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Post by RPankn on Jan 3, 2005 22:44:36 GMT -5
[Op ed by Stanley Crouch in today NY Daily News] The most successful black women's magazine, Essence, is in the middle of a campaign that could have monumental cultural significance. Essence is taking on the very *friendly* person images and verbal abuse projected onto black women by hip hop lyrics and videos. The magazine is the first powerful presence in the black media with the courage to examine the cultural pollution that is too often excused because of the wealth it brings to knuckleheads and amoral executives. This anything-goes-if-sells attitude comes at a cost. The elevation of pimps and pimp attitudes creates a sadomasochistic relationship with female fans. They support a popular idiom that consistently showers them with contempt. We are in a crisis, and Essence knows it. When asked how the magazine decided to take a stand, the editor, Diane Weathers said, "We started looking at the media war on young girls, the hypersexualization that keeps pushing them in sexual directions at younger and younger ages." Things got deeper, she says, because, "We started talking at the office about all this hatred in rap song after rap song, and once we started, the subject kept coming up because women were incapable of getting it off their minds." At a listening session that Weathers and the other staffers had with entertainment editor Cori Murray, "We found the rap lyrics astonishing, brutal, misogynistic. ... So we said we were going to pull no punches, especially since women were constantly being assaulted." They were inspired by a campaign that some fathers and daughters led against Abercrombie & Fitch demanding that half-clad young people no longer be used to sell the clothing. When the campaign succeeded, the Essence staff realized there is a serious problem in the world of advertising as well as music. "When we started this," Weathers said, "all the editors came together. We formed a music committee - staff volunteers who did the research and then focus groups of women and men of all ages. "Then in April, there was the demonstration at Spelman College in Atlanta. The young women - supported by the men at Morehouse, by the way! - told the rapper Nelly that they didn't want him on campus because his work was too insulting. "We realized that, my God, we were right on point! What we were feeling and what we were finding out in our research was all correct. It was time. Women were no longer going to sit still." Essence has a year-long strategy that includes a town meeting at Spelman College in February. Things are getting hot. This is a beginning that has been a long time coming, and it is good to see it all forming naturally with the women in the lead. Originally published on January 3, 2005 www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/267488p-229126c.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 3, 2005 22:47:55 GMT -5
What's Really Going On Entertainment insiders, thinkers and consumers candidly discuss hip-hop’s outlook on Black women’s sexuality We are mothers, sisters, daughters and lovers of hip-hop. We’ve emulated the sexy confidence of Salt-N-Pepa and the toughness of MC Lyte. We’ve wept over Tupac Shakur’s visceral poetry and marveled at the lyrical dexterity of Notorious B.I.G. When Nas said, "The World Is Yours," we believed him. And today we stand at the forefront of popular culture: independent, talented and comfortable with the skin we’re in. We are really feeling ourselves. Perhaps that’s why we’re so alarmed at the imbalance in the depiction of our sexuality and character in music. In videos we are bikini-clad sisters gyrating around fully clothed grinning brothers like Vegas strippers on meth. When we search for ourselves in music lyrics, mixtapes and DVDs and on the pages of hip-hop magazines, we only seem to find our bare breasts and butts. And when we finally get our five minutes at the mic, too many of us waste it on hypersexual braggadocio and profane one-upmanship. The damage of this imbalanced portrayal of Black women is impossible to measure. An entire generation of Black girls are being raised on these narrow images. And as the messages and images are broadcast globally, they have become the lens through which the world now sees us. This cannot continue. An entire generation of Black girls are being raised on these narrow images. And as the messages and images are broadcast globally, they have become the lens through which the world now sees us. This cannot continue. We have debated this topic, often heatedly, at Essence. Some of us are fed up; others don’t see the big deal. But all of us agree that as representatives of the world’s foremost publication for Black women, we need to provide a platform for public discussion. Of course, there is a much broader scope of perspectives to be heard than our own, and in the interest of fostering a conversation, we present a survey of the landscape: Entertainment journalist Ayana Byrd and Essence editor Akiba Solomon interviewed a wide range of key players in the music industry: a video director, a choreographer, a rapper, a psychologist and others. Public dialogue is vital to effecting change. Throughout this year we’ll explore this topic in our pages, and we invite you to tell us how you feel. E-mail us at letters@essence.com. Your opinion is the most important part of this discussion. And so it begins. —the editors www.essence.com/essence/themix/takebackthemusic/whatsreallygoingon.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 3, 2005 22:50:54 GMT -5
What They're Saying
Entertainment insiders, thinkers and consumers candidly discuss hip-hop’s outlook on Black women’s sexuality
Moya Bailey, senior, Spelman College; campus activist who participated in a student protest against Nelly Black women are often depicted as hypersexualized, and music videos exacerbate the problem&mdashand that becomes people’s perception of Black women everywhere. I know people who’ve been on exchange programs to another country, say South Africa or Brazil, and they’ve had experiences in which people have approached them, thinking that they were prostitutes or that they were sexually open just because of the images that they have of American Black women. People don’t have access to other images of us because videos are really what go out to the rest of the world. There aren’t really pictures of us in school textbooks or things that counter the images that are seen in music videos. With White people, you have a wider range of depictions. You might have Roseanne, which represents a low-income White family, but then you also have Frasier and Friends, which represent wealthier White people; so there’s a range. For Black women especially, there are not as many choices out there to counteract video images. I think it’s deliberate. The media does an excellent job of keeping those more positive images about us away from people.
