Like Ambra, who breaks it down beautifully, I’m more of a pragmatic conservative than an ideological one. My politics is probably actually more like the way I play baseball: I field left but swing right. So when it comes to issues of race, I can almost always “feel” where the activist is coming from, to a certain degree. Somebody wants to argue for reparations or affirmative action or whatever, up to a point, they’re not going to get any argument out of me, while somebody who would categorically deny either of those may provoke me to speak. When it comes to action, however, that historical perspective is a limiting factor. Samantha does a good job of illustrating that in The New Black Freedom Fighter. She writes,

This all strikes me as being totally ignorant of what black folk have achieved in this country DESPITE slavery and racism. When the white mobs got together to burn down black neighbourhoods they were not burning down shantytowns rife with crime, homelessness, illegitimacy, and broken families. They were burning down thriving businesses, well kept homes, churches, and displacing intact families. Why did the white mobs feel the need to carry on in this fashion? Because of the very fact that thriving black neighbourhoods existed. You can’t very well go around insisting that black folk can’t do nothin’ and are less than human with evidence to the contrary staring you right in the face now can you?

So you go on crying about reparations, the negative legacy of slavery, how we got shafted, and everything else. As for me and my house, we will continue to strive for excellence in all that we do. We will not look for excuses to explain away our failures but we will learn from them and not repeat them. And we will continue to be inspired by those who came before us who refused to be stopped by the roadblocks placed in their paths.

This is pretty much where I draw the line and why I stand on the side I do. I can’t really watch movies like Rosewood because they make me want to put on a black leather glove and start smacking people upside the head, but when I read about what happened in places like Rosewood or Black Wall Street in Tulsa, I’m reminded that those people were about getting it done. Forget about the governments refusal to grant them reparations, even though many of them had actually lived during physical slavery, the government was openly hostile to them and actively denying them justice. So what did they do? They got out there and did.

I’m right with the activist on some things, but I step to the right when it comes to the solutions. The government is not going to do it; most things, the government couldln’t do, even if the willingness was there. I mean, I can understand the thought process that says “since the government was complicit in doing things to the detriment of Blackfolk, the government should put forth the same effort in redressing those wrongs.” For some folks, affirmative action and welfare (?!) represent that government redress. (Being that Blackfolk aren’t the majority beneficiaries of either one of those, I don’t see how that can be the case.) Whatever. Whether you think it’s owed us or not, we ain’t gettin’ it. And this is not an ideological capitulation, it’s just being pragmatic.

Look, racism isn’t going anywhere. Hate to say it, but that’s just a part of our national fabric. And even at that, it’s certainly not what it used to be, but as long as there is material gain to be had by using race as a factor in some decision-making process, racism and all those other -isms will remain. So if Black folks are supposed to wait for the last vestiges of racism, individual or structural, before we make a major move, we might as well quit now. Of course that’s not the solution, and my activist friends know that too. It’s the brothers and sisters with the PhD’s that give the worst reports. What kills me is, they do one thing but say something else, dismissing their own accomplishments as atypical; “I’ve been more fortunate than the average Black person.” Yeah, and you made some better decisions, too. Racism and the legacy of slavery and jim crow and whatever other historical events we’d like to point to can’t explain away everything. My kids didn’t not-know 12*12 because of some unseen link to their ancestors, they just didn’t study. Instead of running off a list of why “the rest of us” can’t, maybe it’s time for us Black folks who have achieved something to focus more on why “we” did and try to break down the barriers between the two.

Just a thought.

Come On Down! (c) Johnny Olsen, Rod Roddy, & Flavor Flav

This will be my last day of using the blogger platform. As I mentioned last week…or whenever that was….*shrugs* I’m moving to my own spot. Stereo will still be there, looking quite different, but there will also be some other goodies and treats. Still debating whether I’m gonna sneak some hidden features in there, just to test the McGruff skills of certain readers, and for the novelty of having done it. Don’t hurt yourself trying to look, because there may not even be anything back there. But knowing me, there will be hidden treasure troves (?) back in the cut somewhere. But there will be enough up front to keep everybody occupied.

