Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Hip hop's homophobia and black gay America's silence
By Jasmyne A. Cannick
Printed 4/20/2006 in issue 1416Last month, rapper Busta Rhymes let the world know how he feels about gays. While in Miami, Busta was at a diner with his bodyguards when a fan came up to him from behind and tapped him on the shoulder to congratulate him for his recent "comeback." According to the New York Post, the diner was located next door to the popular gay club Twist, and the restaurant was "packed with transvestites, gay men and drag queens, which obviously made Busta a little edgy."
The paper went on to report that, "Before the guy could even mutter a word, Busta turned around and repeatedly screamed, 'Why the f--k you touchin' me, man? Get the f--k away from me.'" The Post also went on to say that Busta's bodyguards jumped into the situation by shoving the man away. Afterwards, Busta reportedly whispered to his bodyguards, 'I hate f--king faggots, man.'"
Busta's actions are reprehensible. No matter what his personal feelings about gay men are, as a celebrity you know that when you are in public fans of all kinds are likely going to approach you. But what I take particular issue with in Busta's altercation is that unless the fan said, "Hi I'm gay and I want to congratulate you on your comeback," how in the hell would Busta know if he was gay? Was Busta partaking in gay profiling?
This latest incident comes directly on the heels of the release of Busta's "Touch It" remix which continues to be in heavy rotation on urban radio stations across the country. Earlier this month, "Touch It," which is out on the Aftermath/Interscope label, was number 5 on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks Chart. Featuring Lloyd Banks, DMX, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliot, Papoose, and Rah Digga, the song also features a line where rapper DMX says, "Fuck you faggot, I shot at you!"
Now let's get real about this.
When radio shock jock David Lenihan used the word "coon," a racial slur, instead of "coup" in a story about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her attributes for the post of NFL commissioner, the St. Louis shock jock was immediately fired.
Likewise, if a song done by a white artist featured lyrics calling for the shooting of niggers, it would have been headline news in a matter or minutes. Civil rights groups all over the country would have issued statements and press releases calling for the removal of the song from the rotation at radio stations and believe me, no matter how popular the song might have been, radio stations would have stopped playing it immediately, because no one wants to be a racist.
Because Busta and DMX are popular black rappers talking about gays, black America finds nothing wrong with that. After all, blacks overwhelmingly disapprove of gays anyway, right?
Wrong.
The exploitation of women and gays in today's hip hop culture has become increasingly accepted by our own silence.
Hip hop artists like Busta Rhymes and DMX vilify gays in their music while at the same time surrounding themselves with scantily clad women in their videos.
While it is true that in recent years a new level of consciousness around the use of women as props in videos and the language used to describe them has become a major focus for many black civil rights organizations and women's rights groups, no one comes to the defense of gays who are equally targeted by many hip hop artists, not even gays themselves.
Over the past decade the familiar dance music known as "house music" has all but been replaced by hip hop in gay nightclubs around the county. Many songs that are both misogynistic and homophobic are blasted from speakers in clubs that are frequented by same gender loving people. Young black gay men and lesbian women rush out to buy the latest albums from rappers who publicly degrade their lives.
After an extensive Internet search on gay groups protesting rap, I found that even the usual suspects have been quiet on the Busta Rhymes' incident and the DMX lyrics. This is probably just as well since these groups tend to carry no weight in black America and would probably further compound the issue by having white gays protest black rappers. No, this issue needs to be dealt with by blacks.
With our silence, we are condoning the actions of artists like Busta Rhymes and the lyrics of artists like DMX. We cannot protest white shock jocks on their use of racially insensitive language and then say nothing about the sexually offensive language used by black rappers. One type of oppression isn't worse than another. Black America has an ethical and social responsibility to call out its own.
Busta Rhymes and DMX are just the latest in a string of rappers and reggae artists, both black and white, that continue to perpetuate violence against gay men in their music. Each time the offense gets worse and is still never met with the type of outrage from blacks that would merit a change in a culture we helped to create.
Author and poet Audre Lorde once said, "There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."
