Religious Endorsement

Slavery was rationalized because Africans were not Christian, therefore labeled “heathens” and considered sub-human. The Promised Land theology of the book of Joshua with its model of military conquest was used to justify the wars against indigenous peoples, the “Canaanites” of the New World. The Puritans who came to the New World saw themselves as God’s elect, called to establish the New Israel. Frontier individualism and the optimism of progress through expansion and wealth led to the political slogan “Manifest Destiny,” which reflected Christian or Protestant ascendancy, a biblical interpretation that encouraged an attitude of the moral and economic superiority of white Christians over all others, and justified the taking of land.

"We shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us...," the Puritan John Winthrop wrote. The Puritans who disembarked in Massachusetts in 1620 believed they were establishing the New Israel.

Indeed, the whole colonial enterprise was believed to have been guided by God. "God hath opened this passage unto us," Alexander Whitaker preached from Virginia in 1613, "and led us by the hand unto this work."

Promised Land imagery figured prominently in shaping English colonial thought. The pilgrims identified themselves with the ancient Hebrews. They viewed the New World as the New Canaan. They were God's chosen people headed for the Promised Land. Other colonists believed they, too, had been divinely called. The settlers in Virginia were, John Rolf said, "a peculiar people, marked and chosen by the finger of God."

This self-image of being God's Chosen People called to establish the New Israel became an integral theme in America's self-interpretation. During the revolutionary period, it emerged with new force. "We cannot but acknowledge that God hath graciously patronized our cause and taken us under his special care, as he did his ancient covenant people," Samuel Langdon preached at Concord, New Hampshire in 1788. George Washington was the "American Joshua," and "Never was the possession of arms used with more glory, or in a better cause, since the days of Joshua, the son of Nun," Ezra Stiles urged in Connecticut in 1783. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wanted Promised Land images for the new nation's Great Seal. Franklin proposed Moses dividing the Red (Reed) Sea with Pharaoh's army being overwhelmed by the closing waters. Jefferson urged a representation of the Israelites being led in the wilderness by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. Later, in his second inaugural address (1805), Jefferson again recalled the Promised Land. "I shall need...the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessities and comforts of life."

The sense of divine election and the identification of the Americas with ancient Canaan were used to justify expelling America's Indigenous Peoples from their land. The colonists saw themselves as confronting "satanic forces" in the Native Americans. They were Canaanites to be destroyed or thrown out.

This view of Native Americans was challenged by a Mohawk chief named Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) in a letter to King George III of England: “Our wise men are called Fathers and they truly sustain that character. Do you call yourselves Christians? Does the religion of Him who you call your Savior inspire your spirit and guide your practices? Surely not. It is recorded of him that a bruised reed he never broke. Cease then to call yourselves Christians, lest you declare to the world your hypocrisy. Cease too to call other nations savage, when you are tenfold more the children of cruelty than they….”

English Concept of Land Ownership

Although its control had waned by the time the first settlers from England had arrived in North America, the remnants of the old medieval feudal system were very much a part of English life. This reality greatly impacted the attitudes of the early English settlers towards the Native Americans (and later African Americans). Land ownership and control was the foundation upon which the whole system rested. And this ownership and control extended to those who inhabited that land.

Beginning with the Jamestown settlement of 1607 and intensifying with the great Puritan migration of the 1630’s, Englishmen coming to the New World thought less about Indian trade, the Northwest Passage, and fabled gold mines and more about land. As the dreams of El Dorado evaporated, English attention centered on the less glamorous goal of permanent settlement. Now land became all-important, for without land how could there be permanent settlement? The Indian, who had been important when trade and exploration were the keys to overseas involvement, became an inconvenient obstacle. One Englishman went to the heart of the difficulty in 1609: “By what right or warrant can we enter into the land of these Savages, take away their right-full inheritance from them, and plant ourselves in their places, being unwronged or unprovoked by them?” It was a cogent question to ask, for Englishmen, like other Europeans, had organized their society around the concept of private ownership of land. They regarded it, in fact, as an important characteristic of their superior culture. Colonists were not blind to the fact that they were invading the land of another people, who by prior possession could lay sole claim to the whole of mainland America. The resolution of this moral and legal problem was accomplished by an appeal to logic and to higher powers. The English claimed that they came to share, not appropriate, the trackless wilderness. The Indians would benefit because they would be elevated far above their present condition through contact with a richer culture, a more advanced civilization, and most importantly, the Christian religion.

Samuel Purchas, a clerical promoter of English expansion, gave classic expression to this idea: “God in wisedome ... enriched the Savage Countries that those riches might be attractive for Christian suters, which there may sowe spirituals and reape temporals.” Spirituals, to be sown, of course, meant Christianity; temporals to be reaped meant land. Purchas went on to argue that to leave undeveloped a sparsely settled land populated only by a few natives was to oppose the wishes of God who would not have showed Englishmen the way to the New World if he had not intended them to possess it. Moreover, if the English did not occupy North America, Spain would; and the Indians would then fall “victim” to Catholicism.

Land was the key to English settlement after 1620. It was logical to assume in these circumstances that the Native would not willingly give up the ground that sustained him, even if the English offered to purchase land, as they did in most cases. For anyone as property conscious as the English, the idea that people would resist the invasion of their land with all the force at their disposal came almost as a matter of course. Thus the image of the hostile, “savage Indian” began to triumph over that of the receptive, “friendly Indian.” Their own intentions had changed from establishing trade relations to building permanent settlements. A different conception of the Native American was required in these altered circumstances.