Soooo…enjoy this last day at the apartment and join me tomorrow at the housewarming in the new crib.

Yeah…I miscounted last time AND screwed up my own made-up title. *shakes head* Anyway….

‘How To Be Rich, N**ga’ Book Targeting Hip-Hop Entrepenuers Drops Today

Gerard Spinks’ self-published book “How To Be Rich, N**ga,” was released to stores today.

Spinks, cousin of boxing champs Michael, Leon Spinks and Cory Spinks, said he made millions of dollars as the owner of a technology consulting business, Spinks Technologies, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Spinks said “How To Be Rich,” is a “ghetto survival guide” that targets the Hip-Hop community that details how to make more money and remain self-sufficient.

“We have all seen that depending upon the U.S. Government for sustenance makes no sense and simply doesn’t work,” Spinks said. “I know people who legitimately lost their jobs, needed unemployment benefits to live, and were denied a claim. Black people cannot depend upon anyone else for our rise up and college kids need to be equipped to deal with outsourcing and with a very bleak job creation outlook.”

Everything he said is very true, but did he really have to add ‘Nigga’ to the title? Is it gonna be written in SBV? I’m gonna look for it while I’m at the book store today. If it looks worthwhile, I might even cop it. But dag, though.

It takes a man to take a stand
understand, it takes a woman to make a stronger man
(as we both get strong) - Chuck and Flav

Last time I talked a little bit about misogynistic lyrics in hip-hop. One thing I intended to do, and either was not clear on, or simply failed to accomplish, was to make some space between the use of the word “bitch” and misogyny. That is, using the same formula for misogyny that I use for racism, where misogyny = prejudice or malice + intent + action, I’m not sure where the “tell ‘em why you mad” record would fall on a scale of real misogyny. Like I said, I think there’s a good discussion to be had about whether words like bitch and ho should be used at all, but I’m not sure whether their use necessarily constitutes misogyny. Just needed to clean that up a little.

Now. For Part 2, I want to focus on misogynistic images within hip-hop. One area where rap is unprecedented in its presentation of “misogynistic” content is in the images portrayed in its videos. Now I had MTV (or as Chuck D calls it, empty-v) back in the day. I saw the rock videos with the big-haired (among other things) Beckys jiggling around in their little strategically-ripped half shirts. It’s another case where hip-hop didn’t start it, but we have advanced(?) it far beyond where it was. Of course, my perspective on this aspect may be limited because I don’t watch TV and I haven’t watched a show of music videos in years. Rock videos may have a whole sub-genre of strip club videos like hip-hop. Even if they do, I’m not really worried about it. I’m talkin’ about hip-hop.

There was a time when the worst thing people could say about the images of women in hip-hop videos was that there were no dark-skinned women. Being a sucker for redbone jawns myself, I noticed, but I wasn’t exactly bothered. In the real world, beautiful Black women come in all shades of the spectrum, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. Besides, I didn’t think that the rappers actually did the casting for their videos, so only so much condemnation could be leveled at them. (Although I will say that one of the weirdest video moments came in Rakim’s Check The Technique, when Rakim, a 5 Percenter, was rapping with all these bikini’d-up white chicks undulating to the beat. I remember a letter to the editor of one of the hip-hop magazines of the time, maybe Rap Pages, where the writer was like, “I have a hard time believing that any of those women is named Mahogany or Starmecca.”) I imagine that the same type of complaint could be raised regarding the scarcity of big jawns. Of course, the stuff that’s going on in videos now would be just as bad if they were full of “full-figured” women. (Because I’m not with that using “full-figured” as a euphemism for fat. Full-figured should mean “having ample breasts and being callipygous. But that’s just me, though)