Melyssa Ford, former video model and cohost of new show BET Style When I started doing videos, it was to help pay my tuition. It wasn’t a way to meet rappers. That was the farthest thing from my mind. We’ve become trophies. We’re like the equivalent of a platinum chain and a pendant. It’s one of the reasons why I took control of how I was seen. People were trying to exploit me, but I decided to exploit myself and make all the money from my images, including those on my calendar and DVD. People may see it as a contradiction, but I don’t. I’m eye candy, and that’s as far as it goes.
Jay "Icepick" Jackson, senior vice-president of A&R, Ruff Ryders Records I have a 7-year-old daughter, and she can’t listen to my music. She can’t listen to it in the car, not in the room, and she can’t watch videos. Right now she loves Usher. His music is good, but the lyrics are a bit much for her—especially once she starts to understand what he’s saying about adult relationships. So I went and bought her the Hip-Hop Bears CD, and we listened to it together, and she loves it. I gave Usher’s CD to her mother.
Talib Kweli, hip-hop artist Videos can be art, but the video didn’t start out as art. It started out as a promotional tool to get an artist seen without having to fly him around the country. So what’s the easiest way to sell something? When you drive down the street you see titties selling you all types of things, from clothes to cars to alcohol to everything. So why not use ass and titty to sell music? It makes perfect sense. Whether it’s right or not, I feel that as a man, when I see it, I’m going to look. It’s going to catch my attention. I believe an artist’s responsibility is not to uphold the morals of society. An artist’s responsibility is to speak honestly about what’s going on and what people are going through.
Debra Lee, president and COO, BET Holdings, Inc. BET gets beat up for playing what is selling in stores and getting played in constant rotation on the radio. Many times the sexual aspect is gratuitous. You can’t have women hardly dressed and men fully clothed and say it’s not one-sided or problematic. It is an issue BET has to deal with. Years ago the concern was violence. Now it’s sexuality, and some artists go too far. I hope this is a phase, and we do have to work with artists on it. But if more people are asking for it and like it, who’s to say that’s wrong? If artists put out videos like this, and people don’t like it, they should vote at the record store. Our Uncut show enables us to offer the industry an outlet. If something is adult-oriented, we can say it is going to Uncut.
Ludacris, hip-hop artist In my videos I try to be versatile: Sometimes I have women dancing, and then, for example, in my Stand Up video, there are no naked women. I don’t mean to depict women in a certain way. The ones who want to shake what their mama gave them are going to do that whether they’re in videos or not. As artists, we explore our creativity through videos. Who sees those videos on BET, or whatever music channel is showing it, is not always up to us.