Black gays play the most important role in their own liberation. We need to call out these hip hop artists and challenge them on their use of homophobic language. No one else is going to do it for us, so it's got to start with us.
Jasmyne Cannick is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and a board member of the National Black Justice Coalition. She can be reached via her website at http://www.jasmynecannick.com.
Return to article
related:
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Abercrombie 'Push Up' Bikini - Essence.com
Abercrombie 'Push Up' Bikini - Essence.com (for children)
of course this is a company that utilizes sweatshop labor to manufacture fucked up and over priced-clothing so this is not surprising whatsoever. let's not forget a&f are also responsible for these egregious crimes as well: http://echeng.com/output/archives/00000069.shtml
of course this is a company that utilizes sweatshop labor to manufacture fucked up and over priced-clothing so this is not surprising whatsoever. let's not forget a&f are also responsible for these egregious crimes as well: http://echeng.com/output/archi
Monday, March 28, 2011
Yuri Kochiyama: On Knowing Malcolm X [Video]
Yuri Kochiyama: On Knowing Malcolm X
Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 16, 2008.
Our guest will be the legendary human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, who lived in Harlem for 40 years and worked with Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el Shabazz). Although no official holiday honors Malcolm's birthday, May 19 has become a traditional day of celebration in the Black and progressive communities. Yuri shares his birthday and will reach 87 this May 19 -- also the birthday of Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh). A tireless freedom fighter, political prisoner advocate, and author of Passing It On -- A Memoir, Yuri has also had a biography written about her life by Diane C. Fujino titled: Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama-from the chapter 5: Meeting Malcolm X
from the chapter 5: Meeting Malcolm X
________________
Yuri gained a significant lesson from Malcolm, one that she recites repeatedly:
Yuri took this lesson to heart, studying history at alternative liberation schools and reading whatever she could get her hands on—mainstream newspapers, books, Movement publications. In time, through study and practice, Yuri came to agree with the need for self-determination, self-defense, armed struggle, socialism, and an autonomous Black nation. While she may still cringe when someone makes a harsh remark, a person's approach or style is secondary to his or her overall political practice and ideology. The ultimate trajectory of Malcolm's ideology will never be known. His life and rapidly evolving politics were cut short by the assassins' bullets. Having been in the audience to hear Malcolm speak at the Audubon Ballroom, Yuri is often asked to recount the events of that day:
In the midst of frenzy and hysteria, with bullets flying and people diving for cover, Yuri was one of the few who put Malcolm's safety above her own. She ran onstage to see if she could help: "It was then that a young brother . . . ran past where I was sitting. He was heading for the stage, so I followed him and went right to Malcolm. He was having difficulty breathing, so I put his head on my lap. Others came and opened his shirt. He was shot many times in the chest. And by his jawbone and his finger. I hoped he would say something, but he never said a word." Life magazine captured Yuri's action in a photograph showing an Asian woman wearing cat's-eye glasses cradling Malcolm's head. Most Nisei women would not have considered running onstage to help the dying Black leader. They would have been self-conscious about drawing attention to themselves or presuming their self-importance. Likewise, they would have felt uncomfortable delivering public speeches, writing articles for newspapers, and writing letters to strangers. As we have seen, however, even as a youth Yuri exhibited a certain boldness, asking to write for the community newspaper, becoming the first female student body officer at her high school, and initiating a letter-writing campaign to Nisei soldiers. Her actions become more remarkable when we consider the racial and gender constraints prevalent in 1930s America. Perhaps Yuri's parents' liberal child-rearing practices or their economic status offset some of the limitations imposed on Nisei women of that time. Perhaps as one of the few Asians in a predominantly White neighborhood, Yuri had the self-confidence that she could accomplish the same things as her White peers. While these might be contributing factors, they fail to fully explain the fearlessness Yuri has displayed throughout her life. Wherever her audacity comes from, it has propelled Yuri to act according to her moral convictions. It was from this motivation that she ran onstage to assist the fallen Malcolm. And it was from this motivation that, after Malcolm's assassination, she wrote a letter to the editor of the Japanese American weekly, the New York Nichibei, voicing her support for Malcolm X, a highly controversial figure of that time. In the short sixteen months between their meeting and his death, Malcolm