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January 03, 2005

Women Oppose the Misogyny in Rap Music

For over a decade, rap music has used lyrics praising hostility of all different kinds—drive-by shootings; drug-dealing; cop-killing; and many kinds of hostility toward women. Anyone objecting has been told that they are violating the rappers’ freedom of speech. This has always been a disingenous argument. No one wants to make it illegal for people to say obnoxious things. They have the legal right. But others have the equally legal right to ask them to stop being unpleasant.

Finally, a group of people is speaking up that cannot be intimidated by the spurious freedom-of-speech argument. Essence Magazine is opposing the attacks made by rap music on women:

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.

...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.”

...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.