue is the lack of diversity.

The most challenging aspect around addressing the racism
in hip hop imagery is sheer unwillingness for folks who listen to the
music to admit the role that race plays in choosing which images should
be marketed. The above conversation shows that folks are willing to do
it, it is just a hard thing to accept. That being said, I was reading
about the new Black Disney Princess and was amazed at how
language used to describe the princess, is the same language
that can be used to describe Hip Hop.
At The Root Keith Josef Adkins writes,

Truth is, Disney has to appeal to everyone. They're not promoting this animated comedic feature as a straight-to-video package; they're expecting to make some numbers at the box office. Now unless it's a Tyler Perry event, black-on-traditionally black romance doesn't break records at the box office. You've got to throw a white or "near-white" somebody in there to guarantee race-wide appeal a.k.a financial return. Hey, even Tyler Perry casts lighter-skinned brothers in his box office successes and I don't hear anyone throwing daggers at that possible arrested development.

I found it incredible that Adkins could admit how race plays
a role in casting and marketing of Disney characters, yet
many of us in the hip hop generation, are unwilling to admit
the conscious marketing of racist images in hip hop.

I know some of you may think, they ain't racist, they just
speaking their truth. However, the images are racist because in the
music Black men are ONLY killing each other. For that matter
in reality, Black men are only killing each other. In the book Bad
Faith and Anti-Black Racism, Louis R. Gordon provides the analytical
framework for understanding Black Anti Black Racism.

According to Wikipedia,

Racism, Gordon argues, requires the rejection of another human being’s humanity. Since the other human being is a human being, such a rejection is a contradiction of reality. A racist must, then, deny reality, and since communication is possible between a racist and the people who are the object of racial hatred, then social reality is also what is denied in racist assertions. A racist, then, attempts to avoid social reality.

In the end, its interesting to watch folks go on the defensive regarding
autotune. Jay Z and I are not necessarily on the same page
regarding a critique of hip hop, in fact we may be on two different books
on the same bookshelf. But, the fact that he has said this makes me think
that there is hope for someone else to use their platform to address the
intrinsic racist imagery in hip hop's Bitch/Gangsta/Ho trinity.


Who benefits, psychologically and financially from the selling
of these images?

What did you think when you heard the Death of Auto Tune?

How did Hip Hop go from being fun to selling black death?

The irony of Jay's knocking Jim Jones's hustle is not lost on me.

The Failure of the Strong Black Woman

One of surefire ways of avoiding victimhood is
asking for what you need.

This, can be a tremendously difficult thing to do, simply because

you make yourself vulnerable to being rejected.

That being said, as a tool for getting out of victim hood thinking,

I have begun to ask people for things with I need. For example,
"I need a successful pitch letter because I am trying to publish
three articles this year, can you get one for me?"

"I need help moving, can you help me? "

"I need help storing boxes, can you help me?"

It is no one else's job but my own to determine what I
need.

Here is the added caveat, I also say, its okay, if you can't,

just let me know so that I can ask someone else.

This forces me to ask for what I need, avoid being a victim,

and gives the person room to say no and not feel bad.

I find that if I am not getting any traction on the goals

that I have set for myself, I am either not being disciplined

enough, I am not asking for help, or both.

It is very easy to look around at others whose
careers are blossoming or whose projects are
blowing up and hate them, because they

doing what they need to do to get their needs met.

It is very easy to look around at others and see
that their needs are taken care of and be angry
at myself because my needs are not being met.

It is something totally different to sit down and think
about what I need, to think about how I can get it, to
thinking about who I can call and say
"I need your help, I want to start a new website

on gentrification, can you design my banner?"

It is something totally different to sit down and think

about what I need, to think about how I can get it, and

to have the discipline to think about the small
intermediary goals before the big goals.

Which brings me to the Failure of the Strong Black Woman.

In Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Michelle

Wallace talks about being called a Strong Black Woman.

