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
FANTASTIC...good for them! I wonder if Bill Cosby's criticisms over the last several months could be bearing fruit.
During the campaign.The Ketchup King expressed a strong
admiration for "hip-hop"...so it must be good.</sarcasm>
About time.
Great news!
Good to see that something like this is happening and that it is starting from within.
I seriously doubt that all of the damage done by rap music to America's young will ever be undone. Though it would be nice if it could be halted soon.
I have substitute taught for the last several years and have seen the effects of this garbage, as low as the elementary level, in small-town America. It has been both immensely frightening and immensely saddening.
Mel Watt, a black congressman wrote to Harry Reid, suggesting his criticism of Clarence Thomas was racist and ought to have been based on issues not personal attacks.
FOX NEWS.com: London - "MUSLIM EXTREMISTS PREACH VIOLENCE IN EUROPE" by Steve Harrigan (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "He's called Sheik Terra. With a Koran in one hand and pistol in the other, the British rapper calls for the murder of non-Muslims, including several world leaders, on a videotape.") (November 29, 2004) (Read More...)
A Discussion on FREEREPUBLIC.com: "PRINCE'S NEW MUSIC VIDEO SHOWS ARAB AMERICAN GIRL BLOWING UP CROWDED AIRPORT TERMINAL" (October 8, 2004) (Read More...)
They just now realized this.... after an A&F ad? Where was their minds for the last 10 years?
Maybe I'm wrong.....
According to Jesse Lee Peterson and others, that's part of the problem. Black men hate women because they're brought up in fatherless homes by irresponsible mothers.
It's great that these women are taking a stand, but it won't do a lot of good just to condemn bad language/behavior by men. They also need to promote virtuous behavior by women and girls.
That's going to be difficult in the face of gubmint's economic reward for immorality. Responsibility is not required of either gender. Societally, economic benefit trumps moral taboo(s).
True, the financial incentives make it more difficult to influence behavior positively, but that doesn't mean they can't try. If educated and successful women can't take a stand, and say, "If you want respect, put some clothes on, watch your mouth, and don't have sex with men you aren't married to," then they'll have no influence for good.
Nobody's going to pay attention to women saying, "We're going to dress like sluts, talk like truckers, and sleep with any man who's got a little money ... but don't you dare call us 'ho's!" (No offense intended to truckers :-).
"Essence has a year-long strategy that includes a town meeting at Spelman College in February."
So, Essense magazine thinks it is going to take on the violent, greedy, entrenched, huge money-making hip-hop industry by having a town meeting? LOL
They're just figuring this out now, in 2005? Better late than never, I guess, but jeez, what a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies.
If you take the "shock factor" out of pop music what have you got left? Very little, I say--you wouldn't be able to sell that crap.
That's true. Men actually do want to love women and do like to idealize them. But it's impossible to do either when the women are not worthy of respect.
Many of the black women I know are indeed worthy of respect--they're hard-working, faith-filled, beautiful Christian ladies who are truly "steel roses," at once strong and feminine. But too many others behave like skanks, having four abortions and having all of their illegitimate children by different fathers. How can men respect that? If these women ever said "no" to their men, they would receive more respect.
The trouble is, they have to say no as a group. Because if the individual woman says no to the individual man, he just moves on to a member of the Immoral Majority, the women who are more willing. If the women of America were to stand up as a group and say no--no to immoral behavior, no to low expectations, no to ugly, unfeminine behavior--they might start getting some of the engagement rings they aren't able to get now.
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