Nowadays, it has gotten to the point where rappers are making two videos for certain songs, a “clean” version…meaning that the censors will let it play in the daytime, and an “uncut” version. The uncut version is, for all intents and purposes, a porn video. I have seen the unedited, un-blurred, uncut version of Nelly’s Tip Drill. Trust me, that joint ain’t nothin’ nice. Don’t get me wrong, I like eye candy just like the next guy, but some representations just cross the line. I mean, I’m sure that there are some feminists who would argue that simply having women in the videos who serve no purpose except to drape themselves over the rappers (and their hype men) constitutes some level of exploitation. Could be, but I’m not so sure about that. Was Langston Hughes being misogynistic or exploitative when he wrote, “I don’t mind dying—/ but I’d hate to die alone/ I want a dozen pretty women/ to holler, cry and moan.”? If we think of a music video as a representation of (the director’s vision of a) rapper’s wished-for lifestyle, then maybe not. As always, there is much to discuss here. But that only goes to a certain extent. I mean, it’s one thing for me to have a video where I walk by and all the chicks are looking at me like, “there he goes.” It’s another thing for me to have a video where the video hoes are nothing but warm receptacles.

Now one thing to bear in mind is that it’s nothing but a marketing ploy. Everybody knows that the easiest way to get men to do something is to bring women. That’s the whole concept behind having Ladies Night at the club. “If we let women in free, we’ll recoup on all the guys.” I think I said before that I even used that approach when I was trying to get high school volunteers for an after-school class. I figured that if my colleagues and I got enough good-looking girls to work on the project, we’d get at least a handful of guys just because they’d be trying to talk to the girls. (You know it worked.) So for a rapper, one of the easiest ways to get some attention is to put out a video with nothing but half-naked women walking around. You know the guys are gonna watch, and if it goes the artist’s way, they’ll watch the video enough to listen to the song when it comes on the radio, which they hope will parlay into a CD purchase. Or if they can’t have that, there’s at least the expectation that if they push the envelope enough with the video, it will draw negative attention and get the artist’s name out there. Either way, it’s all about getting noticed and making sales. In that sense, I guess that the amount of actual malice is questionable, since my guess is that if showing a jar of speckled jellybeans translated to record sales, the day of the video ho would be over. Either that or there would be a bunch of half-naked women walking around with jars of speckled jellybeans…

Anyway, in any discussion of misogyny, there’s a whole heap of structuralism that has to be addressed. A true feminist critique of music videos in general and rap videos specifically would pay attention to the manner in which the relationships demonstrated in the videos reflected patriarchy within larger American culture, as well as within traditional Black culture, and the way those two have filtered down to hip-hop culture. There would also be some analysis of the manner in which Black women’s bodies have been sexualized and disconnected from their personhood. All valid areas of discussion, but far beyond the scope of what I’m talking about. But I’ll fiddle with that last one for a quick second.

A couple months ago, I wrote a post on racism. Most of the comments dealt with the issue at the level I was writing about, but then one cat got on there talking about how the Black woman is lowest in terms of desirability or whatever. Something like that. I don’t remember exactly, and it’s not worth quoting exactly. What is important to note, however, is that people have been saying that for a long time, but even at that, there has also long been a fascination with Black women’s sexuality. Saartje Baartman. If that name means nothing to you, hit google and the wikipedia, then come back and read this quote from Patricia Hill Collins, in The Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood.

[…]This objectification of African-American women parallels the portrayal of women in pornography as sex objects whose sexuality is available for men (McNall 1983). Exploiting Black women as breeders objectified them as less than human because only animals can be bred against their will. In contemporary pornography women are objectified through being portrayed as pieces of meat, as sexual animals awaiting conquest.

Read that and then watch Tip Drill. You tell me what’s going on.