It made me cringe to hear men refer to me as "strong,"
because I knew they were referring to the historical
me, he monolithic me- the invincible black woman who
made their penises shrivel up in their bellies, who reminded
them that they had no power to control their own destinies,
much less hers, who made them loathe and want to destroy
that woman. Never realizing how imaginary her "strength"
really was, I swore never to use it.

Wallace's description of the term, "Strong", underscores
the discomfort that many of us have had with it.

Yes, I want to be called strong because I am survivor.

I also have had to remind myself that strong doesn't mean
that I don't need help.

I would imagine that you are asking what is the connection
between having my needs met to the myth of the Strong Black
Woman?

Well, they are connected because we, Black women,
tend to put the needs of our families, our children and our partners
first. If we constantly put the needs of others first, we will
consistently be saying yes on the outside and resentful on the inside.

Yes, our families are a priority. Yes our partners are a priority.

But, our financial, spiritual and creative health comes first.

I can't take care of anyone if I am in my grave.

Think about your needs lately?

Why is it so hard to do that?

I am thinking about Rihanna.

Michelle Wallace and Illmatic

The World Is Yours (Remix)


Rare is the person who can conceptualize the hood,
in all its pain, beauty and promise.

Two pieces that do this are Nas's Illmatic and
Michele Wallaces, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman.
Whats strikes me about both pieces is that they illicit an
emotional response. In addition, Black Macho is particularly
moving because Michele focuses on how gender influences
the lives of Black women in urban environments. She writes,

Now I want you to picture a little black girl in a jungle
that has no tigers and lions, but poverty, ignorance,
welfare centers, tenements, rats, roaches, inadequate
schools, malevolent teachers, pimps, Forty Second Streets,
heroin, hypodermic needles and methadone, opportunistic
preachers and community leaders, a narrow range of career
possibilities , always impending pregnancies, sterilization
and illogical court system, and two races of men who prey
upon her as sexual chattel and a beast of burden. And
suppose that behind this black girl, there was a whole
string of little black girls who had faced this same jungle
with their imaginary advantages and been defeated. Would
it not be an act of unkindness, of extreme justice really, to
tell her that she was a woman of strengths, of exceptional
opportunities.

Any one of the above mentioned phenomena, my seem
innocent on its face. But when the "ignorance, welfare centers,
tenements, rats, roaches, inadequate schools, malevolent
teachers, pimps, Forty Second Streets, heroin, hypodermic
needles and methadone, opportunistic preachers and
community leaders, a narrow range of career possibilities"
are taken together, it becomes very clear exactly what some
young black women are facing in their day to day lives.

Looking at the The World is Yours video isn't a reminder of what
young men and women in Harlem, Detroit, Oakland and Philly
are facing, yet I do feel a sense of urgency when watching it.
It's not that the jack moves portrayed feel intense, its the foreshadowing,
the moment right before that has me on needles while I watch it.
This video 4 minutes of 49 seconds of sheer grimeyness.

On the song Memory Lane Nas opens, giving a description
of the hood that came to mind while reading the above
Michelle Wallace passage. He raps,

I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners
Hennessey holders and old school niggas,
then I be dissin a unofficial that smoke woolie thai
I dropped out of Kooley High, gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie
Jungle survivor, fuck who's the liver
My man put the battery in my back, a difference from Energizer
Sentence begins indented with formality
duration's infinite, moneywise or physiology
Poetry, that's a part of me, retardedly bop
I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop, straight off the block
I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat
Chocolate blunts make me see him drop in my weed smoke
It's real, grew up in trife life, did times or white lines

Both Nas's and Michelle are saying I present
to you the stories of some folks who are trying
to survive in a world, stories of folks who have been told
at every turn that their survival is irrelevant.

This is why both of these two pieces move me.

Wow. I think this was an actual thugs, feminist and boom
bap post. Nice.

The Silence of Black Women Writers

Black writers are a cursed lot.

