All this week the airwaves have been saturated by the news of Don Imus and the despicable way that he sacrificed the African American women of the Rutgers basketball team for a quick and lurid laugh on his radio show. Certainly his words crossed way past the line of propriety; but that's Imus' shtick, right? As I understand it, his latest tirade is not at all inconsistent with his over-all body of work.

What has been really interesting about this episode has been African America's response to it. While I believe Imus deserves all of the criticism that he has received, to my way of thinking this whole brouhaha seems a bit imbalanced when compared to the over-all landscape of assaults against our community. I certainly agree with everything that led to his ouster, but Imus does have a point when he says that the words that he uttered, however vile, didn't originate with him or his community. That doesn't excuse his offense by any means, but as an African American man who is concerned about the health of his community - I must say that I am perplexed by our lack of similar organized effort against the FAR more egregious assaults on our culture and women that come from corporate America and the entertainment industry. They blatantly use us to peddle offensive music, characters, and images – which is where Imus got the offending words from in the first place. Can we really be surprised when someone with a seemingly chronic lack of social intelligence regurgitates something present in ample supply throughout the entertainment industry? In a broader context, shouldn’t we expect America’s sensitivities to eventually be dulled by the onslaught of these kinds of words especially present in one of the most popular music genres out there?

Record companies, radio stations, and television networks (among others) know who butters their bread in the huge industry that is rap music. They know that suburban white youths are their primary consumers. As such, the music and entertainment industry has created an artificial market to supply what they know these kids want - something that allows them to vicariously experience the "hardness" of black street life from the comfort of white suburbia. That what they hear represents, in large part, a hyper-fictionalization of black life is immaterial. That the images and lyrics cause mortal damage to the African American community is also beside the point. As with most of corporate America, it’s all about the Benjamins. Period.

Some within the African American community attempt to defend the offensiveness of so called ‘gangsta rap’ by suggesting that it is an honest reflection of the hard conditions present in many of our communities. In common parlance, they say that rappers are "keeping it real" when they write about drugs and crime, and when they demean women and each other. To be sure, that sentiment couldn't be farther away from the truth (btw - black folks didn’t just start having hard times when NWA came out!). Mainstream Hip Hop music today is NOT an organic evolution of the genre that was born in the early 1980's. The current creative direction and market presence of gangsta rap would not naturally be anywhere near where it is now without the presence of concerted external, business, influences. In fact, gangsta rap is about as creatively pure as ‘smooth jazz’! It is the product of business people, completely disconnected in every way from the culture, no doubt in a plush high-rise conference room trying to figure out how to make their numbers for the next quarter! They push rap artists to create “harder and rawer” music in an effort to satisfy their core suburban teen consumer’s seemingly insatiable lust to see and hear black folks clown themselves. Corporate America has rap artists focusing almost exclusively on this aspect of the genre to the exclusion of all others and either without regard, or oblivious, to the crushing consequences to their community.

The fact is that while Imus demonstrated a callous disregard to racial and gender sensitivity that has always existed in America, much greater protest should be directed toward those companies who spew this stuff out in almost infinitely greater amounts – poisoning a generation of both African Americans and whites whose perceptions have no choice but to be warped by the stench of this stuff. The arc of African American youths’ development is being retarded by the slick and effusive marketing of material that is self-hating, anti-family, anti-education, anti-women, anti-achievement, violent, criminal, sexist, etc. When young black kids grow up thinking that incarceration is a rite of passage and a self-esteem enhancing activity then something is terribly wrong. When young black girls get the clear message that they are valued more for their physical attributes than their intellectual ones, then a great tragedy occurs. Moreover, when white youths’ perceptions are disproportionately influenced by the overwhelming preponderance of these ridiculous racial and social caricatures, they have no choice but to think about African Americans in ways that negatively reverberate back and forth between the cultures – doing damage to both.