What we see here is a subconscious attempt to manipulate the world in order to make it conform to the English definition of it. The evidence also suggests that the English stereotype of the hostile savage helped to alleviate a sense of guilt which inevitably arose when men whose culture was based on the concept of private property embarked on a program to dispossess another people of their land. To typecast the Native American as a brutish savage was to solve a moral dilemma. If the Indian was truly cordial, generous, and eager to trade, what justification could there be for taking his land? But if he was a savage, without religion or culture, perhaps the colonists' actions were defensible.

The English, we might speculate, anticipated hostility and then read it into the Native's character because they recognized that they were embarking upon an invasion of land to which the only natural response could be violent resistance. Having created the conditions in which the Native American could only respond violently, the Englishman defined the native as brutal, beastly, savage, and barbarian and then used that as a justification for what he was doing.

It has been nearly two weeks since I last penned my series on misogyny and racism (I have been under the weather and am under the care of several physicians and specialists). So to those who believe in its power, I would greatly appreciate your prayers. When my book, When Racism Is Law & Prejudice Is Policy, was published in January of this year I never made the connection between its publication and the 400^th year anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. This commemoration has even drawn Queen Elizabeth to our shores. I was looking to share some passages from my book, and this look at 400 years of American history provides the perfect opportunity. I have not only written about this time in America’s history, but I have taught about it a great deal as well. I will be posting this particular passage in three different installments. I would be interested and hearing your thoughts, so feel free to comment. I commit this writing to your thoughtful and diligent consideration.

 

  

There were several key factors in the evolution and formation of prejudicial laws and policies in British colonial America. There are three, which I believe to be, of particular importance to this study. They are: (1) The English Pattern of Conquest, (2) English Concept of Land Ownership, and (3) Religious Endorsement.

 

 

The English Pattern of Conquest

 

In contrast to the Spaniards who frequently intermarried with the native populations of Mexico, Central America and South America, the English followed a pattern of driving away the peoples they defeated. This pattern shows itself in England’s conquest of Ireland.

The English practiced a systematic discrimination against the Irish people with the Statutes of Kilkenny in the 1300’s, the Penal Laws of the late 17^th century and Oliver Cromwell’s large scale land confiscation policy in the mid 1600’s.

The Statutes of Kilkenny’s purpose was to prevent further assimilation of the English colonizers with the Irish natives, by legal and religious penalties. The settlers were forbidden to use the Irish language. They were also forbidden to use Irish names, marry into Irish families, use the Irish mode of dress, adopt any Irish laws and play the Irish game of hurling. But the English crown, embroiled in a costly military campaign in Scotland and the Hundred Years War (1338-1453) against France, had little time for Irish affairs and the statutes remained inoperative.

The Penal Laws were a set of legal codes put into place by Ireland's English rulers following the Treaty of Limerick in the late 17th century. Also called the “Popery Laws,” the Penal Laws were based on the fears of an English Protestant ruling class: they were meant to both protect the Protestant religion and eliminate the native Roman Catholic Irish as a threat. Although the Penal Laws were largely unenforced during the 18th century, they remained on the books and were still legally binding until Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

The first of Penal Laws went into effect a scant three years after the signing of the Treaty, in which the Irish were guaranteed “that the Irish in Ireland should, in their lives, liberties and property be equally protected” and “protected in the free and unfettered exercise of their religion.”

 

This first law was called the Act for the Better Securing of the Government against Papists. Under this law, no Papist (Catholic) could have any “gun, pistol, or sword, or any other weapon of offense or defense, under penalty of fine, imprisonment, pillory (locking ones head and hands in a wooden rack for public ridicule), or public whipping.” It further stated that any magistrate could show up at the house of any Irish person no matter what time of the day or night and search for weapons legally.

 

This was followed, circa 1697, with the Act for banishing all Papists exercising any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and regulars of the Popish clergy, out of this Kingdom, also called "The Bishop's Banishment Act." The law required all Catholic clergy to leave Ireland by May 1st, 1698 under the penalty of transportation (indentured servitude) for life. It further stated that if any returned, they would be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

 

[However] this was just the start of the restrictions. Further laws were passed over time that severely limited the ability of a Catholic to do anything. These included laws that:

• Forbade Catholics from exercising their religion
• Forbade Catholics from receiving a Catholic education
• Forbade Catholics from entering a profession
• Forbade Catholics from holding Public Office
• Forbade Catholics from engaging in trade or commerce
• Forbade Catholics from living in a corporate town or within five miles of one
• Forbade Catholics from owning a horse worth more than 5 pounds
• Forbade Catholics from buying or leasing land
• Forbade Catholics from voting
• Forbade Catholics from receiving a gift or inheritance of land from a Protestant
• Forbade Catholics from renting any land that was worth more than thirty   shillings
• Forbade Catholics from gaining any profit from his land over a third of the land's value
• Forbade Catholics from being the guardian of a child
• Fined Catholics for not attending Protestant services
• Forbade Catholics from sending their children abroad for an education

By these laws the Catholics were deprived of all civil life, reduced to the condition of ignorance and dissociated with the soil. Catholic schoolmasters and priests became hunted men and women. The laws were simply designed to repress the native Irish who were for the most part Catholic.

Conditions and the treatment of the Irish degraded to the point where a Protestant could beat or kill any Catholic without fear of recrimination. By these means, the Protestant residents of Ireland successfully controlled the other 80% of the Irish population, the Catholics.

Puritan leader Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell had ordered all Irish landowners to leave their holdings and relocate west of the Shannon River. The area of Connaught to which the former landholders were assigned was barren and totally unsuitable for the amount of farming that was needed to sustain a population as lame as that which was forced there.