By its virtue of its origin, suture and function, black writing is
mission conscious and is necessarily a hazardous undertaking.
In turn being a black writer is an enobiling, exigency and black
literature constitutes one of the supreme enrichment's of black
culture and black life. This has been and is the burden as well
as the heritage and legacy of every black person who takes
up a pen in the United States. ~Calvin C. Hernton

In October and November I spent a lot of time reading looking
for connections between the misogyny in the civil rights movement
and in hip hop.

I hit the nail on the head while reading Calvin Hernton's book
The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers.
Hernton spendsin time analyzing the swift effort to condemn
both Ntozoke after For Colored Girls hit Broadway and
Michelle Wallace after Black Macho came out.

Hernton sum's it up when he says,

Although we keep looking for the men in The Color Purple to
be white, they are black men, our men, committing deeds
we cannot help but associate with slavery. The analogy
unbearable, the irony is burning. Black men who are themselves
victims of oppression victimizing black women in what looks
like the same oppression? A system of oppression within
another system of oppression. (Can Victims Be Perpetrators came
out of this reading.)

Which brings me to last night. I was at a function and a black man
asked me what I wrote about. I said hip hop and feminism. He then
put up the two fingers and said, "Are you an L?" and I looked at him,
unphased, as I saw it as a teachable moment. Then I said, eye brows
furrowed, "Hunh?" He joked "There is nothing wrong with that as long
as I can watch." I guess he THOUGHT he was going to humiliate me.
All I could think was my ipod died two weeks ago, my relationship
died three weeks ago and I took the GRE this morning, nothing
really was going to f-ck with me.

I let him speak, he stuttered and stammered and then he noticed
that I was serious. I responded saying "It's interesting that I say I am a feminist
and you joke about me being a lesbian, I am currently writing a piece
titled a A World Built on Black Pussy." He raised his eyebrows this time.
It was clear that I was serious. I added, "The rappers talk about it all the
time, but if I do, I am being tacky." We were then able to have a more
civil conversation that wasn't based his lesbian fantasies.

In his comment, I was reminded about how normalized it is for men
to be so flip towards women, women who are strangers, about
sex. Yet, as a woman if we have the gall to say something back we risk getting
the Michelle Wallace, Ntozake Shange treatment. Silenced. Dismissed
and told you are being used by The Man against BLACK people.

I am happy I didn't come at him hella sideways. I mean. What
good could have come of that? Besides I think god puts me
in those situations because I don't look for victims, or opportunities
to humiliate people who have neanderthal-esque gender politics. I see
it as a chance to be like "eassssy star, lets think about what
you just said and the implications of it."

Being an M.dot is hard.

I Knew I Would Never Be the Same

I knew that I would never be the same when, while researching
the Beyond the Down Low post, I read a passage in Keith Boykin's
book where he describes affirming the rage or questioning the rage.

I am rage sensitive. It comes from watching the world around me,
as a child, be eaten alive by addiction. In many ways rage operates
like a stray bullets, taking out whatever is in its path.

In the book, Boykin was discussing how he was speaking at an event on
AIDS, and the women stood up and said "Sure they would have you here,
you are one of them", one of them meaning that he is a gay man.
Apparently the womans husband, cheated on her and left her for a man.

It was at that moment where Boykin pointed out that she wanted
him, to affirm her rage, but instead he questioned it by telling her that she
has a right to be angry but a conference about Black people and HIV
isn't automatically about Black men who are in the closet and
to presume that it is the same is apart of the problem that leads them
to being closet in the first place.

When you read the paper, or watch the news, think about whether the story
you are reading is raising questions or affirming passively held values,
be they healthy, racist, sexist or pathological.

I think about affirming the rage or questioning the rage when I go back and
forth with C.Dubb about what this non profit is going to look like.

I think about it when I say to myself, that there are so MANY people getting
money off of poverty that anything we do MUST be committed to being about
solutions. No more talk about the problem. ((Problem))((Solution)).