But then to confound the whole feminist position are “artists” like Li’l Kim, Foxxxy Brown, and Trina, who flout traditional norms and aggressively flounce their sexuality. This presents a tension to the feminist who, on one hand argues that it is empowering to show women who are “in charge” of their sexuality, but at the same time recognize that the images portrayed by Kim, Foxy, Trina, et al are essentially the same ones that are put forth by male artists. They’re not regulating their sexuality by choosing chastity, they’re “owning” it by being being promiscuous. (Man, that’s why I miss MC Lyte and Lauryn Hill somethin’ fierce! They had it to-gether! They had intelligent lyrics and they knew how to display sex appeal without showing all their goodies. Of course, it didn’t hurt that they were fine.) Almost like female versions of Whodini talking about, “I’m a ho, you know I’m a ho/How do you know because I tell you so.” Some might argue that at the end of the day, it’s still white men in suits (read: record companies) controlling the way Black women are portrayed, but that argument basically takes agency away from the both the artists and the consumers.

You know, people can complain about misogynistic songs and videos all they want, but until the artists and record companies feel it in the pocket, nothing’s gonna change. I thought it was great that the women at Spelman College declined Nelly’s charity drive there earlier this year. But you know what? That’s not enough. That was a big, well-publicized event, but that’s not the type of thing that will effect any lasting change. As just about everybody who has any thoughts on this will quickly tell you, we still buy those records and rush out to the floor when they come on at the club. If we’re really serious about change, we’ll make our dollars reflect our ostensible beliefs. Trust me on this one, record companies are all about that bottom line. (Not that bottom line) If you remember back to the late 80’s/early 90’s, there was a proliferation of 5 Percenter groups out. If you know anything about 5% teachings, you know that that’s antithetical to anything most of the people in decision-making positions at major record labels believe. But what? But it was selling. Then came NWA and the Gangsta era, which ushered in the days of “authentic” multi-platinum rap albums (Hammer moved major units, but he didn’t force a paradigm shift, partially because he wasn’t regardes as being “real.”) If we reeeallly wanna see something different, then we’ll have to sacrifice; might have to pass up on buying some catchy tunes, or might have to sit down on a song, even though the beat is bumping. Might hafta decide that we’re not gonna buy records by alleged pedophiles or support organizations that allow them to be nominated for major awards (he ain’t hip-hop, but I simply can’t pass that up. Somebody (who actually listens to Kells) could probably write thick, healthy paper (did somebody say a paper with a Sofa?) on misogyny in R. Kelly’s work…any undergrads out there?) Might mean actually raising our tastes from the lowest common denominator. Might mean not-supporting broadcast radio (which we know is in the pocket of the big 5 record companies, anyway). The question is, are we gonna actually do anything, or are we gonna support misogynistic music and then turn around and bitch about it?

Of course, not all hip-hop is misogynistic or presents Black women in a bad light. Tupac has a couple songs, Dear Mama and Keep Your Head Up, that are worth mentioning. Public Enemy dropped Revolutionary Generation (14 years ago?!). Black Star has Brown Skin Lady, which I love. But I think my favorite gynocentric hip-hop song is 4 Women by Talib Kweli. It’s actually a remake of Four Women, by Nina Simone. What’s remarkable about it is that in the last two verses, Kweli actually raps as the women in his natural voice. That’s major. He doesn’t play them as characters, separating the women from himself, he takes on their voice and tells their stories as if they’re his own. Because really, they are. Men and women aren’t opposites, we’re complements. We can’t advance by stepping on and away from our sisters and mothers. Let’s ride out with Kweli (verses in parentheses are Kweli rapping as Peaches.)