The Imus episode has lead some to look critically at rap music and rappers. While I acknowledge the role that rap artists play as the ‘front men’ for the music, it is overly simplistic to lay too much of the blame for this problem at their feet. We need to be crystal clear that if there were not the overwhelming financial incentives out there for it, gangsta rap would not exist in the almost exclusive fashion that it does today in popular culture. Putting all of the corporate money in this one Hip Hop basket ensures that artists create with a singular focus to produce exactly what record execs think will make them the most money. Unfortunately, lyrics and images of black people being sexist, violent, criminal, and disrespectful with each other is big business in white suburbia. That some African American artists fall prey to the dollars designed to lure them into creating gangsta rap is unfortunate, but not surprising based upon the financial and social incentives for them to do so.

If Imus can generate this much attention, what should be directed toward the major record companies, radio conglomerates, and television networks who should be much bigger targets of our activism? What would happen if a national effort were established to pressure those entities to stop the scourge of this damaging music? All of this week’s protests against Imus will be worthwhile only if it primes the pump for greater and more widespread action against those higher up the corporate food chain responsible for far greater offenses - not just against a team of women but an entire community of people in this country.

Even the movie business is not immune to this phenomenon. Think about the roles that those few African Americans who have been honored with Oscars have played. Was Hattie McDaniel’s role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind a positive one for African America? What about Halle Berry’s role in Monster’s Ball or Denzel Washington portraying a crooked cop in Training Day? Forrest Whitaker had to play a crazed and murderous Idi Amin to be acknowledged by “The Academy”. Hollywood delivers a clear message about the way it wants to see African Americans in film that is little better than what we hear in music.

Enough is enough! We’ve got to someday recognize the game that is being played against us and stop being complicit in it. African America has to stand up and make it clearly known that we will no longer allow ourselves to be used as cheap entertainment for America, and in so doing sacrifice generations of our young people whose self-perceptions and aspirations are being warped by this. We cannot continue to let someone in a plush corner office make purely self-serving business decisions designed to maximize their interests who could care less about the impact of those decisions on our community. And, to be clear, this point is the case whether that executive is white or black!

Imus is small change. He is merely a reflection of the problem and not the problem itself. Attacking a rapper, or even an antediluvian shock jock, is off the target of eliminating the more fundamental problem – which lies within corporate America. African America must generate strategic and focused action toward stopping the far more critical problems arising from the entertainment industry. Once we deliver a clear message about our interest in protecting the characterization of our people and culture, an important precedent will be established that will have long-lasting impact. That’s what we should be striving toward, not merely pushing Don Imus toward perhaps an even bigger contract on unregulated satellite radio.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MBM,

Well stated.

We can step up to protect the honor of young, physically fit, educated black women who are dragged through the mud in the media ala Imus


AND

We can focus on the misogyny of rap music.

We are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time and there are a myriad talented people who can attack each prong at the same time within african america.

One is not more important than the other.

Counteracting negative imagery of black women in

old shock jocks
and
young rapper wannabe thugs

are but two prongs of the same issue

That of valuing black femininity and speaking up when it is attack, no matter the source.

quote:

Originally posted by MBM:
While I believe that Imus deserves all of the criticism that he has received, to my way of thinking this whole response to him seems a bit imbalanced when compared to the over-all landscape of assaults against African America.

Yes...

quote:

I hear that picketing, marches, and boycotts are planned. I agree with these efforts, but Imus does have a point when he says that the words that he uttered, however vile, didn't originate with him or the white community.

The words? No... In this country,the act of demeaning Black women began with his people...

quote:

In a broader context, shouldn’t we expect America’s sensitivities to eventually be dulled by the onslaught of these kind of words especially present in one of the most popular music genres out there?

