We Must Use Hip Hop as a Means of Liberation, Not Degradation!

“If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.” Carter G. Woodson

As reported in the Grio, rapper Too Short created a storm of controversy when he offered the following advice to boys:

"When you get to late middle school, early high school and you start feeling a certain way about the girls... I'm gonna tell you a couple tricks," Too Short said in the video. "A lot of the boys are going to be running around trying to get kisses from the girls... We're going way past that. I'm taking you to the hole."

Then, the 45-year-old rapper, whose real name is Todd Anthony Shaw, asks women off camera to "cover their ears" to avoid being offended. Short then describes a scenario in graphic detail. "You push her up against the wall," he continued. "You take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens."

In response to the controversy, XXL and Too Short issued some lame apologies. Unfortunately, apologies are not good enough. 

This situation is emblematic of a larger problem. During Too Short's hay day, his brand of hip hop was at the fringes of the culture. It was one of many voices in the hip hop community. Around that time there were plenty of positive alternative mainstream artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Brand Nubian, etc.

Today, that is not true. Now, Too Short's brand of rap music is more acceptable.  Misogyny, crack dealing and murder are constantly glamorized in today's so-called hip hop.  The art can be summed up in four words: money, drugs, sex and violence.  Mainstream popular hip hop degrades and objectifies black women. Instead of respecting women as equals, women are reduced to scantily stage props to be used and abused. Instead being respected black women as sisters, mothers and wives, many black male rap artists routinely call them bitches, hoes, chicken heads, etc. Common hip hop expressions and slogans include misogynistic phrases such as "Gs up hoes down, bros before hoes, we don't love them hoes, money over bitches and treat her like a dog." By disrespecting our women, we are disrespecting ourselves and destroying our family structure. The destruction of the family structure perpetuates the destruction of the black community.

Although we do not control the corporations that project these negative images, no one is forcing these black male artists to degrade black women.  No one is forcing us to buy this crap.  In the words of Carter G. Woodson, the oppressor no longer has to be concerned about our behavior because our thinking has been controlled. Many of us have internalized and accepted an inferior status. Today, the white man is not disrespecting our women. We gladly do that ourselves. The white man is not the one calling us niggers. We gladly call ourselves that. We are the only group of people who proudly use our enemy's racial slur to describe ourselves. In the words of MF Doom, "what type of chitlins is that?"

Mr. Woodson is right. By purchasing and supporting such misogynistic and self destructive music and magazines, we are creating that proverbial back door for ourselves. At some point, we must take responsibility for the images that we allow to be projected. Just as we protest against bigots like Don Imus and Pat Buchanan, we should organize sustained protests against corporations and artists who humiliate our community.

I commend the efforts of ColorofChange. People who degrade black women should be fired. However, I don't believe that firing people is the solution to the problem. We need a social revolution, a revolution in values. The music industry, like most businesses, is driven by greed and money. As long as we demand and accept garbage, they will keep feeding it to us. If we stopped buying negative music and started supporting more positive artists like Mos Def, Common, The Roots and Talib Kweli, radio stations would be compelled by market forces to play such artists on the radio. Record labels would be compelled to sign and promote more positive artists.

Ultimately, we must own and control our music and our culture. We must use hip hop as a means of liberation. We must stop allowing corporations and their negro overseers to use our culture to destroy us.

This article is cross-posted on Jack and Jill Politics.

Why Don't We Honor Brother Malcolm X Like We Honor Rev. Dr. King?

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated. Our dear brother, like many before him, sacrificed his precious life so that we could be free. Without an alternative prospective such as his, the civil rights gains of the sixties would not have been possible. His ideas gave birth to the Black Power Movement, the Black Panther movement, the cultural nationalism movement and the Black Arts Movement.

Why don't we honor him as we honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King? Why don't we celebrate Malcolm X Day? Where are our Malcolm X monuments? More importantly, why aren't we continuing his bold, uncompromising legacy?

Republicans Resort to Race Baiting

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Yesterday on MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews discussed how Republican Presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are resorting to race baiting to secure votes from bigots.

The GOP's Message to Black People: Who Needs Niggers!

As reported on ABC News, a couple of weeks ago, Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich starked controversy when he said:

“And so I’m prepared if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”

ABC News also reported that Newt Gingrich repeatedly refers to the first African American President as the food stamp president:

"A portion of Gingrich’s usual speech given to crowds includes a line in which Gingrich says more people are on food stamps under President Obama than with any other president. ABC News fact checked Gingrich’s food stamp claims earlier this month, confirming that Americans on food stamps is at a record high, but mostly attributed to a weak economy.

“The fact is if I become your nominee we will make the key test very simple – food stamps versus paychecks. Obama is the best food stamp president in American history. More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history,” Gingrich said. “I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history.”