Nelly, artist Part of the reason rap artists come under fire more than any other group is because people don’t respect what we do as art. When actress Halle Berry appears in Monster’s Ball, people separate the character from the real person, and she wins an Oscar! A rapper couldn’t use a line describing what she did in the movie, let alone film it in a video, without getting heat for it. So I accept my role and my freedom as an artist. I respect women and I’m not a misogynist. I’m an artist. Hip-hop videos are art and entertainment. Videos tell stories; some are violent, some are sexy, some are fun, some are serious. As for how women are shown in the videos, I don’t have a problem with it because it is entertainment, whether it’s Dilemma or Tip Drill, Mos Def or Terror Squad. Women are in the videos by choice. No one knows what a particular woman’s situation is, what her goals are. Being in that video may help her further those goals. Several women who have been in my videos have gone on to do TV appearances and movies. No one can dictate other people’s choices and situations.
Kevin Powell, activist and author Black women, dating back to slavery, have always been depicted by this society as sexually loose, as sleepers, as objects to be used, then discarded. What is new about this mind-set is that there seems to be no boundaries, no coded language in the way men—Black men—rap or sing about and relate to Black women nowadays. Factor in music videos running all day every day depicting Black women in compromising positions, and you have the double insult of the visuals reinforcing what have essentially become a reckless disregard and, in some instances, hatred, for the lives and psyches of Black girls and women. In my work as an activist and a speaker, I ask Black boys and Black men this question all the time: What other men on the planet are allowed, or even encouraged—for the sake of keeping it real or making a profit for their record labels and themselves—to refer to the females in their lives as pregnant doges, hos, chickenheads, skeezers, very *friendly* persons or what have you; have it put on CD; have it depicted in their music videos in the most pornographic ways possible; and have all those horrific sentiments shipped all over the globe? No one but us.
[continued in next post]
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Post by RPankn on Jan 3, 2005 22:51:16 GMT -5
Fatima Robinson, video director and choreographer Videos have to come out of the strip club. Someone needs to start being honest about it. Black people often tiptoe around what is really going on. We see girls shaking their ass 50 million times in every video. As African women we love to shake our tailfeathers; it’s a part of our culture. I love to dance and drop it like it’s hot as much as the next girl, but there has to be a balance. The fact that every video is based on that is ridiculous. The reason they’re putting it out there is because folks are playing it, and it’s selling. If it were not being played and not selling, artists would not be making this music. There are so many artists out there who are not getting their proper due because of what’s going on. And that’s it plain and simple. As a music-video director, I have problems all the time getting work, because I refuse to write the treatments that record companies want—hot girls, cars, palm trees and so on. At some point you have to give in and do something, and try and do it in a stylized way, so it doesn’t depict us as even crazier than what’s out there. After getting the songs and listening to them over and over and over, I just say, "No, thank you." Jill Scott, poet, songwriter and singer The focus on women in most videos is on being a certain kind of attractive. And as far as our sexuality is concerned, it seems that it’s more nasty than it’s sexy. Sexuality, in my opinion, is not so obvious. It’s coy. It’s sly. It’s sweet. And we’re not doing that right now; we’re just like, "Look at I disagree." Life is about choices, but I do think that women have to make a decision about how we’re seen by the world. You have to teach your daughters. You have to be responsible not just for your child, but also for the other girls around you. So let them know, "That skirt is inappropriate." "You’re not wearing that," you know. Say "No, honey, your breasts don’t need to be exposed like that." Russell Simmons, cofounder of Def Jam Records and now chairman of Hip-hop Summit Action Network We live in a very sexist society. Popular culture exaggerates everything, including this kind of sexism, for profit. That’s the nature of capitalist society and entertainment. There is no question that the sexism that’s in our hip-hop videos is a reflection of how sexist men are in the world today. It’s just that in the past things weren’t so obvious. Men were holding doors for women, but then they’d do things privately that kept women from being equal citizens. Now when you watch videos and you see the girls dancing, it’s a more raw expression of the same sexism. Although these records and videos are offensive, young girls can learn a lot about the mind-set of the young guys they’re going to school with. Now that the truth is out there more, young girls can learn how to deal with guys. Danyel Smith, author, and a former editor-in-chief of Vibe