They are the perpetrators of white supremacy..... ummm.. their senses aren't dulled... their senses are simply being fed... they have always looked down upon us..

quote:

Record companies, radio stations, and television networks (among others) know who butters their bread in the huge industry that is rap music. They know that suburban white youths are their primary consumers. As such, the music and entertainment industry has created an artificial market to supply what they know these kids want - something that allows them to vicariously experience the "hardness" of black street life from the comfort of white suburbia. That what they hear represents, in large part, a hyper-fictionalization of black life is immaterial. That the images and lyrics cause mortal damage to a generation of African American youth is also beside the point. As with most of corporate America, it’s all about the Benjamins. Period.

Well... on a deeper note... American culture presents vacuuous spiritual food.... turning men soft and women hard... families apart.... disconnection to a higher spiritual awareness... moral responsibiity.... the hip hop culture.... while simultaneously and oxymoronically overly masculates men... and hyper feminizing women... falsley displays strength against a world where most feel alienated... the lamentations and exacerbated images of power of hip hop culture give voice to a culture in whom a voracious appetite has been cultivated from a starved people....

quote:

Some within the African American community attempt to explain away the offensiveness of contemporary rap by suggesting that it is an honest reflection of the hard conditions present in many of our communities. In common parlance, they say that rappers are "keeping it real" when they write about drugs and crime, and when they demean women and each other.

It is very real for some aspects of our society.... not all for sure...

quote:

The current magnitude and creative direction of gangsta rap would not naturally be anywhere near where it is now without the presence of external, business, influences.

True...

quote:

In fact, gangsta rap is about as creatively pure as ‘smooth jazz’!

AHEM! I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE Smooth Jazz... Don't be hatin'

(rolls neck ...)

quote:

It is the product of business people, no doubt in a conference room somewhere, trying to figure out how to make a buck! They egg on rap artists to create new material that is increasingly offensive to African America in an effort to satisfy their core suburban teen consumer’s lust for more. The overwhelming financial lure of the record companies and radio stations have skewed the landscape such that that’s ALL most of our young artists are creating now. Corporate America has them focusing almost exclusively on this aspect of the music – to the exclusion of all others and clearly without regard to the consequences to the artists’ community.

Yes... true....

quote:

The fact is that while Imus demonstrated a callous disregard to racial sensitivity that has always existed in America, much greater protest should be directed toward those companies who spew this stuff out– poisoning a generation of both African Americans and whites whose perceptions have no choice but to be warped by the stench of this stuff.

As well as much more effort to market and support the type of music we love to hear... Are grass roots efforts powerful enough?

Didn't the "indie" film movement accomplish something similar in the movie industry?

quote:

The arc of African American youths’ achievement is being muted by the slick and effusive marketing of “aspirational” images that are anti-family, anti-education, anti-women, anti-achievement, violent, criminal, sexist, etc. When young black kids grow up thinking that incarceration is a self-esteem enhancing activity, something is terribly wrong. When young black girls get the clear message that they are valued more for their physical attributes than their intellectual ones, then a great tragedy occurs. Moreover, when white youths’ perceptions are disproportionately influenced by the overwhelming mass of these ridiculous caricatures, they have no choice but to think about us in ways that negatively reverberate back and forth between the cultures - harming both.

Well stated brother.. well stated...

quote:

While I acknowledge the role that rappers play as the mouthpieces of this phenomenon, it is overly simplistic to lay too much of the blame for this problem at their feet.

You lost me here... Just as much effort needs to be directed here...

quote:

That some African American artists fall prey to the dollars designed to lure them to participate in creating gangsta rap is unfortunate, but as with all exploitation, to folks struggling to “put food on table” – all sorts of sacrifices to personal and community integrity can occur.

Fall prey? I disagree... I find it hard to believe that up and coming rappers are naively shocked to find themselves promoting this crap... perhaps in the beginning... but nowadays?



Salaam....

I agree wholeheartly. Imus is gone. The problems remainn.

I think Earl Ofari Hutchinson would agree.

quote:

Originally posted by Khalliqa:

Fall prey? I disagree... I find it hard to believe that up and coming rappers are naively shocked to find themselves promoting this crap... perhaps in the beginning... but nowadays?