A daughter come up in Georgia, ripe and ready to plant seeds,
Left the plantation when she saw a sign even thought she can’t read
It came from God and when life get hard she always speak to him,
She’d rather kill her babies than let the master get to ‘em,
She on the run up north to get across that Mason-Dixon
In church she learned how to be patient and keep wishin’,
The promise of eternal life after death for those that God bless
She swears the next baby she’ll have will breathe a free breath
and get milk from a free breast,
And love beeing alive,
otherwise they’ll have to give up being themselves to survive,
Being maids, cleaning ladies, maybe teachers or college graduates, nurses, housewives, prostitutes, and drug addicts
Some will grow to be old women, some will die before they born,
They’ll be mothers, and lovers who inspire and make songs,
(But me, my skin is brown and my manner is tough,)
(Like the love I give my babies when the rainbow’s enuff,)
(I’ll kill the first muthafucka that mess with me, I never bluff)
(I ain’t got time to lie, my life has been much too rough,)
(Still running with barefeet, I ain’t got nothin’ but my soul,)
(Freedom is the ultimate goal,
life and death is small on the whole, in many ways)
(I’m awfully bitter these days
‘cuz the only parents God gave me, they were slaves,)
(And it crippled me, I got the destiny of a casualty,)
(But I live through my babies and I change my reality)
(Maybe one day I’ll ride back to Georgia on a train,)
(Folks ’round there call me Peaches, I guess that’s my name.)

Maybe we should try to make sure we’re as enthusiastic about praising the good as we are about condemning the negative.

Car-prowl suspect caught while napping inside Jeep

A car-prowl suspect in Redmond was caught while napping early yesterday morning.

Police found the 23-year-old Kirkland man asleep in the passenger seat of a Jeep Cherokee outside an apartment complex at the 18100 block of Northeast 95th Street, said Redmond police spokeswoman Stacey Holland. The vehicle showed signs of forced entry, and the man was holding a screwdriver in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

Holland said an officer on regular patrol around 3 a.m. came upon a Honda Accord in the middle of the road with the engine running. After noting signs of a break-in, the officer called for reinforcement and began looking for the suspect. The suspect was discovered in the nearby Jeep.

The area where the man was caught has had a high number of car prowls lately, Holland said

I’da woke his ass up with a .38 (c) Robin Harris

Today’s list is a bunch of songs that I think would make good background music for a good-looking woman to walk in the door. In some cases, it’s based on the title and/or words in the song, i.e. it would be really ironic if she walked in while this song was playing. In other cases, it’s all about how her walk would interact with the track.

Heartbeat - Tanaa Gardner
Freak of the Week - Funkadelic
Passing Me By - The Pharcyde
Everybody Loves the Sunshine - Roy Ayers
Weak At the Knees - Steve Arrington
Smiling Billy Suite - Heath Brothers
Let’s Do It Again - Staples Singers
You Haven’t Done Nothin’ - Stevie Wonder
Stranglehold - Ted Nugent
Electric Relaxation - A Tribe Called Quest
Cardova - The Meters
Climax - Ohio Players
More Bounce To The Ounce - Zapp
Joy - Isaac Hayes
Star of the Story - Heatwave
I Wanna Get Next To You - Rose Royce
Be My Beach - Funkadelic

Put out some rough stuff today. To cool it off for the night time, I thought I’d take it down a notch. This is something I saw the first day I started blogging. I did a cut and paste and put it into Word, so I don’t know where I got it. It’s hot, though. Check it out.

Kids will be kids. Pure, innocent, naive.. That’s what makes them lovable. Enjoy.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year olds, “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.” Rebecca - age 8

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.” Billy - age 4

“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” Karl - age 5

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” Terri - age 4

“Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.” Danny - age 7

“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss” Emily - age 8

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen,” Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,” Nikka - age 6

“There are two kinds of love. Our love. God’s love. But God makes both kinds of them.” Jenny - age 8

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.” Noelle - age 7

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” Tommy - age 6

“During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore,” Cindy - age 8

“My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.” Clare - age 6

“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.” Elaine-age 5

“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.” Chris - age 7

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” Mary Ann - age 4

“I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.” Lauren - age 4

“When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.” Karen - age 7

“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross.” Mark - age 6

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget,” Jessica - age 8

And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”

“They get mad when I put it in perspective
but let’s see if my knowledge is effective” - Ice Cube