Now that I’m not editor-in-chief of a magazine or a full-time music journalist, I’m more of an average viewer of videos. I used to watch with a business mind-set. How much money did they take to make this? Who is the director? Is it going to help sell the album? Now I think, Do I like this? Is it fun for me? When I watch it, my reaction to the video depends on how I’m feeling about myself. If I’m having an insecure day, I’ll probably feel angry at this narrow idea of women that is being shown over and over on the screen. But if I’m not feeling insecure and watch videos, I’ll probably just be bored. Sex sells; there’s no other way to say it. It’s the journalism equivalent of "If it bleeds, it leads." For rhyming, it could be something like, "If it’s not naked, it’s not a hit record." When I was an editor, I was trying to sell magazines. When I put women on the cover, it was always my goal to make it interesting. With women the easy thing is to put someone in a sexual pose or in an outfit that shows off her body. I would have to do what I had to do sometimes and find my balance somewhere else. There’s nothing wrong with showing off a Black woman’s body, but we need the balance; we need other images as well. It’s bad when there’s only one thing or when sex is the constant focus. We’re beautiful. Jessy Terrero, video and motion-picture director I had an experience at the end of a video shoot. The record label brought strippers in at the last minute because they wanted to shoot two scenes with them. It was the label’s marketing department’s decision; they wanted a version they could service to BET’s Uncut and places where people play raunchier stuff. In that situation, it wasn’t my doing. I was hired to deliver a certain product to the label, and they’re like, "You’re going to shoot these two girls in this scene," and it was what it was. Datwon Thomas, editor-in-chief of King magazine In the hip-hop industry, we get so competitive and do what will win and what will sell and go to any ends to make that happen. You get so caught up in competing that you may drop your guard and do something crazy. For example, if Smooth or Maxim has a hot girl that we featured or wanted to and they get her in a swimsuit, I think I want to show her topless in a thong. Or they photographed her with body paint, I have to put a vanilla wafer over her chest. I don’t want to get locked into that. Eventually you’ll have a butt-naked woman just standing there. I’ve been able to not let it engulf me. I’ve been a victim but haven’t been engulfed. I have two daughters and a wife; I can’t just give in to this. Touré, pop culture correspondent for CNN and author Hip-hop is primarily a male preserve, a world where men talk about what they’ve done with or to other men. The massive success of a White man like Eminem shows that White males are more accepted within hip-hop than Black females. Black women in hip-hop are portrayed, in songs or videos, as either silent, willing strippers or complaining, troublesome meddlers. Female rappers are either boy toys (Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown) or tomboys (MC Lyte, the Lady of Rage), both of which are personalities constructed around a masculine norm rather than a female norm. This means the women are defining themselves in reaction to what men want, rather than what they want. This is obviously the wrong message to send to young women and young men who will have to create relationships that become the families of the next generation. Carolyn West, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, University of Washington, Tacoma Many adults are quite ignorant about what’s out there. We can’t afford to pretend it doesn’t exist. We live in America, and people have a right to produce those images, so I’m not talking about censorship. But even if artists won’t be responsible, the community has to hold them accountable. My fear is that girls don’t even see their own victimization anymore. They say, "I’m a pregnant dog, I’m a ho, I’m a tip drill." As porn moves more into the mainstream, it only normalizes the behavior and how we deal with sexual assault and violence. I get concerned when I see girls mimic the X-rated clothing that Lil’ Kim wears or the X-rated lyrics of songs like Kelis’s "Milkshake." It puts young girls in positions that they can’t handle once the attention is drawn to them. Ayana Byrd and Akiba Solomon have written for Vibe and The Source and are the editors of Naked: Black Women Bare All About Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips and Other Parts, due this summer. www.essence.com/essence/themix/takebackthemusic/whattheyresaying.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 3, 2005 22:53:23 GMT -5