My point is that in the same way that I don't blame the corner drug dealer for the drug problem or the prostitute for prostitution or even the worker in China or Bangladesh for the sweatshop problem - these rappers are behaving because they are being exploited by corporate America. That there are extraordinary carrots placed before them and that they are sometimes compensated well has no bearing on the issue; A) How else is corporate America going to get black people to clown themselves without paying them to do so? B) Whatever these rappers earn pales in comparison to what those business interests producing and marketing the music make. The scale may be different with the two-bit drug dealer or the person in the sweatshop, but the phenomenon of exploitation is the same.

Sure, rappers are complicit in this problem and they deserve some of the blame. I just believe that they are being exploited for their talent and do not deserve the lion's share of the attention. In the same way that the broader problem is not addressed by getting rid of Imus, the same with a rapper here and there. The problem must be addressed at a much higher and systematic level IMO.

I THINK WHAT HAPPEND TO IMUS SENDS A MESSAGE TO THE WORLD! BLACK MEN WILL STAND UP FOR THEIR WOMEN. TO COMPARE GANSTA RAP TO IMUS IS REDICULUS. ACTUALLY MOST OF THE PEOPLE BUYING THE MUSIC IS WHITE. THE ONLY WAY TO GET THEM TO STOP SELLING IT IS TO HIT THE EXECUTIVES. HOW WILL YOU DO THAT WHEN WHITE PEOPLE BUY THE MUSIC.I SIMPLY DONT SUPPPORT THE GARBAGE PERIOD. THANK GOD FOR AL SHARPTON!

Yes, Imus is the problem...


He is symbolic of the historic attitude of white males toward black Womanhood.


White males must either own or dominate or profit from black female Womanhood (record company execs or slaveowners)

or

hold it in contempt.


Why intelligent brothas cannot see this, and become enraged about this, is perplexing to me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: negrospiritual,

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak

Audre Lord

quote:

Originally posted by negrospiritual:
Yes, Imus is the problem...


He is symbolic of the historic attitude of white males toward black female sexuality.


White males must either own or dominate or profit from black female sexuality (record company execs or slaveowners)

or

hold it in contempt.


Why intelligent brothas cannot see this, and become enraged about this, is perplexing to me.

Perhaps if you read the commentary you'd see another perspective. Imus was fired. So what? Have the institutional biases that created Don Imus also been eliminated? Of course not.

If you're seriously interested in improving the treatment of black women in the media then you've got to understand that Don Imus is a mere reflection of the problem. Let's now go after solving the problem!

Dear brotha MBM

I'm not sure why you would assume I haven't read the commentary?

quote:

Originally posted by negrospiritual:

Dear brotha MBM

I'm not sure why you would assume I haven't read the commentary?

Because you referenced being perplexed at my supposed inability to see the damage that Imus did. I know you want the problem fixed, and that's what I think I addressed by looking at what empowered Imus to say what he did - and not just focusing on him. Silencing a rapper or shock jock here or there won't solve the problem. Attacking the issue at a corporate and institutional level is what can yield widespread and lasting progress. Moreover - this approach can actually encourage personal perceptions to be more 'evolved' with respect to women. In the same way that the financial incentives of the music business contributed to the place many of our young males are at now with respect to their mindsets and behavior, a wholesale revision of the way African Americans and women are characterized in the media/entertainment can actually lead us all to a more appropriate place in terms of how we interact with each other.

IMHO.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MBM,

Has anyone heard what disciplinary measures where taken against Don Imus' producer Bernard McGurk? After all, before Imus uttered his inexcusable remark, McGurk described the members of the Rutgers team as "Some hardcore hos." Is his role going to be forgotten in much the same way as Justin Timberlake in the Super Bowl fiasco with Janet Jackson, which is almost always referred to as the "Janet Jackson breast-baring incident", as if Timberlake wasn't even in the stadium? I'm still upset at Timberlake for leaving Janet to twist in the wind like that, but that's another issue.