All confiscated land was given to those who supported Cromwell's Irish campaign, from financial backers to volunteer soldiers. Those Irish who owned no land prior to the conflict, and were still alive, were allowed to remain as a servant force for the new English settlers. Those who opposed Cromwell's conquest of Ireland were killed or deported, but the saddest part of it all was the fate of the Irish children. Many, orphaned as a result of the fighting, were sent to England's colonies in the Indies and America as slaves.

The English brought this pattern of colonization with them to North America. Viewing the Native Americans as being “like the wild Irish,” the English settlers had no desire to intermarry with the Native Americans they defeated. Their conquest over the native peoples was total and absolute.

This is the fifth and final installment in the series: Caucasian Please! America's True Double-Standard For Misogyny & Racism

 

What The Market Will Bear

It is a multibillion-dollar industry, accounting for one of every five records sold in America. Eighty percent of buyers are white. The music that now generates over $10 billion per year (according to Forbes magazine) was initially ignored by corporate America. Now corporations use the phrase, the image, and the sound of hip-hop to sell everything from McDonalds' dollar menu to Cadillacs.

Although the faces of hip-hop are predominantly Black and the Black community birthed the music, who are the real power-players at Universal Music and Viacom that are pushing the green or red button on what gets produced and promoted in hip-hop? Dr Jared Ball in his composition, Hip-Hop, Mass Media & 21^st Century Colonization states: “Given the societal need and function of mass media and popular culture, all that is popular is fraudulent. Popularity is in almost every case an intentionally constructed fabrication of what it claims to represent. Too few who comment on the lamentable condition of today’s popular hip-hop seem to grasp this, the political nature of the nation’s media system, nor the political function that system serves. Hip-hop is often taken out of the existing context of political struggle, repression, or the primacy of a domestic/neo-colonialism in the service of which mass media play a (the?) leading role. Media, often incorrectly defined by their technologies, are the primary conduits of ideology or worldview and must be seen as such. Therefore, their highly consolidated ownership and content management structure (corporate interlocking boards of directors, advertisers, stockholders, etc.) cannot be understood absent their ability to disseminate a consciousness they themselves sanction and mass produce. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrable than in hip-hop”

Entertainment has always been a sponsor/market-driven entity. This is important to remember as a multitude begins to mourn Don Imus as the latest “sacrifice” on the altar of the god called political correctness, their outrage is suspect at best and hypocritical at worst. To say that a campaign of this sort has never been lodged against a rap artist deemed guilty of derogatory attitudes towards Black women is not supported by history or the facts. In 2002 Pepsi-Cola had pulled a national, 30-second commercial featuring multiplatinum rapper Ludacris from the air after Fox News Channel's host Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott of the company. O'Reilly characterized Pepsi as "immoral" for using the rapper, whom he described as a rap thug. O'Reilly, on his program, read several of the rapper's lyrics, which he said emphasized a lifestyle that included getting intoxicated, selling drugs, fighting people, and degrading women---by the way, in all my research, not once did I discover that Ludacris was ever sued for sexual harassment or charged with sexual misconduct. The same cannot be said of Mr. O'Reilly and yet he still holds a position as a moral authority with millions of Americans.

Pepsi-Cola released a statement explaining its decision to pull the ad, "We have a responsibility to listen to our consumers and customers, and we've heard from a number of people that were uncomfortable with our association with this artist. We've decided to discontinue our ad campaign with this artist and we're sorry that we've offended anyone."

Let’s fast-forward two years to 2004 when Whoopi Goldberg's sexual puns on President Bush's name at a John Kerry fundraiser got her fired as spokeswoman for Slim-Fast weight-loss products. The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based maker of diet aids pulled the ad campaign featuring Goldberg stating that it regretted that Goldberg’s remarks “offended some of their consumers.” Contrast the rapidity of Pepsi and Slim Fast in dispatching Ludacris and Whoopi, with the decades-long, accommodating, look-the-other-way attitude of sponsors and networks when it comes to individuals such as Imus.

Armstrong Williams on the MSNBC news program Hardball (4/11/07), said that Don Imus should not be fired and “the marketplace should make that decision.” And alas, the marketplace did make that decision when the sponsors pulled out en masse. If that is the criterion that we are to use, then what do we do when hip-hop’s/rap’s vast popularity is determined by that same marketplace---and as was stated previously, that purchasing marketplace is 80% white and the company executives making the final decision as to what gets made and what gets played are predominantly white.

If corporations want to push anti-woman and sexist music this year, millions of dollars will be pumped into the budget of whatever rapper is ignorant enough to write the lyrics. Sure the artists can choose to make something different. They just won't have the backing that others do who agree to play the game. So, by all means hold hip-hop (and ALL artists of ALL genres) who are guilty of producing the misogynistic and sexist messages in their lyrics and videos morally and politically accountable. Nevertheless, although they may guilty of providing the supply, it is the American culture that created the demand.

The History of the Sexploitation of the Black Woman

The degrading images of Black women were cemented in American culture centuries previous to the first rapper uttering their first words into a microphone. The portrayal of Black women as promiscuous by nature is a long-standing stereotype. The belief that Blacks are sexually lewd predates the institution of slavery in America. European travelers to Africa found semi-exposed natives. This semi nudity was misinterpreted as lewdness. White Europeans, locked into the racial ethnocentrism of the 17th century, saw African polygamy and tribal dances as proof of the African's uncontrolled sexual lust. Europeans were fascinated by African sexuality. The origins of anti-Black sexual images emerged from the writings European explorers that portrayed the Black male as a brute and potential rapist; the Black woman as an unrestrained whore. The English colonists accepted the Elizabethan image of "the lusty Moor," (Moor being Elizabethan for Black) and used this and similar stereotypes to justify enslaving Blacks. In part, this was accomplished by arguing that Blacks were subhumans: intellectually inferior, culturally stunted, morally underdeveloped, and with a bestial sexuality. The hypersexualized stereotype of Black women was used during slavery as a rationalization for sexual relations between White men and Black women, especially sexual unions involving masters and slaves. The Black woman was depicted as a woman with an insatiable appetite for sex. She was not satisfied with Black men. It was claimed that the female slave desired sexual relations with White men; therefore, White men did not have to rape Black women. James Redpath, who was of all things an abolitionist, wrote that slave women were "gratified by the criminal advances of Saxons." This view is contradicted by Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and former slave, who claimed that the "slave woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master.”  Douglass's account is consistent with the accounts of other former slaves.  In Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, Bibb tells of how his master forced a young slave to be his son's concubine; later, Bibb and his wife were sold to a Kentucky trader who forced Bibb's wife into prostitution.

