March 18, 2004
Gay Hip-Hop: Can the Subaltern Spit?
Terry Sawyer with a must-read on hip-hop and homosexuality:
Queering the Mic
"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House"
– Audre Lorde
"My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge
That'll stab you in the head
Whether you're a fag or lez"
– Eminem
The Lorde quote has always haunted me for both the way it sears open an entire realm of truth to power and the ways in which it's clearly too pat; particularly when the master's tools are the only things lying around. In hip-hop, this quote seems to run on a loop in my head as I watch video after video of consumer gluttony gone bling with women just one more thing to accumulate.
Don't get me wrong, I love hip-hop. For someone enamored with language the way I am, there's nothing like the pleasure of listening to a genre where words are minted by the minute and meaning gets telegraphed to your booty through lexical stunts of brilliant rhythm. But I got issues. Even the margins of hip-hop are plagued with Promise Keeper views of women and tedious dependence on the crutch of homophobia. (e.g., Not two minutes into the latest MC Jean Grae, we're treated to diss all of the "faggots" who don't tremble in her path.) It's worse listening to the mangling explanations which come forth, that usually end by illuminating the fact that they're not just really calling someone a homosexual, but doing so with a back handed gesture of sexism. I guess this means that the categories of gay and lesbian has become a toxic waste dump for leftover bigotries that can no longer be expressed in polite company.
The energies of prejudice can be impacted into gays because there are still several socially acceptable rationalizations for the hatred. Still debating our existential validity, just recently given legal permission (at least partially) to be who we are, queer folk still operate as frighteners in public debates where religious psychotics still reign over a major political party and forge their selves and sense of mission from the number of freedom pyres under their belts.
Talking to gay artists about their sexuality and art can be a tricky task. Every time I do it, I'm confronted with the low-grade hostility that emanates from a human who feels caged and constrained by a label. Nobody wants to drag around such an oppression nametag as a point of entry for recognition. It's the same burden African-American artists struggled with and, in many cases, have largely overcome through ubiquity. Saying "gay" rapper, comes with an undercurrent of stooping as if to say "Oh, look dear" or "My, my, what a surprise."
Having wound my way through the house of a thousand caveats, I still set out to find out whether or not Lorde's axiom holds true for queers, and whether or not GLBT people could make countercurrent inroads in a genre deeply invested in keeping them as a place holder on the bottom of the totem – just below "yo mamma" slams...
Posted by jsmooth995 at March 18, 2004 05:35 PM
i agree with what you're saying jay. but why is the struggle for gay rights always compared to that of african americans. (almost) oranges and apples. a lifestyle vs skin color. gay people aren't being enslaved, lynched, and denied civil rights. gay people can hide; african americans could not.
i don't agree with men being homosexual men but bisexual women are ok in my book. >:)
Posted by: dialect at March 19, 2004 04:03 AM
If I hear that "I don't like gay men but lesbians/bi women are fine with me (wink, wink)" from one more straght man, someone's getting slapped. I'm serious.
Posted by: chr0me_kitten at March 19, 2004 07:27 AM
chr0me_kitten: you slap one cheek, i got the other.
Posted by: sally at March 19, 2004 08:58 AM
gay people aren't being enslaved, lynched, and denied civil rights.
how exactly are you managing not to hear about gays being denied civil rights and being lynched....matthew shepard's ghost hasn't come by to tell you about marraige and immigration law?
don't agree with men being homosexual men but bisexual women are ok in my book. >:)
i believe you're looking for the "discuss sexism" thread.
Posted by: Someone at March 19, 2004 10:48 AM
Marriage and immigration aside, gay people can still be fired, evicted, or kicked out of the military just for being gay. If that's not a civil rights problem, what is?
As for the "they can hide" argument, if someone came out with a pill that would turn black people white, would anyone seriously argue that discrimination against black people is OK because they could choose to be white if they wanted? (Does anyone think black people *should* choose to be white if they could, and if not, why should it be any different for gay people?)