X provided the greatest influence on Yuri's political life. After his death, she fostered a relationship with Malcolm's family, particularly his oldest daughter, Attallah, who to this day refers to Yuri as an aunt, through regular letters, occasional visits at the Kochi-yamas' home, and sporadic phone calls, including when Attallah was in New York in 1997 to attend her mother's funeral. Wherever Yuri goes, in speeches and informal conversations, she eagerly highlights Malcolm's international significance, in contrast to mainstream America's harsh condemnation: "At least three countries have his picture on their postage stamp. . . . Books about his life have been written or translated into Italian, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, and probably a few others. . . . In the late 1960s, Palestinian activists who came to the U.S. told us that names like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), and the Black Panthers were used as code names among their guerrilla fighters. In the same period, Vietnamese antiwar spokespersons in the U.S. revealed to us that Malcolm X's name was known in radical circles in their own country." A vigilant observer of Asian-African interactions, Yuri noted that Malcolm's influence also reached Japan: "In the audience at the Audubon Ballroom the day Malcolm was assassinated sat a Japanese socialist journalist who used the pen name Ei Nagata. He was probably the first Japanese writer to bring the story and significance of Malcolm X's life to Japan. It was Ei Nagata who wrote the first book on Malcolm in Japan." Perhaps because of Yuri's dedication to Malcolm's vision, her stead-fast writing, or her attention to human relations, she is regarded as a close associate of his, much closer than their few direct interactions would suggest. This is not simply a case of mythologizing their relationship, as has certainly been done by Yuri's admirers today. But Malcolm's most trusted comrades also consider Yuri to be a close colleague. When Herman Ferguson, an OAAU leader, started the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee in the early 1990s, he listed Yuri Kochiyama on the letterhead as an OAAU founding member. Certainly, he would have known that Yuri was merely a beginning student of radical politics at the time. It appears that the consistency of her political work and her personal connectedness, through thick and thin, have earned her a reputation as a close associate of Malcolm's. The year Malcolm died, Yuri started a second family newsletter, the North Star, its title drawn from W. E. B. Du Bois's newspaper, but so named as a tribute to Yuri's most significant political mentor. In echoing her praise to Malcolm at the Brooklyn courthouse, Yuri extolled him as a guiding light who gives "direction to his people," as indicated in the language, if a bit flowery, of this North Star front-page article: "His life is a simile that can only be correlated with the most brilliant of all the stars in the Heavens, the North Star, for the North Star is the one star that does not change position or lose its bright intensity. It is the star that set the course for mariners; that gave direction, from time immemorial, to slaves escaping bondage; and communicated men's hope by allusion. It is, thus, obvious and apropos that we dedicate this first issue of the North Star to him whom we feel, most aptly personifies the significance of this title. Triumphantly illuminating today's stark atmosphere, giving light and direction, invincible and inextinguishable, Malcolm is that North Star shining." |
Eating Animals (Audiobook) By Jonathan Safran Foer
Eating Animals (Audiobook) By Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Recor ded Books 2009 | 10 hours and 13 mins | ISBN: 1440762864 | MP3 | 553 MB
Like many others, Jonathan Safran Foer spent his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood"”facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child"™s behalf"”his casual questioning took on an urgency. This quest ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
This book is what he found. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir, and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many stories we use to justify our eating habits"”folklore and pop culture, family traditions and national myth, apparent facts and inherent fictions"”and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting.
Marked by Foer"™s moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the humor and style that made his previous books, Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Foer"™s latest tour de force informs and delights, challenging us to explore what is too often conveniently brushed aside. A celebration and a reckoning, Eating Animals is a story about the stories we"™ve told"”and the stories we now need to tell.
pt. 1
pt. 2
pt. 3
pt. 4
pt. 5
pt. 6
pt. 7
pt. 8
p.t 9
"Malcolm X : Prince of Islam" - full documentary
i first saw this film at an amazing documentary film festival in barcelona a couple of years ago and now i'm reading "the revolutionary life of yuri kochiyama: heartbeat of struggle" and the chapter "meeting malcolm x" kept bringing this film to mind. watching this film and reading about this incredible man brings me to tears...
