Posted on 01/03/2005 2:09:53 AM PST by kattracks
The most successful black women's magazine, Essence, is in the middle of a campaign that could have monumental cultural significance.Essence is taking on the slut images and verbal abuse projected onto black women by hip hop lyrics and videos.
The magazine is the first powerful presence in the black media with the courage to examine the cultural pollution that is too often excused because of the wealth it brings to knuckleheads and amoral executives.
This anything-goes-if-sells attitude comes at a cost. The elevation of pimps and pimp attitudes creates a sadomasochistic relationship with female fans. They support a popular idiom that consistently showers them with contempt. We are in a crisis, and Essence knows it.
When asked how the magazine decided to take a stand, the editor, Diane Weathers said, "We started looking at the media war on young girls, the hypersexualization that keeps pushing them in sexual directions at younger and younger ages."
Things got deeper, she says, because, "We started talking at the office about all this hatred in rap song after rap song, and once we started, the subject kept coming up because women were incapable of getting it off their minds."
At a listening session that Weathers and the other staffers had with entertainment editor Cori Murray, "We found the rap lyrics astonishing, brutal, misogynistic. ... So we said we were going to pull no punches, especially since women were constantly being assaulted."
They were inspired by a campaign that some fathers and daughters led against Abercrombie & Fitch demanding that half-clad young people no longer be used to sell the clothing. When the campaign succeeded, the Essence staff realized there is a serious problem in the world of advertising as well as music.
"When we started this," Weathers said, "all the editors came together. We formed a music committee - staff volunteers who did the research and then focus groups of women and men of all ages.
"Then in April, there was the demonstration at Spelman College in Atlanta. The young women - supported by the men at Morehouse, by the way! - told the rapper Nelly that they didn't want him on campus because his work was too insulting.
"We realized that, my God, we were right on point! What we were feeling and what we were finding out in our research was all correct. It was time. Women were no longer going to sit still."
Essence has a year-long strategy that includes a town meeting at Spelman College in February.
Things are getting hot. This is a beginning that has been a long time coming, and it is good to see it all forming naturally with the women in the lead.
Originally published on January 3, 2005
I also know good, respectable black women and black men. But they're a minority statistically (over 70% of black children illegitimate) and morally. Maybe they're trying to take a stand against the degradation of their community; certainly it's difficult even for middle-class suburban white people!
It's no surprise that hip-hop performers despise women - they're treated like Saudi princes because they have money and fame. In their experience, women will do anything for money, and there's nothing respectable about that!
I'm not into hip hop/rap per se I'm more into guitar based music, being a guitar player and all, but there is a lot of very cool hh/rap music out there. I can totally get into someone rapping over a cool beat but I cannot deal with the attitude or the subject matter, which seems to populate 95% of the popular rap. Of course, I don't seek it out so all I hear is the popular stuff.
Hypocrisy from the pages of Essence Magazine! Anyone who has read it knows what I'm talking about.
While I have no problem with the editors of Essence finally getting off of their collective haunches to do something about it, I get the impression that they "discovered" this all on their own, and that they feel that this is a new thing. Where were they months ago when word of this first started to show up?
Oh. I know. Busy advising women on how to bash and alienate their men in yet another article that aped Cosmo and all the other women's magazines out there.
Feh.
Women's magaines are really appalling these days. Read the headlines on the covers and you'd think they were sex manuals or something. That, and the focus on looking pretty, diet, and fashion - nothing at all intellectual or practical. There's a few like Better Homes or Family Circle that actually have intelligent articles. I'd hate to think of a younger generation of women seeing this stuff and thinking that looking good is the only important thing is life.
They don't seem to be a bastion of traditional values, do they?
I don't get that impression. I DO know they WHINE. Two things you can count on when reading Essene Magazine is readers whining about white women and bashing black men, well three things and telling readers to vote democrat (even though the editor didn't expressly SAY it in that fashion). You have to look HARD to find a sentence about Condi Rice but they laud a convicted terrorist murdered like Winnie Mandela. Boggles the mind.
yeah, let me guess who they're lashing out at *didn't read past the title*: the Jews in the entertainment business for making so much money by promoting this medium, right?
I looked at their website. The lead article about Vivica A Fox mentioned that she "slimmed down" from size 8 to size 4! Weren't black women supposed to have a healthier concept of size?
Hollyweird does strange things to people. It certainly isn't a healthy place to be employed either.
BTW, whatever some people make up for ignoring the gay fashion mafia's dictates of appearance, they have other issues which is another thread altogether.
WHY NOT
hook that hottie
A handsome stranger walks by, and the cat's got your tongue. If flirting flusters you, try this strategy: Signal that you're approachable with a genuine smile. Make eye contact, and let your gaze linger. If he holds your gaze, approach him and introduce yourself. A question or a compliment will break the ice.
(And then you can spend the night with him, pick up HIV, and complain that men don't respect you.)
I see you noticed that the fashion industry is run by people who are turned on by 13-year-old boys!
Honestly, I feel guilty about reading celebrity news. These people are so unhappy; it's like staring at auto accidents!
I used to buy a lot of fashion magazines. The more I shut myself off from dominant lamestream media the better I feel :-) The schadenfreude value of watching moviestars who think they know it all screw up is worth it.
Wow! Whatta a great site for grieving men ruined by truly awful females of the feminazi variety! Thankfully, they are all not like that. My experience with les femmes has been very good to great, thank goodness.
I just posted it for entertainment. I'm happily married.
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