Misogyny is one of those words like “racism” that has a nebulous, broadly understood meaning, but is much more slippery when it comes time to actually grab it. There are lots of things we can agree are misogynistic, but are they really, or is it just some behavior that takes a misogynistic form but holds no content? Take using the word “bitch” for instance. For most people, that’s a pretty good indicator of some misogynistic tendencies. (And if you keep wondering why I keep writing ‘misogynist,’ it’s just because it has a ‘y.’) But does it really mean anything? Ice Cube, to use a prominent example, penned the song, “A Bitch Iz A Bitch,” dropping the gem,

A bitch iz a bitch
So if I’m poor or rich
I talk in the exact same pitch
Now the title ‘bitch’ don’t apply to all women
But all women have a little bitch in ‘em
It’s like a disease that plagues their character
Takin’ the women of America
And it starts with the letter ‘B’
It makes a girl like that think she better than me
See, some get mad and some just bear it
But yo, if the shoe fits, wear it.
It makes ‘em go deaf in the ear, that’s why
When you say hi, she won’t say hi
Are you the kind that think you’re too damn fly?
Bitch, eat shit and die.
Ice Cube comin’ at you at a crazy pitch.
(why?) I think a bitch iz a bitch.

And don’t worry, we’ll get into the actual words in a minute, but first I need to set up some boundaries. Now, according to some people, the above verse represents views that are hateful to women. Only thing is, Ice Cube’s manager was a Black woman. On “When Will They Shoot,” he rapped, “A Black woman is my manager, not in the kitchen/ so could you please stop bitchin’.” What’s more, on Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, he has a skit towards the end that’s dedicated to “the pretty young ladies who wouldn’t give us no play before the album” which is a collage of rappers saying the word “bitch.” (And also the first place I heard my catchphrase of 10th grade, “Back up off my tip for the simple fact you on it like a gnat on a dawgs dick…” If I had been a senior that year, I probably would’ve tried to make that my yearbook quote.) But here’s the wrinkle: after all that bitch-calling, there’s a voice saying, “Wha’chu say about my mother, man?” Like I said, easy to see but hard to catch.

To bring it even closer to home, I’ve said before that while I was in high school I, like Cube, “spelled girl with a ‘B’. At the same time, like Posdnuos, I “never played a sister,” so what’s the deal? Did the use of the word bitch constitute some real misogynistic feelings, or did it was it just a linguistic feature that some could argue took a misogynistic form? Like I said, just trying to sketch out the boundaries before I start painting.

Now, on the real, Ice Cube’s verse in “A Bitch Iz A Bitch” is probably fairly lightweight as far as misogynistic expression in hip-hop goes. He says the word “bitch” but that’s about it. I don’t even necessarily disagree with him that the title doesn’t apply to all women, but all women have a little bit in em. (Some of us just know how to bring it out, I guess.) Either way, there’s much worse out there. There are several questions that stem from this:
• Where does this misogyny come from? Does it originate in hip-hop?
• Is it confined to rappers’ words, or does it extend to their actions?
• To what extent is misogyny in hip-hop reflective of the larger culture?
• Do female MCs challenge these roles/norms, or do they support them?

I think I wanna start with the third question. Let’s work from general to specific.

My general perception is that hip-hop, even at its hedonistic, materialistic, vulgar worst, is actually reflective of America. It’s not about what we claim to be, or what we wish we were, it’s about what we are. We like sex, drugs, guns, and money. Not each and every one of us, of course, but between those three, all 50 states are covered. (Note, I just said ’sex’ not ‘fornication’ or ‘adultery’, so you’re in there too.) Hip-hop is all-American like Allen Iverson is all-American, but just like AI, many Americans are too myopic to see how accurate the reflection really is. See this article, which really expounds on this point. (I may hafta write about AI pretty soon myself. All this AI hate is starting to get to me. Seriously.) So I don’t think it’s right to point out the misogyny that exists in hip-hop without acknowledging that it doesn’t originate there. Whatever your definition of misogyny is, whether you use the hardcore feminist definition, or something decidedly less, my bet is that people were thinking, talking, and behaving that way before 1979. Maybe not, but probably so. As bell hooks writes,