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
And You Even Licked My Balls: A Black Feminist Note on Nate Dogg
So I have been thinking of Nate Dogg in general but rap music in particular and the difference between how I as a Black woman and how White men relate to rap music.
While I understand that sexism and patriarchy is systemic, that we LEARN and are taught how to be “men” and “women,” how to be racist, how to be sexist as well as how to Love, how to forgive.
What I am getting at is, to be crude, we don’t pop out of our mommas knowing how to be men and women, we are taught from infancy on through blue and pink clothing, girls being told to sit a certain way that is lady like, boys being told crying is weak, and not manly etc.
I also know that there are several structural things impacting the lives of Black men and women such as archaic drug laws, mandatory minimums, three strikes, the underdevelopment of public education, gentrification, police who shot and kill Black people with impunity, and the lack of good grocery stores in working class and low income neighborhoods. All this shit matters.
Culture matters as well. Culture meaning, music, books, websites and films.
Culture is hegemony’s goon.
Which brings me to Nate Dogg. The recent coverage of his death clarified for me why some issues that I have thought of about rap music but didn’t have the language to articulate.
I am a little troubled over how White mens investment in Black mens misogyny in rap music isn’t interrogated. And how that shit impacts me and the women who look like me.
Society is organized by and for men.
And our lives in the US are hyper segregated racially.
By and large Black people don’t live around White folks, so most White men can experience the pleasure of singing “and you even licked my balls” in the comfort of their cars, homes and apartments, whereas a young Black man said to me nearly two years ago on 125th street that he wanted to “stick his dick in my butt.”
On the street, in broad daylight.
That shit was so absurd I thought HE was singing a rap song initially. No, he was talkingto me.
Consequently, largely, White men are not subjected to the kinds of violence and sexism that is sung about in the songs that Nate sang the hook on. As a Black woman, I am.
As a woman, as a Black women who Walks like she has a right to be in the street, this means my ass is toast.
For example, there is an officer in my neighborhood that harasses me so fucking much that I am now on a first name basis, Peace to Officer Anderson. Typically he stops me because there is apparently a 11pm curfew in DC for children under 18 on week nights. He normally asks me from his car, “Hey, how old are you.” Dead ass, the second time he did it, I responded saying I was grown. o.O
After the third time, I was like “Mr. Officer whats your name because this is either the second or third time you have asked me that, and seeing as we are going to keep running into each other, I thought we could just on speaking terms.” He smiled. Doesn’t MPD carry 9mm’s too? Sassing officers of the state who carry legal weapons? Ummhmm. And, he told me his name.
My clarity on this issue came about after I read a excerpt of a post on NPR about Nate Dogg by Jozen Cummings. He writes,
“There’s also “Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Get None),” a song that was never chosen as a single from Snoop Dogg’s debut album, Doggystyle but has become a favorite for many DJs trying to work a room. The song is a tour-de-force of misogynistic lyrics, but only Nate Dogg can make a verse about dismissing a one-night stand sound so sensitive and endearing.”by Jozen Cummings, NPR.org, March 16th, 2011(via beatsrhimesandlife)
Then I reblogged and responded on tumblr saying:
In some ways, Cummings comments re Nate Dogg remind me of why I think The Chronic and Doggy style are the Devil, in terms of rap music. Men in general and White men in particular have a different relationship to the kinds of violence that I am subjected to as a Black woman who WALKS like she has a right to be in the street. Shit…two weeks ago I told two dudes to kill me or leave me alone. Dead ass. This ain’t for play. This is our lives.
Have you ever thought about White men’s investment in rap lyrics by Black men that are hella outta pocket?
