Black Congressman Bobby Rush, who represents Illinois' first district, led the charge on the hearings.
After the story broke about the hearing, I started seeing comments from young black men on Chuck D's website, allhiphop.com, about their perception of what's going on.
None of them could understand why Congress is holding a hearing on the degradation of women in hip-hop when so many families from Hurricane Katrina are still displaced and when the war in Iraq still rages on, among many other crises happening in the US and abroad.
I, for one, am just as confused as they are. Abortion continues to be debated, even though Roe v. Wade happened over 20 years ago. Rape still isn't considered a hate crime, in most cases, even though using a word like "whore" during a sexual assault would legally make it a hate crimes case, at least in Illinois. Congress hasn't shown much attention, nor much empathy when it comes to women.
I think that hip-hop is being used as a wedge to divide the Black community among gender, sexuality and class lines. Black men, especially those with economic power, have the ability to acknowledge the power that Black women have. I actually think that they have a spiritual, ethical and moral responsibility to do so, especially if the Black community wishes to move forward towards our own determination and especially if we do not wish to emulate how this society treats anyone who doesn't fit into the mainstream paradigm. There's sex and violence everywhere…hip-hop's just really in your face about it.
Byron Hurt directed an excellent documentary entitled, "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" that explores black masculinity in hip-hop. In a crucial scene, Hurt shows a circle (known as a cipher in the hip-hop world) of free-styling MCs. They're all mostly talking about the same thing: guns, sex, drugs, revenge, etc. Hurt asks them why they all rhyme about the same thing.
The answer: this is what record executives want to hear. One man in the film spits a beautiful, positive rhyme just to show the scope of his talent and intellect. If he's showing that and he hasn't "made" it, what does that say about the hip-hop artists who have?
In a nation shaped by oppression, today's hearing is a showdown between our two favorite American pastimes: racism and sexism.
When I talk about my anger towards this cultural conundrum with my friends, I get the same advice: boycott. Don't buy their albums.
But how do I boycott a culture that forms an essential part of my identity and my community?
When hip-hop demands our silence along with our dollars, think of what we're asked to do. We have to weigh what matters more: our gender or our race. We have to split the difference of discrimination between the 1 in 4 chance that we'll be raped because we're women or the 1 in 4 chance that we'll live in poverty because we're Black. Much of mainstream hip-hop tells us that our value lies in our bodies. When that value is exploited in an effort to transcend the poverty that many of us are facing, then we're told we're worthless.
The truth is that Black women (and other women, too) are getting ripped to proverbial shreds in the majority of mainstream hip-hop. It's dangerous because we're not given equal voice to counter-act these attacks AND because any notion of protecting or valuing women is suddenly Republican or CONSERVATIVE.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
Stop the presses. I have never been nor will I ever be a Republican. Or Conservative. Or a Democrat. Or an Independent. The majority of pampered a**holes who make up those parties don't even come close to representing my multi-identified, never categorized, BLAK, PHAT, KWEER GRRRL ASS.
So how is defending my right to resist anything that seeks to oppress me Republican or Conservative, exactly?
I don't want to control what anyone says or the art they create. I fully recognize that the First Amendment is what allows me to speak out against this issue.
I just want solutions to counteract hip-hop's negative effects on Black women, but I can't justify boycotting a culture that's made me proud of everything that I am, both beautifully Black and fiercely female.
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