Klarinet Archive - Posting 000558.txt from 1996/02

From: "Susan E. Pontow" <FBVB@-----.BITNET>
Subj: rap music continued
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 19:19:20 -0500

from Chaika, "Language: The Social Mirror"

p. 220

The attitude toward women in the toasts goes beyond mere lack of pity.
It is actively hostile. In one toast, Stagolee casually shoots women at the
slightest provocation. In another, Shine makes the cruelest fun at the
romantic notions of two young girls, telling them in the bluntest of terms that
the sexual act itself, not love or romance, is all there is to relations
between men and women.
In "The Fall", the whore is called a "sex machine," and in an extended
metaphor, is likened to a racehorse. A general bitter vindictiveness
characterizes all dealings of men with women in the toasts, a vindictiveness
matched by the cruel insults hurled at women in verbal games like ranking (see
below) long played by black male adolescents (and now by whites as well). In
movies as recent as "Boyz in the Hood", black adolescents typically address
girls as "ho", "hooch", and "bitch". When one girls protests being called a
ho, Doughboy sarcastically answers, "Sorry, bitch." Perusing the lyrics to rap
songs confirms this misogynistic attitude. Labov et al. (p. 62) point out that
the hostility revealed in all such verbal activity makes it especially
difficult for women teachers to dela with male members of this culture.
The pimp as hero in the toasts and on the streets is another expression
of this hostility. Again, the reason is perhaps to be found in social values
and condition. African American culture is, after all, American. In our
society, as indeed in most, men are supposed to dominate women. Until recently
this has meant that men should make more money than their wives and even
control, any earnings their wives bring in. During the years when the toasts
were being composed, the ideal was that a man should be able to earn enough so
that his wife didn't have to work. That was a particular point of pride during
my growing-up years. It must be

p. 221

emphasized that most African Americans have been raised in families with
wage-earning fathers. Still, for many years now, a much higher percentage of
African Americans than other ethnic groups have come from families in which
males often were not the principal wage earners. Fathers in such families were
absent much or all of the time, or dependent on mothers, or both. Such men
sufferd greatly in self-esteem. Yet, in the grim urban neighborhoods of large
Northern cities, there were no alternatives. There were few jobs for men of
color, and those that were available were usually at the lowest end of the
economic scale. It was easier for women to get jobs. If nothing else, they
could usually find jobs as domestics. It must be emphasized that having an
education or specialized training did not often improve the lot of African
Americans until long after the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Even with
education, it was very difficult for African Americans to be hired as anything
except laborers until relatively recently. Prestigious jobs such as teaching
and nursing were open to African American women long before equally prestigious
one were available for men. For some men, the way to dominate women as well as
to make a great deal of money was to pimp. Pimping is the rawest exploitation
of women as sex objects, of women being subservient to men. (See Chapter 10.)
Pimping is a way, a very depraved way, to be sure, of achieveing the American
ideals of making money and dominating women.
Spike Lee in his book "By Any Means Necessary" angrily speaks of
seventies' blaxploitation movies like "Superfly", charging that the
unflattering portrait of a drug-dealing, drug-using mysogynist "hero" was a
pandering to white tastes. Actually, these movies come straight out of the
tradition begun by the toasts. These were among the first movies written and
directed by blacks. Like the toasts and other ghetto speech activities, they
had a real "in your face" attitude towards whites. For the first time, blacks
could publicly express the disdain they had for white socitey, and the anger
they felt toward that society. They overtly blamed whites for the plight of
blacks, including the fact that drug dealing and crime were the only avenuse
"the man" had left open for people of color. The directors of these films,
like Melvin van Peebles and gordon Parks, Jr., stessed that there were few
legal options for the intelligent person of color in the United States. They
also portrayed white society and government as hopelessly corrupt and
hypocritical, and attacked every middle-class value. For instance, in
"Superfly", the "hero" is named "Priest" and he regularly is shown snorting
cocaine from a cross he wears around his neck. Given the traditional intense
commitment to religion by African American, this is hardly a just portrait, but
justice wasn't the point. Lettin whitey know how blacks felt was. Twenty
years later, black directors like Spike Lee and

p. 222

John Singleton, while still blaming white society, offer very different
messages. These directors are antidrug, anticrim, antipimp, and proeducation.
While some characters in their movies, like Doughboy, may be misogynistic, some
women are also portrayed very positively by younger black directors in movies
like "Jongle Fever" and "Boyz in the Hood". Leading women in these movies are
intelligent, articulate, beautiful, honorable, and capable. But American
society has changed in many ways in 20 years, both in attitudes towards women
and towards people of color, and this change is evidenced in movies.
Unfortunately, the lyrics of rap songs, which are closer to the art of the
ghetto culture, still advocate a violent lifestyle which deprecates women.

(to be continued)