Slave women were property; therefore, legally they could not be raped. Often slavers would offer gifts or promises of reduced labor if the slave women would consent to sexual relations. Nevertheless, as John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman states in Intimate Matters: A Sexual History of Sexuality In America, “the rape of a female slave was probably the most common form of interracial sex” during that time.

The idea that Black women were naturally and unavoidably sexually immoral was reinforced by several features of the slavery institution. Slaves whether on the auction block or offered privately for sale, were often stripped naked and physically examined. In premise, this was done to ensure that they were healthy, able to reproduce, and, equally important, to look for whipping scars – the presence of which implied that the slave was rebellious. In practice, the stripping and touching of slaves had a sexually exploitative, sometimes sadistic function. Nakedness, especially among women in the 18th and 19th centuries, implied lack of civility, morality, and sexual restraint even when the nakedness was forced. Slaves, of both sexes and all ages, often wore few clothes or clothes so ragged that their legs, thighs, and chests were exposed. Conversely, Whites, especially women, wore clothing over most of their bodies. The contrast between the clothing reinforced the beliefs that White women were civilized, modest, and sexually pure, whereas Black women were crude, immodest, and sexually deviant.

Black slave women were also frequently pregnant. The institution of slavery depended on Black women to supply future slaves. By every method imaginable, slave women were "encouraged" to reproduce. Deborah Gray White, in Ar'n't I a Woman?, speaks of major periodicals carrying articles detailing optimal conditions under which bonded women were known to reproduce, and the merits of a particular "breeder" were often the topic of parlor or dinner table conversations. Gray White goes on to say “the fact that something so personal and private became a matter of public discussion prompted one ex-slave to declare that ‘women wasn't nothing but cattle.’ Once reproduction became a topic of public conversation, so did the slave woman's sexual activities.”

The portrayal of Black women as sexually promiscuous began in slavery, extended through the Jim Crow period, and continues today. Although the Mammy distortion was the dominant popular cultural image of Black women from slavery to the 1950s, the depiction of Black women as sexually licentious was common in American material culture. There was practically no item that was considered out-of-bounds in depicting the Black woman as immodest and lacking in sexual restraint as ordinary articles such as ashtrays, postcards, sheet music, fishing lures, drinking glasses, featured scantily-clad Black women. For example, a metal nutcracker, from the 1930’s, depicts a topless Black woman. The nut is placed under her skirt, in her crotch, and crushed. Were sexually explicit items such as these made in the image of white women? Yes. However, they were never mainstreamed like the objects that caricatured Black women. The seamy novelty objects depicting white women were sold on the down-low, the QT and always hush-hush.  An analysis of these racist items also reveals that Black female children were sexually objectified. Black girls, with the faces of pre-teenagers, were drawn with adult sized buttocks, which were exposed. They were naked, scantily clad, or hiding seductively behind towels, blankets, trees, or other objects.

As we enter the late 60’s and early 70’s the vestiges of the old Mammy and Picaninny caricatures were replaced with the supersexualized  female (as well as male) protagonists and heroines---often in the form of prostitutes or women using sex as a means to the greater end of achieving a vendetta. These films are now referred to as blaxploitation movies. These movies were supposedly steeped in the Black experience.  However, many were produced and directed by Whites. Author and film historian Daniel J. Leab in his narrative, Sambo to Superspade: The Black Experience in Motion Pictures, wrote: "Whites packaged, financed, and sold these films, and they received the bulk of the big money." The world depicted in blaxploitation movies included corrupt police and politicians, pimps, drug dealers, violent criminals, prostitutes, and whores. In the main, these movies were low-budget, formulaic interpretations of Black life by White producers, directors, and distributors. Black actors and actresses, many unable to find work in mainstream movies, found work in blaxploitation movies. Black patrons supported these movies because they showed Blacks fighting the "White establishment," resisting the “pigs” (police), in control of their fate and sexual beings.

There are compelling parallels between this period and where we now find ourselves today in regard to sexist hip-hop. Parallels such as the erroneous perceptions that certain images were and are indeed steeped in the true Black experience; who controlled and controls the production and distribution of the “black” product; the preeminence of distorted sexual roles; and who disproportionately benefits, financially, from this destructive typecasting. It is a painful reality that the lack of real opportunities can sometimes make us co-facilitators in our own cultural demise, as we engage in endeavors that aid in the buttressing and reinforcement of pernicious and racist stereotypes.

One of our strengths as Black people (contrary to popular opinion) is our ability to engage in deep and insightful self-critique---and in that spirit we must take responsibility for our role in this. Toni Morrison in addressing the dynamics of racial and gender internalized oppression in her novel The Bluest Eye stated that it was "as though some mysterious all-knowing master had said, ‘You are ugly people.’ . . . [a]nd they (Black folk) took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it. And we as Black people (male & female), have now taken ownership, or taken it in our hands as it were, this deplorable legacy and have worn this disgraceful and destructive garment proudly; and we have indeed gone about the world with it. We in the Black community who have consumed, purchased and repeated the words and images; we, Black male and female exploiters of Black sexuality, who have participated in this dishonor are like the Laodecians who were rebuked by Christ because they were convinced that they were rich and increased with goods and had need of nothing without understanding; without realizing that they were blind, wretched, miserable and naked. And like Esau, we have gave up our God-given birthright that entitled us to something better, for a mess of pottage; for husks that satiate us for only a little while; with nothing to show for the bitter and foolish trade but pain, regret and longing.