I think about affirming the rage or questioning the rage when I read Michael Eric
Dyson talking a whole bunch of yak about Tupac, as if Pac was the second
coming. Pac was an artist. He had potential. Sadly he did not live up to it.

Sometimes Dyson man reads like he is Pac's publicist.

I listen to Pac. I listen to rap. But, what is bugged out to me is Dyson's
unwillingness to question Pac or Hip Hop at all.

However, if Dyson questioned Pac he may begin to question other things,
and who know's where that may lead.

Its almost like we need a conference where we criticize each other, then decide to
take action on the issues that arise.

But that would mean taking time from Fox News appearances, conferences,
the Black Literature circuit and actually figure out sustainable ways to address the
sh-t "we" talk about on Fox News, at conferences and on the Black
Literature circuit.

I thought of how the rage was affirmed when I picked up Street Lit Review.
In many ways it is a magazine with great potential. But most of its
reviews are thinly disguised pressed releases. But for one article
on the challenges of ghost writing, I learned nothing new about street
lit that I couldn't have easily picked up by browsing a book table at
Fulton Mall.

What really got me was the pages in the magazines displaying the covers
of the books. Many of them looked like stills from an R. Kelly or Young Joc
video.

All I could think was, "Is this what we think of each other?"

Often times, I evaluate Black art by asking myself, if II came from
another country and knew zero about African Americans, what
would this piece of music, book, tv show, tell about
me about Black folks?

This is NOT to say that every piece has to be on some Fight the Power.

Because that is nonsense.

However, it must be noted how much both street lit and how much
of Snoop, 50 and Weezy says about us, as a people to each other and to
the world.

I thought of affirming the rage or questioning the rage when I was
reading Black Issues Book review and Melody Guy, senior editor at
One World Ballentine said, in defense of street
lit, "You can't force them to read James Baldwin. There is a reason
why people are choosing these stories and maybe we should
look at what is causing this hunger".

I know what causes the hunger, the same thing that sustained my appetite
for Mobb Deep, sustains and feeds desire for these stories
which ultimately play the role in feeding the dysfunction within us.

The Baldwin statement interesting for two reasons.
First, since the 4th, I have been reading
Baldwin to get a handle on how to write about my family
in an accessible an effective way.

Two, Baldwin always questioned the rage.

In many ways, the folks who want more diversity in Hip Hop,
are like the folks who want more diversity in Black book titles.

I wonder what will happen when we decide enough is enough
and that we will support both the musicians, writers and fine artists
who create images that aren't hella corny like a back to school special,
see the above Ice Cube movie, yet aren't so pathological they make
me want consider homicide because the ________ is enough.

Try and F*ck a Black Girl

Last night I walked out of the movie "The Wackness".

This was a disappointment for three reasons.

First of all it was a date.

Secondly, we planned on watching it for the last two weeks.

Thirdly, I had moderate hopes for the movie, as circa 1994 hip hop
played a prominent role in the film.

The gist of the story is that the main character, Luke, is a
18 year old virgin who is spending the summer before college
selling weed, listening to Biggie, navigating his parents dysfunction
and trying to have sex for the first time.

A modern coming of age story.

The movie also reminded me of Brandon Soderberg's analysis of
Judd Apatow's usage of hip hop in his films. Soderberg's theory is that
Apatow uses hip hop to illustrate the more dysfunctional and or pathological
aspects of his characters. Soderberg writes,

Apatow's producer/director/writer filmography contains a weird trend of using hip-hop as either a quick throwaway joke or as a way to reduce a character or scene to absurdity. Recall the intro to 'Knocked-Up' which uses Ol' Dirty Bastard's classic 'Shimmy Shimmy Ya' (Armond White: "white boys clowning to Old Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”) with emphasis on Dirty's "Ooh baby I like it raw" hook to make it really obvious and funny what this movie's already going to be about. Think of the constant hip-hop slang used by everyone but Steve Carrell's character in 'The 40 Year-Old Virgin' and how it's essentially used to represent just how vulgar and crass everyone's become and how stupid white people are for adopting any part of this culture.

