March 29, 2004
John McWhorter and the Hip-Hop/Gender Meme
It's been amazing to see how far the discussion has spread since I posted Lizelle's question about hip-hop and gender (I'll be posting my thoughts on the subject soon, since I haven't joined in the discussion since I threw it out there). One corner of blogville touched by the meme was this blog that deals with education and learning disabilities, topics close to my heart since I worked for 6 years as a teacher/counselor for "emotionally disturbed" teens.
Liz Ditz drew on a variety of web sources for perspectives on hip-hop, including John McWhorter's essay from last year that will bring a grimace to many faces around here. I got into a groove writing a reply there, so I will paste my ramble here as well:
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I found some of McWhorter's analysis rather dubious, grounded in lots of shaky assumptions and broad generalizations.. that piece was amply dissected at the time it came out, wish I had saved some of those discussions now.
His assessment of Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," for example, is wildly off the mark. That song, with its refrain "don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head" simply expresses frustration at the hard times we live in, and does so quite eloquently, much like Marvin Gaye "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)." McWhorter's attempt to paint it as some sinister threat of violence is downright bizarre.
Suggesting that Sean "Puffy/P-Diddy" Combs portrays himself as a "gangsta" is also laughable to anyone remotely familiar with the public image Combs has cultivated for himself.
McWhorter's notion that hip-hop encourages its listeners to be anti-social and reject authority strikes me as outdated, if anything I can only wish that were still the case. Far from encouraging rebellion, much of the most popular hip-hop nowadays (see P-Diddy) encourages its listeners to do little more than obediently assume their assigned role in this society as passive, uncritical and voracious brand-name consumers.
Also, it should go without saying that mainstream commercial hip-hop is far more diverse in its content than critics like McWhorter would have you believe, and of course the few artists allowed into the mainstream only represent one small corner of hip-hop's vast landscape.
Turning "gangsta tribalism to healthy ends" is in large part how hip-hop culture was born, as founding father Afrika Bambaataa used it to steer NY's gang members towards a peaceful and positive path, using hip-hop to bring them together and provide outlets for their creativity in his organization known as the Zulu Nation (he had been leader of the Black Spades gang).
Posted by jsmooth995 at March 29, 2004 03:40 AM
I posted twice on her site...I feel like I'm making this post about Missy Elliott over and over again. Yell it from the rooftops... HIP-HOP IS NOT ALL NEGATIVE VIEWS OF FEMALES!
Posted by: DavidD at March 29, 2004 08:44 AM
So more hip hop blogs should talk about feminism/woman issues, even though hip hop itself is not very woman issue-friendly?
Doesn't it just result in talking about how and to what extent hip hop is anti-woman, except for a few artists who buck the trend?
And then explanations of the cause. 1) it's the media, 2) it's ignorance and poverty, 3) it's a reflection of society, 4) it's a reflection of the rapper's environment (and then the argument goes into why it's justified because of groupies and over-bearing mothers.
And then doesn't the question then turn to "the media" and then media's effect on young women. And the for extra bonus points, someone points out that it teaches young men how to treat young women?
And then after that, some curmudgeonly type goes on about how women support this stuff by 1) buying it, 2) appearing in videos, 3) doing it to themselves, 4) singing along with it, 5) and dancing to it?
@ best you can hope for a long list of offending people, offending lyrics, and maybe trace some trends here or there. Then of course you can come up with a 10 point checklist to fax BET and MTV. Maybe if someone could tie in the Puerto Rican Day Parade and a Hype Williams Jay Z Video, we can get a news conference.
*goes back to listening to Northern State*
Posted by: k. orr at March 29, 2004 09:43 AM
John McWhorter is unbearable. As per.
Posted by: sally at March 29, 2004 01:03 PM
To me the issue is not whether hip hop is anti-woman so much as, is hip hop different from the rest of our culture? Which is in many ways anti-woman. I would say those things supported by popular culture are those things which support popular culture. Our popular culture seems to be anti-woman in many ways. The hip hop music that gets "out there" is just another part of popular culture. In my opinion there is hip hop music that is affirmative of female positivity, but this hip hop is not bumped by Clear Channel or MTV, or Maxim. The things that capture the imagination are misogynistic lyrics. The majority of the consumers of misogynistic lyrics are white men. Yet the most up-front faces of misogyny are black men. Even when white men want to call a woman a derogatory slur, the may say this by using the word "ho" and even attempting to use an accent they think is indicative of black men. In this way the misgoyny of the dominant culture is couched in terms of sub-altern cultures. In the same way as constant focus on violence against women in afghanistan for example can obscure the facts of violence against women in the USA. What has gotten front page attention in your local paper recently, violence against women in the US or violence against women in afghanistan?
Mos def's album black on both sides did not, for example, capture the imagination of the core hip hop white male audience, for example. Mos def was most popular with progressive people of color and progressive whites. Therefore I think the key to the question is that our overall culture is anti-woman and hip hop music being a part of that culture is similiarly placed. However in order to change the culture, if we "attack" hip hop music and the sub-altern group that identifies and is identified with hip hop music, we don't "attack" the origin and source of the nature of the threat.
Posted by: jb at March 29, 2004 02:09 PM
Really good pt.!
I think it's definitely worth noting the racial implications of the success of such attitudes in this country, and the ways in which language has been used to direct the political action away from the white male patriarchy...
Posted by: DavidD at March 29, 2004 02:16 PM
Not that it lets black dudes off the hook for being sexist of course.
Posted by: DavidD at March 29, 2004 02:17 PM
Damn - Just Blaze:International Beatmaker Extroaordinare and World-Class cultural critic. Like the Buckaroo Banzai of the rap game.
I wrote a big paper in undergrad about how and why images of black men are so attractive to white men. Namecheck Office Space, Whiteboyz, na na na. Like I said in my response to smooth's original post, the depiction of black males is just as much of a problem as the depiction of women, because the two are inseperable. It's like the Yin and the Yang - without the Player, there would be no Ho. Without the Ho, there would be no Player.
Posted by: David at March 29, 2004 03:44 PM
David: I don't think that was Just, although the name mixed me up at first too.. bufo you might want to use a different name when you post, which I hope you will continue to do :) There's already a well known "jb" around lol.
Posted by: Jay Smooth at March 29, 2004 03:49 PM
whoops. Shoulda checked the link.
Posted by: David at March 30, 2004 09:28 AM
thats cool, I'll use this name from now on
Posted by: jacksonbrowne at March 30, 2004 04:40 PM
Greetings from planet of the geezers (that's me).
I have a macro-level response to hip-hop, and a micro-level.
The macro level is that I value living in a robust democracy. The existence of a permanent underclass with values that are anti-democratic (thug life=the rule of men, not of laws; to hell with education, show me the bling; and so on and so on and so on) is a real threat to the foundations of democracy.
The micro level happens with my daughter, who likes some hip-hop artists. Rather than forbid her to buy and listen to it (TURN THAT NOISE DOWN!! didn't work for me so I am sure it wouldn't work any better for my daughter.
So we talk about it. "Would you like to be in a relationship with some one who thought like that?" "Do you think that a relationship that's just about sex is going to work out for you?" That kind of talk.
I want to change the subject a bit, to that of identity politics. You know, where the point is made that "you can't be a real [insert identity here] if you don't [insert activity here]. As in, you can't be a real Catholic if you are divorced. So....what if you are an African American teen, and you don't care for hip-hop? Does that make you inauthentic?
I don't have an answer.
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