I went to look for Cummings racial identity and I learned that he is African American, Japanese and Korean, so I am not saying that he is White. What I am saying is that his writing about Nate Dogg’s misogyny reminds me of how when the misogyny bomb is dropped, people who look like me tend to get hit with hella sharpnel. Whereas White men get to live out their thug fantasies singing along with Nate “And you even licked my balls.”
The Chronic and Doggystyle are sonically genius, however, did they up the ante on allowing White men and even some Black ones live out their Black sex fantasies?
Do you see the connection between Black women and White men that I am trying to make, why or why not?
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
PsyWar - Wake UP!
PsyOps? PsyWar - already here and you are the victims. Wake UP!
Please visit the authors of this film at http://metanoia-films.org/
This film explores the evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States, with an emphasis on the "elitist theory of democracy" and the relationship between war, propaganda and class.
Includes original interviews with a number of dissident scholars including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips ("Project Censored"), John Stauber ("PR Watch"), Christopher Simpson ("The Science of Coercion") and others.
torrent
Direct Link
Download
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Carlos Moore on Tavis Smiley
Dr. Carlos Moore is an ethnologist and political scientist, specializing in African, Latin American and Caribbean affairs. He researches and writes on the impact of race and ethnicity on domestic politics and inter-state affairs. Following exile from his native Cuba for opposing the Castro regime's racial policies, Moore has lived and worked in many countries, including the U.S., Senegal and, his current base, Brazil. He holds two doctorates from the University of Paris 7, France and is fluent in five languages.
watch/listen to interview
Race and Revolution in Castro's Cuba: A Memoir
Carlos Moore (Author), Maya Angelou (Foreword by)
Revolutionary black nationalist Carlos Moore breaks three decades of silence to challenge Castro’s legacy in this controversial, behind-the-scenes memoir that explores the Revolution from a perspective of a pichón, the racist Cuban term for a black of Haitian or West Indian descent. After more than thirty years in exile, continually under the threat of retribution from the Cuban regime, Moore steps forward to reveal the truth: Fidel’s Revolution was a success for white Marxists. But for Cuban blacks, the Revolution was basically business as usual, a cover-up of their ongoing struggle for racial, political, and social enfranchisement. Fidel Castro and his men rose from the ranks of the patriarchal, white Spanish-Cuban elite, and the Revolution did not weaken those ties.
The Subtle Racism of Latin America, UCLA International Institute
The Subtle Racism of Latin America, UCLA International Institute
i'm looking to further explore this w/anyone that can direct me to more literature on the subject. from first hand experience i can say that the "subtlety" that this article refers to is dependent on where you are in latin america, who you're with, and one's outward appearance to name a few from my own observation.
i'm looking to further explore this w/anyone that can direct me to more literature on the subject. from first hand experience i can say that the "subtlety" that this article refers to is dependent on where you are in latin america, who you're with, and one's outward appearance to name a few from my own observation.
Afro Latino - The Thin Line Between Self Love and Self Hate - NAM
Afro Latino - The Thin Line Between Self Love and Self Hate - NAM
i thought about this very issue last night, whilst watching this film. the main character and his mother (both are mexican) briefly argue over the mother's objection to her son's involvement with (in the mother's words more or less) the "big lipped" and "worse than black" dominican girl.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
THIEVES - if women ran hip hop
if only this were the case! then i wouldn't have such a love/hate relationship w/hip hop. [note: hip hop is merely a reflection of the dominant culture with a love/hate ratio that leans more toward the latter...]
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
crips and bloods: made in america (documentary)
With a first-person look at the notorious Crips and Bloods, this film examines the conditions that have lead to decades of devastating gang violence among young African Americans growing up in South Los Angeles.
official website
imdb
pbs
torrent
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Plies- "Why U Hate Me" vs. his contradiction...
once again this is SOLID--i just wish there was room in the industry (the mainstream in particular) for more songs like this. artists like him wouldn't have to create the crap that saturates the airwaves and ultimately contradicts messages like this.
whereas this is absolutely atrocious and i couldn't even get beyond the first minute...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