Back to walking out.

I walked out of the movie when Ben Kingsly's character, Dr. Squires,
is giving Luke advice on life, love and sex in college and beyond
and suggests to him, hopefully, "Try and Fuck a Black Girl".

The take away from that is that we are easy. We are exotic. If you are
having a hard time try the Black girls. We are willing.

I am not lying y'all, he said it. I said "The F*ck is this?" I told my date,
"Uh, I'm leaving".

The issue for me wasn't just that Dr. Squires said it, it was the fact that people,
many of whom were white women, laughed.

It wasn't funny.

I wondered if they would have laughed if the character said
"Try and fuck a Jewish girl?"

I also wondered if writer, director Jonathan Levine, thought twice
about keeping that line.



Related
Soderberg has a thorough, with a capital T, analysis
of the role that rap music plays in white movies.

The Guardian

I woke up this morning tired. Putting ice on my knee tired.

I went out to Ms. Coca's party last night.

Ali Shaheed played Electric Relaxation and I got hoarse from singing along.

I was checking my blog statistics this morning and noticed that I was getting
referrals from The Guardian.

I clicked on the link and saw that The Guardian had linked to my
"If You Want to Change Society" piece under their Best of the Web section.

I had to blink back the water y'all.

Thank you to Latoya for the Racialicious cross links.

Thank you to all who read and comment. Thank you to the lurkers. I see you.

Thank you to the folks who e-mail me, who reach out and ask for advice,
who write and share how they are "on becoming a more human human",
or that they are "struggling with learning that their partner has a near
fatal disease and they just wanted to reach out".

bell and Audre speak out their being power in the margins, so there is nothing
like being recognized, publicly, for being yourself.

If You Want to Change Society, Close Your Legs

Yes. David Banner said it.

Talk about colored girls, homicide and patriarchy.

You would think that Capitalism, the fall of the stock market and the price
of rice were controlled by who we had sex with.

What if a white man sat on that stage and said that? R.I.O.T.

David goes on to say that "Most of these men sell dope because
they want to impress you". So wait, if we stop having sex with D-boys
then they are going to get jobs at Mc Donalds?

I think we need more labor and gender theory.

It Ain't My Fault
Whats incredible to me about this video is two things.
David Banners and to a certain extent Kweli's response is
indicative of an unwillingness to acknowledge the ways
in which our music affects our kids.

Why is that so hard?

We don't want the rappers to have any personal responsibility
because we don't want to hold ourselves accountable.
The minute we hold them accountable we have to hold
ourselves accountable.

Its like this, if your momma is telling you not to smoke and drink,
but she smoking and drinking, you ain't gonna listen to her.

If we start talking about the rappers and their music and
the effect it has on the kids, then we have to start looking
ourselves, the fact that we buy and listen to the music
and the message that this sends to the kids.

We don't criticize the rappers because then we would
either have to stop listening to it, or think about
why we get enjoyment from listening to "It Ain't No Fun,

If the Homies Can't Have None".

Do you know how hard it was to write that listening
to Mobb Deep was nurturing the dysfunction in me?
Type difficult.

But knowing what I know about crack, Oakland,
and crack in Oakland, it would only make sense
that there would be a part of me that would find
tales of murder and crack entertaining.

We try and turn the dysfunctional 'ish entertaining as
as a way to cope. And many times it works. But we are

conflicted over it. Think of the art, music and theater

associated with The Holocaust. However, there is conflict

within the Jewish community over whether art about

whether it is appropriate for something so terrible can
serve as a basis for art, be it comedy, drama or a musical.

Listening to Mobb Deep reminds me that I am not living

in the 1989 war on drugs zone. It's a reminder

that I survived.

However the words have an impact, perhaps an unintended

impact but an impact just the same.

