FINALLY BLACK WOMEN SPEAK OUT

Now, obviously, I about as white as they come. I admit it. Thing is, I don't tend to pay much attention to my whiteness. I think of myself as a human who happens to be white, as opposed to a white human. That said, I know I am a lousy dancer and couldn't speak ebonics if Pimsleur had a course.

So, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that I don't listen to hip-hop and rap music. (Actually, I did listen to some Ice-T for a while in the early 90s, but then I discovered techno.) While I respect almost all genres and styles of music (I won't lie and say I like them all), I do have trouble with rap and hip-hop on a cultural level. Mainly, it's always been the way women are portrayed in the music videos. I'll be honest again here and admit that I haven't paid too much attention to the lyrics in these songs, but the music videos often reinforce my decision.

Again, I've got nothing against any musical style, but there's something about watching women of any skin-tone being treated the way black women are treated in those videos. Now that I think about it I seem to recall a hip-hop album cover made up of nothing but a close up on a woman's ass and a grinning black guy pointing at it.

Now I'm not saying this is a black problem--not at all. I'm saying this is a problem with the hip-hop/rap music culture. The same way I'm offended by those fucking moronic "Girls Gone Wild" videos (which seem to only feature white women), I'm offended by seeing black women in skimpy outfits wrything around in front of hip-hop/rap music performers.

And before anyone gets any ideas, anyone who visits my site knows I am a hetero, plain and simple. I just have respect for the people I want to put my penis in.

Does that make any sense?

I mean, maybe some guys out there like to play with their food before they eat it, but not me... I'm all about pleasing her...

ANYway, so I was very pleased when I stumbled upon an editorial by Stanley Crouch talking about a campaign being run by Essence.Com. Now, I'm no huge fan of Crouch, but I was happy to see him pointing out this problem and that Essence is talking about it. Here's a quick clip from his editorial:

Essence is taking on the slut 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.

Damn straight they do, here's a clip from their site:

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.

What's even better is that Essence.com has a bulletin board for people to post their thoughts on this issue.

This is just a small corner of American culture but it's managing to effect an awful lot of people. It's also not the only problem that we need to deal with culturally regarding the degradation and objectification of women. The thing is, we need to treat ALL women with respect, period. The way I see it, there are no more blatant examples of women being degraded than in many hip-hop and rap videos (those "Girls Gone Wild" are up there, too).

Look, I'll admit it, I love to look at a beautiful woman as much as the next guy. But to me, they're works of art. Sure, that may be objectification, too--but I'd never force the Mona Lisa to strip to her skivvies and grind her crotch into my thigh.

Damn, there's an image I bet DaVinci never imagined...

I think my point is that you can look and enjoy, just be sure to respect and not abuse.

Read Stanley Crouch's piece for the New York Daily News at NYDailyNews.com.

Check out the Essence piece and make sure to click on the links to the right of the Essence editorial to read even more about this issue.

Finally, you can read what other people are saying about this issue and even post your own thoughts on it.

Of course, you can always post comments, here too. :)

Just be nice to this white man (me), he's only trying to help!