Seeing that her womb supplied the steady flow of slaves that facilitated the accumulation of wealth for plantation owners and the various industries in this country (rice, cotton, tobacco and sugar to name a few), America was built, in large part, on the sexual exploitation of the Black woman. With the coffers of the major corporations that own the record labels and the music video networks, bursting from the profits of this new millennium’s minstrel show, it is a malicious irony of epic and tragic proportions that we have now come full circle.

Deracializing White Female Sexual Explicitness or Demonizing The Different, While Excusing The Familiar

Don Imus in his “apology” went on to say that the term “ho” didn’t originate in the white community, but rather in the Black community. As the term “ho” is a variation of the word “whore” (a word not foreign to the American lexicon and indeed has been used with great frequency in the white community), that assertion does not hold water. So once again, what is endemic in American society is viewed as a specific “Black” identifier or just a “Black thing.” That would be the equivalent of saying that the first person to call the television a TV undeniably invented it or the individual who first referred to the automobile as a car, now holds the patent to the creation.  However, let it be understood, this truth does not excuse or exonerate sexist hip-hop from its shameful contribution to the debasement of women.

In regard to gender, there has been two, pronounced, conflicting and unjust narratives concerning female sexuality in America. Although all women who were viewed or accused as loose or promiscuous faced the ire and consternation of a (predominantly white) male-dominated society, there has always been this duplicitous racial application of the penalties incurred for committing perceived “moral” crimes against society. Historically, White women, as a category, have been portrayed as examples of self-respect, self-control, and modesty – even sexual purity, but Black women were often (and still are) portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory.

I will be treating the subject of the exploitation of the Black woman more fully in another installment in this series, so my focus in this piece will be the various ways White female sexual promiscuity has been viewed, recognized and oft-times celebrated in today’s media and in popular culture.

In her publication, Female Chauvinist Pigs, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that the recent trend for soft-porn styling in everything from music videos to popular TV is reducing female sexuality to its basest levels. In short: "A tawdry, tarty, cartoon-like version of female sexuality has become so ubiquitous, it no longer seems particular."

 

Kathleen Parker in her article, Girls Gone Ridiculous, further elaborates this point: “…the message to girls the past 20 years or so has been that they can be and do anything they please. Being a stripper or a porn star is just another option among many. In some feminist circles, porn is seen as the ultimate feminist expression — women exercising autonomy over their bodies, profiting from men's desire, rather than merely being objectified by it. Self-exploitation has become the raised middle finger of women's sexual freedom.” And that “raised middle-finger” in popular culture, rap videos aside, has largely been a white one. Society, by and large, has deracialized white female sexual explicitness while at the same time strongly accentuating what is perceived as Black female promiscuity and immodesty. That message has been communicated to us time and time again on the pages of Maxim, FHM, Playboy, Penthouse and Sports Illustrated---and this list goes on. Although these mags have, in the past 10 years, featured more women of color, they are still (overwhelmingly) a celebration of white female sexual explicitness.

The ultra-celebrity accorded to white female sexual explicitness burst on the scene in the person of Marilyn Monroe. Can anyone argue that Monroe was more recognized for her acting talents than for her “natural assets?” Yet, she is regarded as a legend. The celebrity that has been granted to white women such as Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, Carmen Elecktra, Paris Hilton and a whole host of others, is also given based upon sexual assets and not upon talent. This theme is consistent in today’s raunch-infested society, but the raunchiness, once again, is deracialized when the practitioners are white. WWE women's wrestling has increased in popularity in the past few years with its predominantly white roster of sex-kittens and their highly sexualized plots and subplots. While, in contrast, one would be hard-pressed to name as many Black women (or any other women of color) ---absent of talent--- who enjoy the same level of celebrity and success.

Even in, seemingly light-hearted (at least that is the impression that we’ve been given), popular movies we see this phenomenon played out. In Risky Business, the film that introduced Tom Cruise to mainstream America, was about a young man (with the help of a spunky prostitute fleeing her pimp, played by Rebecca De Mornay) who opened up a brothel in his parent’s home while they were away on vacation. Pretty Woman, the film that made Julia Roberts a megastar, essentially is a remake of the children’s classic Cinderella, except this time Cinderella is a hooker. The Woody Allen (that alone gives it legitimacy) film The Mighty Aphrodite stars Mira Sorvino in the “acceptable” prostitute role (for which she won an Oscar). In the recent film, The Girl Next Door (featuring another rising star Elisha Cuthbert) the movie centers on the relationship between an accomplished high school senior and his 19 year-old porn star (Cuthbert) neighbor. In the descriptions of the main characters in these films (the women) words such as, free-spirited, spunky, playful, spontaneous were used. I tried imagining these same films with Black main characters and I could not envision the same light-hearted response by the American public-at-large. There has yet to be a critically-acclaimed or commercially successful film, where a central character was a Black prostitute. So even when the “textbook” requirements of what constitutes being promiscuous is met, her whiteness saves the day. Even at her most licentious, she is made to appear innocent, wholesome and strangely virginal.