X-RatedWe’ve always had performers who pushed the envelope with explicit sexuality. And many of these mavericks went on to become musical legends. This brief survey shows how material, once intended for adults only, often went on to become mainstream. But today, everything is exposed to everybody. With our increasingly relaxed standards, is this a sign of the times or a sign of trouble? By Janice K. Bryant 1920’s Bessie Smith (1895—1937) The Empress of the Blues performed some of the era’s raciest tunes, including "You’ve Got to Give Me Some." Musicologists say she’s an innovator, citing her cover of "St. Louis Blues" a classic. 1920’s—1930’s Thomas A. Dorsey (1899—1993) Although he’s known as the Father of Gospel Music today, when Dorsey was performing as Georgia Tom, he wrote hundreds of blues songs with such lusty titles as "It’s Tight Like That." Once he found God he wrote the spiritual "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." 1950’s Ray Charles (1930—2004) Those orgasmic-sounding call-and-response moans in the 1959 hit "What’d I Say—Parts 1 & 2" had churchwomen aghast. But that didn’t keep Brother Ray from leaving a lasting imprint on twentieth-century American popular music. 1960’s—1970’s Redd Foxx (1922—1991) The salty star of Sanford and Son—one of TV’s Top Ten sitcoms from 1972 to 1977—reigned as the first King of Comedy and a gifted artist. But album titles like Mr. Hot Pants typify his brazen, risqué background. Rudy Ray Moore, aka Dolemite Moore hit the top with his homemade cult favorite movie, Dolemite, and his Eat Out More Often comedy album, featuring X-rated male bravado set to music. This was a pioneering recording approach, and today Moore is called the Godfather of Rap. 1970’s Teddy Pendergrass "Close the door!" "Turn off the lights! Turn ’em off!!" Teddy’s loud, but always loving, commands provided the backdrop for many a seduction. Before his paralyzing car accident in 1982, many of his albums went gold or platinum. Millie Jackson This preacher’s granddaughter went from six-day-a-week churchgoing to modeling to Grammy nominations singing such risqué songs as "All the Way Lover," from Feelin’ pregnant dogy. Many radio stations banned her work for years, but Billboard calls her one of R&B’s top acts. 1970’s—1980’s Prince Remember "Soft and Wet," "Erotic City" and "Sexy M.F."? Prince says he was never dirty, just seductive: "I always try to keep sensuality in my music. It was never done in a spirit of misogyny or meanness." Last March he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 1980’s—1990’s 2 Live Crew The purveyors of the Miami Bass sound battled in court over obscenity charges for the double-platinum album Nasty As They Wanna Be, which featured "Me So Horny," and for plagiarism with "Pretty Woman" on the album Clean As They Wanna Be—and they eventually won both cases. Luther "Luke" Campbell, the group’s leader, spearheaded a Florida voter-registration drive last fall. 1990’s Lil’ Kim Do hard-core raps like "How Many Licks" prove that the Queen Bee has sexual power? Greg Thomas, an assistant English professor, thinks so. Last semester he started teaching Hip-Hop Eshu: Queen B@#$H 101 at Syracuse University. The three-credit class explores lyricism by women rappers and their contribution to empowering female sexuality in popular culture. 2000’s Ludacris Charming? Versatile? The crazily popular Atlanta rapper’s uncensored video for P-poppin rivals Nelly’s Tip Drill. On the other hand, that thumping Stand-Up video—minus naked women—can hold its own against any 1960’s Motown sound. Throughout the coming year, Essence will explore ways Black women are depicted in popular music and media through our Take Back the Music initiative. We want to provide a platform where you can voice your concerns, likes and dislikes. And we’ll also give you practical steps on how you can effect change—starting at home. Listen to What You’re Listening To Yeah, we love the beats, but what messages are we taking in? Let’s listen with a more critical ear. Pay attention to the words of your favorite song. If all you can focus on is the tight beat, pull the lyrics from the Internet by searching Google.com (type in the word lyrics, the artist’s name and the song title). Watch a hot music video with the sound off and see how it’s different. If you’re a parent, borrow a stack of your child’s CDs and focus on the lyrics. Ask your children why they like particular songs. www.essence.com/essence/themix/takebackthemusic/xrated.html
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Post by RPankn on Jan 3, 2005 23:07:30 GMT -5
I asked this question at DU and couldn't get a response from any women there, so I'm going to raise it here: The Essence articles raise another good point... What about some women in hip hop like Lil' Kim, who basically sells her music with her nearly naked body and lyrics which talk about her sexual exploits; she is now regretting the former. Or, if you want to go back a few years, Foxy Brown; another young woman who used her body and sexuality to sell her music. Even some of Missy Elliot's songs have sexually charged lyrics, although she doesn't really use her body to sell records. I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I'm curious how women here feel about an artist like Lil' Kim. Is she empowering to young women in that she made the decision to exploit herself? Or is she another symptom of the problem? In other words, because the mentality of most commercial hip hop is that young Black women are hos, sexual objects and the sum of their body parts, is the reason she had to exploit herself and talk graphically about sex in her music because she had to if she wanted to make any headway in a male dominated medium? If so, is this a savvy "marketing" move on her part, or just plain submitting to male and corporate exploitation? Compare Lil' Kim to an artist like Jill Scott or India.Arie. I