Posted by: Pookel at March 19, 2004 07:32 PM
of course gays are discriminated against, attacked, and denied a few civil rights. so are poor people and disabled people. why aren't you comparing their civil rights struggle to that of gays? because it doesn't have the same impact. the poor and disabled struggles doesn't conjure up images of churches being bombed, students being attacked by police dogs, and people hanging from trees. comparing themselves to african americans makes gays feel more oppressed. there aren't national and state laws directly discriminating against all gay people with the exception of marriage and "coming out" in the military. for many years there were laws denying african americans civil rights and most courts upheld them with the support of most white americans. the time we live in now gays can sue for being discriminated against and and often win. that wasn't the norm for african americans many years ago. african americans put themselves in harms way to achieve equality. most gay people can't do that even if they want to because there is no imminent danger.
as for chr0me_kitten and sally slapping my cheeks; sounds like a threesome to me. after they slap my face cheeks i'll slap their @ss cheeks and watch them kiss. >:) LOL
Posted by: dialect at March 20, 2004 05:06 AM
comparing themselves to african americans makes gays feel more oppressed.
to dialect: another reason why your argument is flawed is because it ignores the fact that there are black people who are gay. So in your infinite wisdom, should WE be allowed to compare being black to being gay? Please expound.
Posted by: Damali at March 20, 2004 10:23 AM
because it doesn't have the same impact.
no, because the movements for poverty rights or disability rights don't have the same entrenched legitimacy, and because in the former case there is the spectre of socialism.
there aren't national and state laws directly discriminating against all gay people with the exception of marriage and "coming out" in the military.
foolio, you haven't the faintest notion of what you're talking about. first you said there were no civil rights denied, now you've hopped on to marraige and the military. next you'll discover that there was a sodomy conviction upheld by the supreme court.
and by the way, if you want to babble on about how gays don't suffer very badly, perhaps you should curtail yourself from inflicting one of the most notorious kinds of public expressions of prejudice. not to mention ixnay that smiley.
Posted by: Someone at March 20, 2004 11:01 AM
next you'll discover that there was a sodomy conviction upheld by the supreme court.
I meant, overturned, viz Lawrence v. Texas, until which there were sodomy convictions in several states.
Posted by: Someone at March 20, 2004 11:07 AM
there aren't national and state laws directly discriminating against all gay people with the exception of marriage and "coming out" in the military.
What part of "you can be fired or evicted for being gay" did you not understand?
Posted by: Pookel at March 20, 2004 01:49 PM
hey dialect: that's a totally original joke. where do you get your material?? hold on, im still chuckling at your ingenuity.
Posted by: sally at March 20, 2004 06:15 PM
"Mister interloper Obstructer/
Mister in your Orifice/
Mister infinite Omnipotent/
I'm all of this/
Mr. Mister Input / Output/
Immune to your obvious illuminated Eye/
With my ebon Obelisk/
Captain kick you in your Asterix/
Procrastinate to perfection to perplex/
Persons in audible range with strange texts/
All is permissible is the mission statement/
As long as your member is covered in rubber latex/
Population control is why my children must learn about gay sex/
Why we get the coldest shortest month of the year and they get/
To parade half naked on a hot summers day and take X/
Not that there's anything wrong with that flex/
To each his own... Let's take a second to check/
The example that the media and the powers that be set/
Before you go busting my balls
For being politically incorrect."
These lyrics from a track entitled Mr Mister by the Corps leaded to a very strange review in Pound magazine:
"Note to rappers: It works a lot better when you
stick to dissin women and guys the same race as you, donąt fuck with Gays, they got money. the verse can simply be categorized as blatant hate towards a group of people"
comments?
Posted by: Kelron Magnanimous at March 22, 2004 03:26 AM
I said this on one blog and I'll say it here: I try not to be offended by ignorance these days, it's like screaming at a deaf person.
I'll also say this (totally going against my semi-eloquent possibly elitist statement above), if gays stopped supporting those things which degraded and disrespected them, how much money would these rappers truly make? Furthermore, a lot of the fashions and brands many rappers rock and call out came from the mind of a gay man. In fact, a lot of things did... Makes one wonder.
50 Cent: "I don't like fags but I want them to buy my music and I'll also go out and get manicures and pedicures so me and my crew will look fabulous. And oh yeah, girl-on-girl action is fully acceptable in my book."
That's what his reasoning (and many others) amounts to. Cats like him are "more of a bitch than a bitch."
Funny how my gay ass knew that line.
Posted by: nOva at March 23, 2004 12:17 AM
n0va: with all due respect-- i don't think we queers represent a huge chunk of 50's demographic. therefore a rainbow boycott of his music probably wouldn't hurt his reputation or his sales. just a thought.
Posted by: sally at March 23, 2004 09:10 AM
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