These movies were huge box office successes, and if one subscribes to the theory that the lyrics contained in some hip-hop songs desensitizes individuals to misogyny and normalizes sexism, then that same ethos would have to applied to the films that have essentially “deified” and normalized  white female explicitness and promiscuity. So when the same messages that are being demonized in hip-hop are also found in these popular films and white-dominated music genres (but couched in the safety and familiarity of whiteness), what society is essentially telling us is that it is better PR that hip-hop needs not a lessening of sexist themes in their music and videos.

So it has to be understood that racism is at the heart of this current debate regarding misogyny and sexism. America continues to prove (day in and day out) that it has absolutely no problem with sexual promiscuity. So what is their problem with hip-hop? It is the sheer “Blackness” of it. Historically (as well as now), there has been a fear of Black (especially Black male) sexuality. This irrational and racist fear was repeatedly used in the countless lynchings of Black men in the history of this nation (which often included castration as well). Black equals dangerous; Black equals savage; Black equals barbaric; Black equals forbidden, infected and inferior.

This irrational and racist fear was repeatedly used in the countless lynchings of Black men in the history of this nation (which often included castration as well). Black equals dangerous; Black equals savage; Black equals barbaric; Black equals forbidden, infected and inferior. Therefore hip-hop, like Blackness, is something that society must be; should be; and has to be protected from. It is from this context that ALL things Black have been realized and it is from this context that white female sexual explicitness has been sanitized.

 

Popular Culture's Duplicitous Sexism & Violence In Black And White

 

In a piece I penned a couple of years ago, titled: The Double-Standard Of Righteous Indignation, I endeavored to point out the clear ethnic and racial double-standards of the media and society as it pertains to sex and violence. My assertion was, and remains to be, that the mainstream media and society-at-large, appear to have not so much of a problem with the glorification of sex and violence, but rather with who is doing the glorifying. In it I stated that if the brutality and violence in gangsta rap was truly the real issue, then shouldn't a series like The Sopranos be held to the same standard? If we are so concerned about bloodshed, then how did movies like "The Godfather," "The Untouchables" and "Goodfellas" become classics? 

 

I then addressed the sexual aspect of this double-standard by pointing out that "Sex & The City," a series that focused, by and large, on the sexual relationships of four white women, was hailed as a powerful demonstration of female camaraderie and empowerment. This show, during its run, was lavished with critical praise and commercial success while hip-hop and rap artists are attacked by the morality police for their depiction of sex in their lyrics and videos. The don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it appearance of Janet Jackson's right bosom during [a] Super Bowl halftime show…. caused more of a furor than the countless commercials that (also aired during the Super Bowl) used sex to sell anything from beer to cars to gum. Not to mention the constant stream of commercials that rather openly talks about erectile dysfunction medication.

The exaltation of drugs, misogyny and violence in music lyrics has a history that predates NWA, Ice Cube, Ice T and Snoop Dogg. Elton John’s 1977 song “Tickin,” was about a young man who goes into a bar and kills 14 people; Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska,” featured a couple on a shooting spree, and his “Johnny 99,” was about a gun-waving laid-off worker; and Stephen Sondheim’s score for “Assassins,” which presented songs mostly in the first person about would-be and successful presidential assassins.

Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" and the Beatles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (LSD, as well as almost anything by Jefferson Airplane or Spaceship. Several songs from "Tommy" and Pink Floyd's "The Wall" are well known drug songs. "Catholic girls", "Centerfold", "Sugar Walls" by Van Halen were raunchy, misogynistic, lust-driven rock refrains. Even the country music legend Kenny Rogers in his legendary ballad, “Coward Of The County,” spoke of a violent gang-rape and then a triple-homicide by the song’s hero to avenge his assaulted lover.  Marilyn Manson declared that one of the aims of his provocative persona was to see how much it would take to get the moralists as mad at white artists as they got about 2LiveCrew. He said it took fake boobs, Satanism, simulated sex on stage, death and angst along with semi-explicit lyrics, to get the same screaming the 2LiveCrew got for one song. Manson thought this reaction was hypocritical and hilarious.

Other artists like Kid Rock have won commercial success easily and faced only minor battles with the FCC with songs such as: “F**k U Blind. Consider the lyrics of Kid Rock, whose piercing blend of hard rock, metal and misogyny has sold millions of records:

Now if you like the booty come on fellas show it
This is your last verse to wax so why would you blow it
And if the ladies if you are tired of a man on your fanny
Then f--k you go home and watch the tube with granny
…Just look at all the girls that are dying to get some
Man, just don't be a wussy
And I'll guarantee you could get a piece of p----

Likewise, consider the lyrics of the rock song “Anything Goes” from Guns ‘N Roses:

Panties 'round your knees

With your ass in debris

Doin' dat grind with a push and squeeze

Tied up, tied down, up against the wall

Be my rubbermade baby

An' we can do it all.''

 

 

The bad-boy, outlaw rockers have traditionally and consistently been marketed and packaged as misogynistic. Artists and groups such as David Lee Roth, Kid Rock, Metallica, Uncle Kracker, to name a few. Take note of the following list of rock groups and some of the albums and songs that they have released: American Dog (released an album in 2001 titled, Six Pack: Songs About Drinkin & F**kin), Big C*ck (released an album in 2005 titled:  Year Of The C**k---with titles like Bad Motherf***er, Hard To Swallow & You Suck The Love Out Of Me) W.A.S.P. (released an album in 1983 titled: Animal: F**ks Like A Beast, an album in 1997 K.F.D.: Kill, F**k, Die), Faster Pussycat (released album in 1992 titled Whipped---with a song titled Loose Booty, 2001 titled: Between The Valley Of The Ultra P**sy, 2006 album titled: The Power Of The Glory Hole---with such titles as Porn Star and Shut Up & F**k), Lynch Mob (released an album in 2003 titled: Evil: Live---featuring the song (Tie Your Mother Down) and a compilation album released in 2003 titled C**k’N’Roll: The World’s Sleaziest Rock Bands---displaying “hits” like: Dog Sh*t Boys - One Minute F**k, Sagger - The Closest I've Ever Come To F**king Myself and Hellside Stranglers – Motherf***ers Don't Cry.