realize Jill Scott and India.Arie are classified as R&B/neo-soul and not hip hop, but Jill Scott does do some spoken word. Both women's lyrics examine the deeper aspects of relationships, are sometimes sensual -- but not explicit, and take on social subjects. Granted, Jill Scott and India.Arie don't have the same kind of name recognition that Lil' Kim does, but do they prove that Black women don't have to exploit their bodies or sexuality to become relatively successful in the business? Then someone posted lyrics from two songs by Destiny's Child and Khia. I followed that up with this question, which I couldn't get an answer to: That raises another valid issue... Lyrics like that, and those below. Are they "equal time," in that the roles have been reversed and women are talking about men in very explicit way and in a way leveling the playing field, or is it a matter where they "must" do this to conform with the so-called demands of commercial hip hop market? I can't post the lyrics here because their content would violate this board's TOS, so I'll provide links to them here if you want to look at them for yourself: Destiny's Child "Soldier" www.lyrics007.com/Destiny's%20Child%20Lyrics/Soldier%20Lyrics.html Khia "My Neck, My Back (Explicit Version)" www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/khia/myneckmybackdirtyversion.htmlLil' Kim "How Many Licks" www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lilkim/howmanylicks.htmlMissy Elliot "Work It" www.thelyricarchive.com/lyrics/workit.shtml#nosmileys
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Post by Moses on Jan 4, 2005 6:51:00 GMT -5
I don't have the guts to read the lyrics, -- I am already angry about the sexploitation of girls and was on Tipper Gore's side to label the products of the entertainment industry. Most democrats are such sheep, that they "thought" that this was "censorship". They actually are such ditto-heads of the entertainment industry that they refer to its products as "art".
One good development has been the entertainment industry's suits against consumers for downloading its products. People can see now what it is all about. There is no difference between the entertainment industry and enron or halliburton. None.
And the entertainment industry is worse, because they are using our broadcast waves to actually rewire american brains to operate solely in the basal ganglia. And this is what its products do.
But the article is interesting because it does dig down to the blues as culpable. A blues artist told me that nothing is authentically the blues unless it is about a man losing his girlfriend.
Well then the blues are a marginal little indiginous musical sidecar.
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Post by Moses on Jan 4, 2005 6:59:52 GMT -5
I think it is very interesting that there was no response on DU. This is yet another indication that the Democratic Party has no real concerns for women or blacks or see any reason to alter the media monopolies or address its irresponsibility. The Dem Party sites are all about whipping people behind the special interest agenda(s) of the Democratic Party.
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Post by RPankn on Jan 4, 2005 17:41:15 GMT -5
Well, I got a response to my questions from one particular poster, who basically implied I was trolling for a reaction and a hardcore sexist for asking those questions by engaging in a false line of intellectual inquiry. Not that this person is a mind reader, but based their opinion on a book about sexism written by a man.
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Post by Moses on Jan 4, 2005 19:26:32 GMT -5
What book?
Very odd-- I posted something about hip hop from BC on SC and did get alot of angry reactions from some posters -- I had neglected to put the link and so they thought I had written it. But there were some really interesting thoughtful, knowledgable responses, too-- oh, yeah-- you were posting then. But I think also, Blackascoal posted some good stuff, and some others.
I got alot of mail from that post. Used to get alot of hate mail from the party whips.
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Post by RPankn on Jan 4, 2005 23:03:33 GMT -5
First was my above post about Essence making a good point of whether it's any better that Lil' Kim chooses to exploit herself by using her body and sexually explicit lyrics to sell records, or if she would accomplish the same thing by being exploited like that by a male artist and seeking a woman's perpective on the answer to that question.
Then, another poster quoted the DC and Khia Lyrics, followed by my post with the Lil' Kim and Missy Elliot lyrics. Mind you, these songs were played in heavy rotation by both urban and Top 40 radio, but this didn't stop a couple posters from screaming about how "obscene" these songs were. At this point, I became convinced that if it weren't for sites like DU or SC, some people who post there would have no contact with the outside world at all. Anyway, these same posters could not see how these songs exploited men, even though they were screaming in other parts of the thread about how exploitative hip hop is toward women. Personally, I don't think one of them has ever listened to hip hop or would know what it was if it came up and bit them in the butt.