For example, at the Spinna party last Saturday, I was singing alone with
Snoop and I turned to Filthy and said, "If my dad repeatedly telling me over
the years that I could do anything had an impact on my self esteem,
what impact does listening to and singing Ain't No Fun have on
esteems of both men and women?"

You Wouldn't Get Far
Hip-hop in many ways traffics in the Black sexuality and the availability

of Black female bodies as tools for sex.

No one wants to admit it, talk about it or analyze it.

What would these rappers think if their daughters were vixens,
and their sons murdering and hustling?

In a culture where Karrine Steffan's is a slut, but being a pimp is revered,
where R. Kelley marries Aaliyah, is a known longtime pedophile in Chicago
and is acquitted of child porn charges, there are some serious issues with
how we view Black female bodies.

Its much easier to call Video Vixens tramps rather than analyze patriarchy.

Hip Hop's Identity Crisis
While watching this video, I also thought of Hip Hops conflict within itself.
On one hand folks say that Hip Hop is "just music" on the other hand
folks say "that hip hop is revolutionary and political".

What is it gon' be? Just music or revolutionary?

As far as I am concerned, most of it is just another
form of employment.

In fact Birkhold wrote recently about how Hip Hop
isn't the child of The Civil Rights Movement but is in fact
the child of Black youth unemployment. He writes,

I’m tired of people calling hip hop the child of the civil rights and black power movements. Everyone from hip hop artists, hip hop activists, hip hop scholars, and regular everyday listeners have called it that and all of them are wrong. I believe this error is made for two fundamental reasons, as a nation we don’t understand the civil rights or black power movements nor do we understand labor in a capitalist society.

If we did, we would understand that hip hop is the child of unemployment.

Parents Raise Kids Rappers Don't
Not only do we fail to understand how Hip Hop isn't

"revolutionary" but we also fail to understand how

rappers sound like neocon Republicans

when they say "Parents need to raise they kids".

Yesterday, I began do wonder, do these negros sit around reading

The Moynihan Report?

In fact, I know d-boys that take more responsibility for contributing to
the down fall of the hood many of these rappers do.

Why is it so difficult to care about children other than our own?

We know better. Pre-crack we certainly weren't raised like that.
Ms. Johnson down the street would tell your momma if she saw
you doing something out of pocket. I have written about it here before.
This extra parental intervention stopped during the crack era because
while Ms. Johnson would say something to Hakeem, now that it was '89,
he had a 9(mm) and she wanted to keep her life.

We Just Need More Money and Programs
If the solution is economic then our people should be in better shape.
Black people have more money than ever before, and their children
are STILL underemployed and in prison in record numbers,

If the solution is economic, how many people you know have
cake and still decomposing on the inside?

An after school program and a fund raiser is not going to change this.
After school programs and fund raisers are apart of the problem.
We can't party our way to social justice, reduced unemployment,
reduced drop out rates or lower AIDS rates.

Many people who work these jobs, like their work, but are scared of the hood.
Non profit jobs serve as a stepping stone for folks. Its like an urban boot camp.
If you can survive with the darkies you can work anywhere.
They are far more interested in keeping their jobs than changing
society so that the children who are in these programs can have
lives full of options, dignity, humanity and power.

There are a lot of mortgages being paid off of managing Black and/or
White poverty.

I am not dissing afterschool programs. Afterschool and summer school
was my salvation when three and four hundred cats were getting murdered
a year in Oakland 89-92. What I am saying is that it is important to keep
an after school program in perspective and to understand the extent
to which some folks care more about getting a grant, then deciding what
their organizations mission will be. This method of thinking enables them
to put their personal mission ahead of the needs of the people they are serving.

Black children in the hood know that there is a war on drugs. They know
it because they are in the middle of it. They know that we won't, can't
protect them, so they protect themselves. They also know that we care
more about our music than we do standing up for them.

Every time an emcee says "Parent's raise kids" not rappers, the kids are
reminded of this.

We don't also don't understand labor and power, and until we do we will
be on stages saying things like "If You Want to Change Society, Close your Legs".