FYI - I just edited the piece to tighten it up and reflect additional perspective gleaned since his ouster.

Imus may not be the problem but he did support the negative stereotypes of our women. I think that getting him fired is a step to ending negative stereotypes of African Americans in the media. It's going to be a long process but we have to start from home. Our own people support the negative stereotypes more than anyone else. Rappers glamorize thug life and degrade women in many of their songs. I have nothing against rap but it's not like it used to be. You rarely hear about real issues anymore. Im not saying they should only talk about the struggle but they are a big influence in a lot of our youths lives they should be rapping about something that will encourage our children and teenagers to be successful in other ways besides drug dealing or women using their bodies to get ahead in life.

Why do black people have the burden of having to explain why other black people do fucked up shit? As if no other group of people on earth does fucked up shit?

So no Black person can be wronged without the wrongs of other Black people being compared to it?


Next time a white person says that we should fix "our problems" before we demand respect ask them why white people invade third world countries, kill, rape, pillage, and convert non-white people to Christianity against their will. Until a white person gives me a compelling answer and solution to that problem they need to shut the fuck up about me doing something about big bad scary rappers. If a White person is discriminated against by a Black person, why don't we bring up how bad White people treat each other?

quote:

Originally posted by Empty Purnata:

Why do black people have the burden of having to explain why other black people do fucked up shit? As if no other group of people on earth does fucked up shit?

Because the overwhelming preponderance of information about black people in the American media paints an inaccurate picture of us. Either we can choose to articulate why those characterizations are wrong - or we can passively fall prey to them.

I think it is important for the world to know why Hip Hop culture is where it is today. I think it is important to both black folks and white to know that 'thug life' is less an honest reflection of African America and more a plastic incarnation of white record companies. As I wrote awhile ago, gangsta is black folks in 'black face' - acting out the warped stereotypes that white folks have of us.

Moreover, articulating this phenomenon has the double benefits of helping black folks understand that we aren't as dysfunctional as we are portrayed (for those who need that message), while also can focusing us on the solutions to ending this problem by dissecting what's really behind it.

The other point of this piece was to call out all of those black folks who are now starting to point to rappers as the next step after Imus. Rappers are equivalent to Imus. They are pawns of the 'system'. Let's leave them alone and go after those writing the checks! That's how we make real progress on changing how black folks are characterized in America!!!

quote:

Next time a white person says that we should fix "our problems" before we demand respect ask them why white people invade third world countries, kill, rape, pillage, and convert non-white people to Christianity against their will.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MBM,

quote:

Originally posted by MBM:

quote:

Originally posted by Empty Purnata:

Why do black people have the burden of having to explain why other black people do fucked up shit? As if no other group of people on earth does fucked up shit?

Because the overwhelming preponderance of information about black people in the American media paints an inaccurate picture of us. Either we can choose to articulate why those characterizations are wrong - or we can passively fall prey to them.

I think it is important for the world to know why Hip Hop culture is where it is today. I think it is important to both black folks and white to know that 'thug life' is less an honest reflection of African America and more a plastic incarnation of white record companies. As I wrote awhile ago, gangsta is black folks in 'black face' - acting out the warped stereotypes that white folks have of us.

Moreover, articulating this phenomenon has the double benefits of helping black folks understand that we aren't as dysfunctional as we are portrayed (for those who need that message), while also can focusing us on the solutions to ending this problem by dissecting what's really behind it.

The other point of this piece was to call out all of those black folks who are now starting to point to rappers as the next step after Imus. Rappers are equivalent to Imus. They are pawns of the 'system'. Let's leave them alone and go after those writing the checks! That's how we make real progress on changing how black folks are characterized in America!!!

quote:

Next time a white person says that we should fix "our problems" before we demand respect ask them why white people invade third world countries, kill, rape, pillage, and convert non-white people to Christianity against their will.