 

In an article by Dana Williams titled, BEYOND RAP: Musical Misogyny, Ann Savage, associate professor of telecommunications at Butler University stated:  "It's the repetitiveness of the messages, the repetitiveness of the attitudes, and it builds on people….” “People say rap is dangerous. Yes, rap music does have misogyny, but there has always been an objectification and misogyny against women in music," said Savage. "Yet we focus on the black artists, not the rockers and not even the white executives who are making the big money from this kind of music."

Savage further asserts that the race-based double standard applies to violent content in music as well."There was the Eric Clapton remake of Marley's 'I Shot the Sheriff,' and there was little to be said. But then you have the 'Cop Killer' song by Ice-T and it's dangerous and threatening."

In this same article Cynthia Fuchs, an associate professor at George Mason University, affirmed that “the public seems far more disturbed by misogynistic lyrics in the music of rap and hip hop artists who are largely black than similar lyrics in rock music, perceived by most as a white genre.”

"The flamboyance of rock is understood as performance, rather than from the perspective of personal feelings," said Fuchs, who teaches courses in film and media studies, African American studies and cultural studies. "These guys are seen as innocuous. They appear to be players in the fence of accumulating women in skimpy costumes, but they aren't necessarily seen as violent. The mainstream takes it (hip hop and rap) to represent real-life, so it's seen as more threatening than some of the angry, whiney white boy rock, even though the same messages and images are portrayed."

Moreover, in a piece titled C*ck Rock from the October 21-November 3, 2003 edition of the online music magazine Perfect Pitch, it was revealed that when the Hustler founder and entrepreneur Larry Flynt wanted to combine the worlds of porn (the ultimate god of misogyny) and music he did not turn to rap, but rather to rock. It was stated that since porn has been mainstreamed, they wanted a more “contemporary” look---and when they looked for a contemporary look, did they seek out the likes of Nelly, Chingy, 50 Cent or Ludacris? No. Rock legend Nikki Sixx was chosen to "grace" the cover of Hustler’s new venture along with his adult-entertainment and former Baywatch star girlfriend Donna D’Errico wearing nothing but a thong and Sixx's arms. 

 

It is my belief that this paradigm; this unjust paradox exists because of the media stereotypes of black men as more violence-prone, and media’s disproportionate focus on black crime (which is confused with the personas that rappers adopt), contribute to the biased treatment of rap. The double standard applied to rap music makes it easier to sell the idea that “gangsta rap” is “more” misogynist, racist, violent and dangerous than any other genre of music. However, I believe that bell hooks conceptualized it best in her essay Sexism and Misogyny: Who Takes the Rap?: “To the white dominated mass media, the controversy over gangsta rap makes great spectacle. Besides the exploitation of these issues to attract audiences, a central motivation for highlighting gangsta rap continues to be the sensationalist drama of demonizing black youth culture in general and the contributions of young black men in particular. It is a contemporary remake of "Birth of a Nation" only this time we are encouraged to believe it is not just vulnerable white womanhood that risks destruction by black hands but everyone.”

Part of the allure of gangsta or hardcore rap to the young person is its (however deplorable) explicitness. The gangsta rapper says “bitches” and “hos”, defiantly and frankly (once again… deplorable) and that frankness strikes a chord.  However, it is not the first time that young man or woman has seen society “treat” women like “bitches” and “hos.” Like mother’s milk, the American male in this country has been “nourished” on a constant diet of subtle messages and notions regarding female submission and inferiority and when he is weaned, he begins to feed on the meat of more exploitative mantras and images of American misogyny long before he ever pops in his first rap album into his CD player. Young people, for better or worse, are looking for and craving authenticity. Now, because this quality is in such rare-supply in today’s society, they gravitate towards those who appear to be “real” and “true to the game.” Tragically, they appreciate the explicitness without detesting or critically deconstructing what the person is being explicit about.

There have been many who have said that even with Imus gone from the airwaves, the American public in general and the Black community in particular will still be inundated by the countless rap lyrics using derogatory and sexist language, as well as the endless videos displaying women in various stages of undress---and this is true.

However, by that same logic, if we were to rid the record stores, the clubs and the iPods of all misogynistic hip-hop, we would still have amongst us the corporately-controlled and predominantly white-owned entities of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and Hooters. We would still have the reality TV shows, whose casts are overwhelmingly white, reveling in excessive intoxication and suspect sexual mores. If misogynistic hip-hop was erased from American life and memory today, tomorrow my e-mail box and the e-mail boxes of millions of others would still be barraged with links to tens of thousands adult entertainment web sites. We would still have at our fingertips, courtesy of cable and satellite television, porn-on-demand. We would still be awash in a society and culture that rewards promiscuity and sexual explicitness with fame, fortune and celebrity (reference Anna Nicole, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears).

And most hypocritically, if we were to purge the sexist and lewd lyrics from hip-hop, there would still be a multitude of primarily white bands and principally-white musical genres generating song after song glorifying sexism, misogyny, violence and lionizing male sexuality and sexual conquest.

Now, where does the conversation go from here?

Introduction

 

In this composition I will not be addressing the whole of hip-hop and rap, but rather hardcore and gangsta rap. It is my assertion that the mainstream media and political pundits---right and left--- have painted rap and hip-hop with a very broad brush. Let me perfectly clear, hardcore and gangsta rap is not listened to, watched, consumed or supported in my home and never has. I will not be an apologist for anything that chooses to frame the dialogue about Black women (and women in general) and Black life in morally bankrupt language and reprehensible symbols.