To top it all off, Newt Gingrich basically said that poor children, code for "poor black children", are lazy and shiftless:



On Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Newt Gingrich spent time defending his racist statements during the Republican Presidential Debate in South Carolina. The crowd's reaction was even more sickening than Gingrich's statements.

The crowd applauded when Newt Gingrich justified his bigoted statements. The crowd booed FOX news analyst Juan Williams for having the audacity to question Gingrich about the statements. Unfortunately, the crowd's response is a symptom of a larger problem.

As reported on Politics365, Newt Gingrich is not the only Republican candidate to make racist statements about African Americans:

"A second Republican candidate said: “I don’t want to make Black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to earn the money and provide for themselves and their families…”

A third Republican candidate for president published a newsletter in his 50s claiming that “racial violence will fill our cities” because “mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white ‘haves.’”

A fourth Republican candidate for the presidency signed a pledge claiming that African American children were more likely to grow up in stable families during slavery than in contemporary times.

A fifth Republican candidate said: “many African Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded to not even considering a conservative point of view…” two months ago."

The Republican Party's Southern Strategy to secure the redneck, racist white vote continues today. As long as it benefits them politically, Republican candidates will continue to label African Americans as lazy and welfare dependent. I would not be surprised if the candidates try to out racist each other while campaigning in South Carolina. After all, it is the heart of the Confederacy. In case you forgot, they proudly display the Confederate flag at the state capital to remind you.

Even worst than their racist statements, Republicans will continue to pursue policies that are detrimental to African Americans. The Republican Party's stances on affirmative action, health care reform, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, workers rights, voter identification requirements and other issues adversely and disproportionately impact black people.

As far as the GOP is concerned, black people are invisible, irrelevant and expendable. Republicans clearly don't give a damn about us or our issues. Through their policies and bigoted statements, the Republican Party is essentially saying to the black community, "Who needs niggers!"

This article is cross-posted on Jack and Jill Politics.

A Tribute to A King and A Movement!

Let's honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the movement by getting involved in the today's struggle for social justice!

Time to Boycott Lowe's?

America has evolved. At least in law and theory, discrimination is no longer acceptable. It is not longer acceptable to discriminated against African Americans, Jews, Catholics, women and the physically disabled. Nowadays, even the most rabid reactionaries try to avoid being labeled as racist.



However, it remains acceptable to discriminate against and to hate Muslims. Mainstream politicians openly express hatred against Muslims with impunity.

The most recent example of this hatred is the Lowe's situation. Under pressure from the Florida Family Association, Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse decided to pull advertising from the All American Muslim program on TLC. The Florida Family Association opposes the show the following reasons:

"The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish."

The Florida Family Association's argument is absurd. That is analogous to condemning the Cosby Show for excluding drug dealers, gangsters, buffoons, hoochie mamas, pimps, and "welfare queens" from the show.

In preparation for this article, I watched a couple episodes of All American Muslim. It is a wholesome family show. The viewers see mothers give birth, men coach football, boys play sports, families discuss business ventures, families dining together, people attending religious services and people working. We see Muslims, religious and non-religious, doing things that normal, ordinary people do. That is too much for the Florida Family Association.

They call it propaganda because it does not fit their narrow, stereotypical image of Muslims. The Florida Family Association does not want people to see positive images of Islam and Muslim like this.

Instead, the images below are what they want the world to see when they think about Islam and Muslims.

They can only envision Muslims as wife beating, turbaned, gun toting, suicide vest wearing maniacs. They cannot see Muslims as fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, police officers, doctors, coaches, business people or as patriotic Americans. As far as Florida Family Association is concerned, any attempt to portray Muslims as typical American citizens must be propaganda. This is no different from antisemitism. It must be condemned as antisemitism is condemned.

When Muslim groups complained about Lowe's decision to cancel advertising on All American Muslim, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Lowe's issued this lame "apology":

"It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective – social, political and otherwise – and we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy. We are sincerely sorry. We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, across our workforce and our customers, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment.

Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.

We strongly support and respect the right of our customers, the community at large, and our employees to have different views. If we have made anyone question that commitment, we apologize.

Thank you for allowing us to further explain our position."

If Lowe's truly supports diversity, it would not defer to bigots like the Florida Family Association. Lowe's should be ashamed of itself for bowing down to the demands of bigots.

All people of good will should urge Lowe's to reject bigotry. If Lowe's does not understand the language of tolerance and acceptance, maybe they will understand the language of money and boycott.

This article is cross-posted on Jack and Jill Politics.

Herman Cain's Minstrel Show Has Finally Come to an End!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Yesterday, Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain finally ended his minstrel show. Opps. I mean his campaign. Hopefully, this is the last time I will have to mention his name.