Then, some other posters chimed in and I think the point they were trying make is those posters who were being shrill about hip hop were being ideologically inconsistant in that they viewed songs by male hip hop artists as sexist, but did not feel the same about the ones by female artists.
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Post by RPankn on Jan 4, 2005 23:43:12 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on Jan 5, 2005 4:03:48 GMT -5
I still don't have the guts to read the lyrics, but I have to say that all the "hooking up" music seems petty, sleezy, and narcisistic, esp. in the context of the times. And, as the Essence article mentioned, it seems deliberate.
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Post by RPankn on Jan 5, 2005 5:25:29 GMT -5
After re-reading some of the posts in that thread, it's apparent to me that most "Democrats" that post on boards like DU really don't have a clue about what goes on in the real world in real people's lives. It seems like they come in two forms: the ones who seclude themselves in their hideyholes with their face in a computer and nose in a book all day. Not that there's anything wrong with learning for learning's sake, but good lawd, how do you expect to win over those who never voted before, or those who don't vote, unless you're able to relate to them? The others are the lilly white suburban liberals. The "limousine" liberals that don't have an idea about what goes on in the lives of anyone "beneath" their social station, outside their race, or that there are other kinds of music besides whatever they hear on the "soft and contemporary" station they tune to in their minivan when they take their kids to soccer practice.
This was obvious in how they framed the debate in terms of women in general, instead of sticking to the focus of the Essence articles: how young, Black women are portrayed by hip hop. And they made themselves look silly because it was obvious they had no clue about the content of hip hop lyrics or videos or performers -- it became a total mob mentality. They heard women were being denigrated and went off running their mouths without even knowing what they were talking about in the first place, and God help you if you asked questions or disagreed with their narrow worldview.
The ones who pull the "I can tell you're not a parent because..." and "would you let your children have this kind of music if you were a parent" line of argumentation were especially transparent because it's obvious they have no idea what gets played on commercial radio these days and that they're not parents themselves. Sure, I could stop my children from buying CDs like Lil' Kim's or Missy Elliot's, but they can go find it on the radio or TV or online. And even if I prevent them from accessing from there, they're still going to hear about it from other kids in school whose parents aren't so vigilant. Since it doesn't look like the government is going to regulate the content of hip hop anytime soon, and the industry itself isn't going to change, instead of trying to censor every d**n thing I didn't agree with, my solution would be the same thing my mom did when I was growing up. From an early age, she taught me and my brother about things like sex, love and how women, and people in general, should be treated by instilling in us the values and morals she wanted us to have. And I think she was right because if I had children, I know that sooner or later, they're going to get exposed to this kind of stuff, and when they do I know they will respond appropriately.
I also have a problem when one person, or a group of people, try to impose what they think is appropriate, or their values, on everyone else and get nasty when someone expresses an opinion that doesn't comport with their worldview. That's treading dangerously close to totalitarism for me, and I've noticed people on both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of it. Besides that, people need to start minding their own business and fix themselves before they start telling everyone else how to run their lives.
Anyway, it's quite apparent there are whips of this stripe out there, too, posting on these sites. Further, that thread at DU is exactly the kind of thing Rush Limbaugh would take quotes from and use as example of how the Left wants to run everyone's lives for them and to think like them. Of course, the Right is just as guilty of this. But the difference is the Left has failed at effectively using it like a bludgeon as the Right has done, and when the Right does, it makes the rest of us look bad.
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Post by Moses on Jan 5, 2005 10:10:27 GMT -5
As a parent, I was completely ambushed by what was on the radio, and the horrific nature of the popular culture. The popular culture has become even more repugnant and gets worse every day.
Black kids, moreso than whites gravitate to the hip hop stations, and it is absolutely violating to hear it in one's home. It is horrific. Hearing lyrics like that in ones home is like having Wolf Blitzer on touting the war-- or like having Fox news on touting the war and fascism.
And when you hear the young girls listening to it- and they are stubborn and rebellious and inclined to think parental opposition is a plot against them and their friends, it is most disheartening.
And as you say, that includes female or male "artists" and their "f*ck" you lyrics.
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