 

In the wake of MSNBC’s and CBS’s firing of Don Imus, the debate over misogyny, sexism and racism has now taken flight ---or submerged, depending on your point of view. There are many, mostly white, people who believe that Imus was a fall guy and he is receiving blame and criticism for what many rap artists do continually in the lyrics and videos: debase and degrade Black women. A Black guest on an MSNBC news program even went as far as to say “where would a 66 year-old white guy even had heard the phrase nappy-headed ho” ---alluding to hip-hop music’s perceived powerful influence upon American culture and life (and apparently over the radio legend as well) ---and by so doing gave a veneer of truth to the theory that rap music is the main culprit to be blamed for this contemporary brand of chauvinism. However, I concur with bell hooks, the noted sociologist and black-feminist activist who said that “to see gangsta rap as a reflection of dominant values in our culture rather than as an aberrant ‘pathological’ standpoint, does not mean that a rigorous feminist critique of the sexist and misogyny expressed in this music is not needed. Without a doubt black males, young and old, must be held politically accountable for their sexism. Yet this critique must always be contextualized or we risk making it appear that the behavior this thinking supports and condones,--rape, male violence against women, etc. -- is a black male thing. And this is what is happening. Young black males are forced to take the ‘heat’ for encouraging, via their music, the hatred of and violence against women that is a central core of patriarchy.”

 

There are those in the media, mostly white males (but also some black pundits as well), who now want the Black community to take a look at hip-hop music and correct the diabolical “double-standard” that dwells therein. Before a real conversation can be had, we have to blow-up the myths, expose the lies and cast a powerful and discerning light on the “real” double-standards and duplicity. Kim Deterline & Art Jones in their essay, Fear of a Rap Planet, points out that the issue with media coverage of rap is not whether African Americans engaged in a campaign against what they see as violent, sexist or racist imagery in rap should be heard—they should.   …why are community voices fighting racism and sexism in mainstream news media, films and advertisements not treated similarly? The answer may be found in white-owned corporate media’s historical role as facilitator of racial scapegoating. Perhaps before advocating censorship of a music form with origins in a voiceless community, mainstream media pundits should look at the violence perpetuated by their own racism and sexism.

This proud father of a Black daughter; proud brother of Black sisters and proud son of a Black mother heard him say: "nappy-headed hoes." Don Imus called the student athletes of the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hoes" on his syndicated radio & television talk show and in so doing, summoned the familiar ghosts of pain and suffering visited upon Black women since Africans' inception into this country. The memories of slave masters who rarely passed up an opportunity to degrade and debase the Black woman during the light of day and then stroll through the slave quarters for the forceful and violent acquisition of some "black forbidden fruit" and "brown sugah" in the dark of night. The nightmares of straightening combs and the smell of burnt flesh; the recollections of the stench of hair-care concoctions; the failure of perms and scorched scalps in a painful attempt to get their hair "up-to-code" and up to the standards of their white counterparts.

 

Toni Morrison in addressing the dynamics of racial and internalized oppression in her novel The Bluest Eye stated that it was "as though some mysterious all-knowing master had said, ‘You are ugly people.’ . . . [a]nd they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it." Imus and his supporters---either those who have pledged their support vocally or those whose rebuke of his words have been less than firm---would like to separate his words from the history and legacy from which they sprung, but they can not be. Imus' words now become part of a recognizable tune that has been played throughout the centuries regarding Black people in general, and Black women in particular: "your lips are too big," "your nose is too broad," "your hips are too wide" and "your hair is too nappy"---amazing how the full lips and the wide hips that Black women have been historically castigated for, are now so esteemed by the white populace that collagen injections and implants are sought to achieve it.

 

Imus says that he said and did a bad thing, but he is not a bad person. Imus and the vast majority of people in our society believe that if there is an absence of swastikas, burning crosses, sheets and hoods, then there is an absence of racism and prejudice as well. That is because we have increasingly become a nation and society of extremes, so that we in turn believe that in order for racism to be deemed racism, it has to be in an extreme form as well. I am on record for having had said time and time again, that the overwhelming majority of racist and prejudicial acts in our society are unconscious and unintentional, but that bears explanation. Unintentional does not equal less dangerous. A drunk driver's intent is never to kill themselves and others in a car accident and yet it tragically happens. As our vice-president has demonstrated, if you shoot someone on purpose or if you shoot them by accident, the result is the same. It is precisely the unintentional and the unconscious prejudices that we must address and uproot because they are the most widely used and the most overall damaging to society.

 

 

America was said to be founded, in part, upon the principles contained in what is called the Social Contract between the state and the individual---a combination of the thoughts and ideas Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. I also believe in what one might call a moral contract. This moral contract is also between society and the individual. When a child is born, society whispers in her ear: do your best little one; do what is right and true and we will stand up for you. By spewing the slurs and insults that Imus did, he broke that contract and sent a not-so-subtle message to our Black young women (and men) that no matter how high they rise; no matter what they achieve, the chains of racist perceptions and bigoted stereotypes still remain. As long as the Imus’; the Limbaugh’s and their like have the ears and attention of millions of listeners day in and day out---and the advertising revenue that generates to boot---this moral contract has no validity and the warped notion that two-week suspensions somehow is “appropriate” takes root.

 

The women; the Black student athletes of Rutgers women's basketball team by virtue of their excellence on the basketball court and being students at one of the most esteemed academic institutions in the country have, on their end, acted in good faith. Now it is time for society, the Black community, CBS, MSNBC to be true to their end of the pact.