The sexist, misogynist, patriarchal ways of thinking and behaving that are glorified in gangsta rap are a reflection of the prevailing values in our society, values created and sustained by white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. As the crudest and most brutal expression of sexism, misogynistic attitudes tend to be portrayed by the dominant culture as an expression of male deviance. In reality they are part of a sexist continuum, necessary for the maintenance of patriarchal social order. While patriarchy and sexism continue to be the political and cultural norm in our society, feminist movement has created a climate where crude expressions of male domination are called into question, especially if they are made by men in power. It is useful to think of misogyny as a field that must be labored in and maintained both to sustain patriarchy but also to serve as an ideological anti-feminist backlash. And what better group to labor on this “plantation” than young black men

(yeah, you didn’t think you’d be gettin’ no bell hooks, did you?)

Now I ain’t gon’ hold you, I don’t really subscribe to all that talk about patriarchy and sexism and whatnot. I’ll probably take some time and do some writing on gender at some point (promises, promises) but for now, suffice it to say that biological determinism is beyond suspect to me, but the idea that gender is solely a social construct doesn’t exactly pass muster either. Either way, it didn’t start with the “refrigerated gangstas.” It didn’t even start with Funkadelic, who had the jam, “No Head, No Backstage Pass“, or Muddy Waters, the original “Hoochie Coochie Man.” So again, when we talk about this, it’s fine to recognie that there is misogyny in hip-hop, but let’s not act like it started there, or even that it’s more prevalent in hip-hop than it is on other elements of our culture.

Now within hip-hop, I’d say that misogyny is displayed in two ways: lyrics and images. Lyrically, there are a couple different forms. There’s the fussin-cuz-I’m-mad, “Bitches Ain’t Shit” type record, the attempt at defining, “Bitch Iz A Bitch”/”Bitches and Sistas” record, and the pimp record. Of the three, I’d say that the pimp record is probably the most purely misogynistic. The first two, while some things are probably better left unsaid, represent fairly common occurrences. The women in those stories are usually portrayed as gold diggers or hoes (but not actual prostitutes, since they ho for free.) I don’t know too many dudes (read: none) who can listen to one of those songs and honestly say they’ve never felt what the rapper’s expressing. There may be some out there, but I haven’t met them.

The pimp record is something altogether different. Now, I guess I hafta specify that not all pimp records deal with real pimping. Some cats who talk that pimp stuff really mean getting-all-the-girls. But like my friend told me, “It ain’t pimpin’ unless you gettin’ paid.” That’s the case on Jay-Z’s ‘Big Pimpin’,” where’ his lines really belong in a gold digger record,

Just because you got good head, I’ma break bread
so you can be livin it up? Shit I..
parts with nothin, y’all be frontin
Me give my heart to a woman?
Not for nothin, never happen
I’ll be forever mackin
Heart cold as assassins
I got no passion
I got no patience
And I hate waitin..
Ho get yo’ ass in

That’s not real pimping because his interest in the girl is primarily sexual. He’s not trying to get paid off her, he’s just not trying to giver her any of his money. Contrast that with 50 Cent on P.I.M.P.

Now shorty, she in the club, she dancing for dollars
She got a thing for that Gucci, that Fendi, that Prada
That BCBG, Burberry, Dolce and Gabana
She feed them foolish fantasies, they pay her cause they wanna
I spit a little G man, and my game got her
A hour later, have that ass up in the Ramada
Them trick niggas in her ear saying they think about her
I got the bitch by the bar trying to get a drink up out her
She like my style, she like my smile, she like the way I talk
She from the country, think she like me cause I’m from New York
I ain’t that nigga trying to holla cause I want some head
I’m that nigga trying to holla cause I want some bread
I could care less how she perform when she in the bed
Bitch hit that track, catch a date, and come and pay the kid
Look baby this is simple, you can’t see
You fucking with me, you fucking with a P-I-M-P

Now that’s pimping.

