Pam’s got a great post up about leaders in the black community examining the nature and effect of misogyny, avarice, and violence in hip-hop music on the African-American population, particularly children. Go take a look.
Personally, I think it’s odd that we have a generation of black kids who are uncool because their display of intelligence means they are “acting white” and at the same time have a generation of white kids attempting to be cool by “acting black”. It’s especially funny when you consider that while we all have a concept of what “acting white / black” is, that concept is really the construct of stand-up comedy routines, movies, TV, and music, with very little basis in reality. For example, if you were to look at a picture of me and my best friend / cousin Kenny, could you immediately pick out which one of us is the huge NASCAR and Dave Matthews fan and which one is the huge NBA and Public Enemy fan?
I also don’t think mysogynistic whore-mongering, gluttonous bling-lust, and masochistic calls to violence are the sole purview of hip-hop. I recall more than a few hair-metal videos of my youth spreading the gospel of scantily-clad bosomy tarts doing the splits on the hoods of expensive cars. Yes, hip-hop does seem to have more than its share, but I think it’s more of a man/woman issue than a black/white issue. Popular music is about rebellion, hip-hop is the most popular music, and maybe music consumers are expressing some rebellion against straight-laced, uptight, poitically-correct, sexually repressed gender roles. (And maybe I’m a middle-aged white dude raised in a 94% white state and didn’t meet a black person until seventh grade who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Wouldn’t be the first time.)
The civil libertarian in me is more than a bit concerned about ideas of boycotting or censoring the music or videos of any artist. I don’t know what to do about the “acting white” phenomenon in particular or these issues of mysogynistic hip-hop in general, but when Spike Lee says,
These artists talk about ‘ho this, bitch this, skank this’ and all the other stuff. They’re talking about all our mothers, all our sisters. They’re talking about their own mothers, grandmothers.
…it makes me wonder why Spike thinks my mom and grandma are ho’s? When I hear that music, I think they are singing about a particular woman or women who they feel are bitches, skanks, or ho’s, not my mom and grandma. Like Chris Rock once said, (paraphrased from memory) “a woman will dance to the nastiest song about women, and when you ask her about it, she’ll say, ‘oh, he’s not singing about me!'”
What do we do about it? I don’t know, maybe convince ultra-hot black female models to stop taking money to appear half-naked, shaking their tits and ass in hip-hop videos. It seems a bit, umm, skanky and ho-like to me. Or maybe we overthrow the American Taliban and begin raising our kids in an atmosphere of healthy sexuality. Or maybe we get Congress to supoena Ken Jennings to find out whether he abused any performance-enhancing stimulants while winning $2 million on Jeopardy! — that’ll show the kids that intelligence is of as much importance as professional sports.
Don’t worry. The bling-worshipping pimp/ho/skank nexus will fade away, just as Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” gave way to Nirvana’s “Teen Spirit”, or as Sugarhill Gang and Fat Boys gave way to Public Enemy and KRS-One. It’s a cycle — music is shallow, sexist, and materialistic for a while, then it’s rebellious, introspective, and artistic for a while.