At any rate, hip-hop is loaded with records that describe that gold-digger/ho stereotype. I could probably throw the “chickenhead” in there as a sort of generally dumb road who’s easy to trick into performing sexual favors. Now, I can say from personal experience that gold-digers, hoes, and chickenheads do, in fact, exist. But it’s not a question of whether or not there’s any veracity to what the rappers are saying, it’s a question of the accuracy. Dres of the Black Sheep once wrote, “I talk about a ho/ because a ho I know/ and if you knew the honeys too/ then I guess too you would talk so.” Only thing is, all women aren’t hoes. If you listen to the “definition” records, the rappers even make sure to point out this fact, and delineate the difference between a “bitch” and a “sister” or a “queen” or a “lady.” In little ditty on Jeru tha Damaja’s “Da Bitchez,” Michael Eric Dyson writes, “Of course the main problem is that it’s still a man—relying on the tried and true practice of surveillance and the male privilege of definition—who wants to determine for a woman what kind of female she should be.” For Dyson, there’s some a degree of misogyny, or at least patriarchy, implicit in the attempt by any man to define any woman’s role. Like I said before, I ain’t buyin’ all that. But that’s another discussion for another day.

As far as the definition records go, I’ll just say that I think we’ve reached the saturation point. We already know there are some women who could be described as “bitches” or “hoochies” or “hoes” or “gold-diggers” or “chickenheads.” There’s a juicy discussion to be had on whether those terms should be used at all, but I’m not gonna do that here. (This joint is gonna be long enough as it is.) Just let it suffice to say that those chicks have gotten enough shine. It’s about time for more songs like Black Star’s “Brown Skin Lady,” Tupac’s “Dear Mama,” and Goodie Mob’s “Guess Who.” To be honest, I’ve got ambivalent feelings about definition records, though. As long as somebody is writing from his heart based on his experience, this type of thing will come out. Again, it’s possible that those types of records shouldn’t actually be recorded, or released for public consumption, but there will always be somebody-done-somebody-wrong records, and the definition record is just a subset of that.

Pimp records, on the other hand…that’s dead. I can easily dialogue on the reasons why pimps and pimping have entered the lexicon, and I can say exactly what elements are being spoken to and what’s not. As a matter of fact, I did. And on the real, pimping may never die. That don’t mean we need to keep making records about it. I said before that it’s time for a new paradigm, and that applies to hip-hop too. The days of Goldie, Iceberg Slim, and Willie Dynamite are over. (Although I reserve the right to use the name Willie Dynamite at any point for any reason.) Not saying that pimping still doesn’t go on, but there weren’t that many pimps in the first place, and there are certainly fewer now than there were then. Yet, because people idolize pimps and project some fantastic, lavish lifestyle onto them, we keep hearing these same old stories. Only problem is, if they came out with positive stories, I’m not sure people would buy it.

For part 2…the images.

Need more space, you should move. (c) Robin Harris

A man who found his flat in the city of Metz too small, knocked it into his neighbour’s flat and moved in.

When the man’s neighbour returned from work he found the 28-year-old cooking dinner in his kitchen.

The owner tried to convince the intruder to return to his own apartment, but the man refused, and police were called.

The man insisted to officers the enlarged flat was his. He also told them he was a pharaoh who lived in the labyrinth of a pyramid.

The man has been taken for psychological evaluation, says the gva.be website.

What more can I say? (c) Shawn Carter

Okay. I’m tired of the incessant crapping on the USA Basketball team. I know I had some disparaging remarks before, but enough is enough. Since when is it American to root against Americans in the Olympics? Jason Whitlock has an answer.

Keep this up, y’all gon’ make me tell you why people really hate Allen Iverson. And trust me, I’m the last person you want to get started when it comes to AI.