EdRhymes’ blog

Note: This is the second of two parts

Singing Soprano, While Dissin’ the Bass: America’s White Thug Love & Ethnically Acceptable Violence Part 2

Fade To Black

The late 60’s and early 70’s brought the Black variation on some of the themes contained in the earlier gangster films. These gangster melodramas, with elements of social protest, were dominated by a single (male or female) charismatic personality. The genre contained stories of the pimp or pusher at a crisis point, caught between the needs of his people (Black Nationalism) and the pressure to sellout from “The Man.” Standout examples are Superfly, played by Ron O'Neal; and The Mack. Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Sweet Sweetback (1971) has been credited with kicking off the genre---Sweet Sweetback's Badaaass Song was fierce and uncompromising and deemed inaccessible to whites. Peebles went ahead and produced it anyway, financing it largely himself. Unable to show the film in many cinemas, he persuaded a few black cinemas in Detroit, San Francisco and New York to show it. The response was incredible. Black people in droves went to see what was, essentially, the tale of a promiscuous black antihero as he made his way towards Mexico to evade the white police. Peebles wrote his own score and enlisted the assistance of the newly-formed group called Earth, Wind and Fire who happened to be friends with one of his production crew. Black Caesar (1973), starring Fred Williamson, was modeled on 1931's Little Caesar and needed only slight color tweaking to attract a new (and predominantly Black) audience. Blaxploitation films have been criticized for glorifying criminal behavior and perpetuating negative stereotypes, but the genre seldom gets credit for addressing issues and concerns relevant to the overlooked urban/inner-city demographic.

In the 1990s several Black directors explored issues of urban justice through stories of children growing up in urban America. Films such as Boyz N the Hood brought vivid images of disenfranchised and violent neighborhoods and the obstacles involved in growing up in these neighborhoods. These films questioned whether the criminal justice system works in neighborhoods isolated from both the creation and the protections of the legal system, and where the rules of the criminal justice system sometimes collide with the rules of the neighborhood justice system. In this same time period, Hollywood released many more films directed by Blacks, films such as Ernest Dickerson's Juice (starring Tupac Shakur and Omar Epps), Allen and Albert Hughes Menace II Society, and Spike Lee's Clockers.

Though some of these flicks have enjoyed cult status, they received castigation and criticism that the “classic” films which portrayed whites as the gangsters, criminals and thugs rarely received---John Singleton’s Boyz-N-The Hood stands out (and mostly alone) in receiving critical acclaim while portraying inner-city violence.

The Scarface Generation

Perhaps no film has made more of an impression on what would later become gangsta rap than the 1983 film Scarface---the name Scarface, and its many variations, can be found in scores of songs and albums (as well in artist and group names). It stars Al Pacino as Tony Montana, a Cuban-immigrant who shoots and kills his way to the “top” to become the head of a powerful and brutal drug empire. It also, in my opinion, far-and-away one of the most explosive and bloody films in the history of the gangster-film genre. Four short years later, LA-based rapper Ice T emerged with his album Rhyme Pays (1987) which depicted hardcore street-life. In 1988 N.W.A.'s (Niggaz With Attitude) underground album Straight Outta Compton firmly established gangsta rap within the American music scene. Its keynote track F*** Tha Police was considered so shocking that radio stations and MTV refused to play it. Nonetheless, the album went platinum. N.W.A. and gangsta rap's popularity was compounded with the release of their second album EFIL4ZAGGIN in 1991, which debuted at number two in the Billboard chart with neither a single nor a video and became the first rap album to reach number one. Snoop Dogg then became the first rapper to go straight to number one with his album Doggystyle (1993). The reliance on crime in the lyrics of gangsta rap fuels much of the controversy surrounding the musical style. And while it has been criticized for glorifying the negativity of the streets, gangsta rap's defenders claim that the rappers are simply reporting what really goes on in their neighborhoods. In other words they are telling a story through their specific cultural and experiential lens---this is not an endorsement of gangsta rap, but rather an attempt to properly contextualize the genre.

Conclusion

Granted, the high profile scandals and tragedies that have accompanied some of the biggest names in rap and gangsta rap adds fuel to the charges of it being too violent--- such as the trials of Sean “P Diddy” Combs and Snoop Dogg and the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls). Nevertheless, I remember gangsta rap in its infancy (before any of the aforementioned incidents took place) and condemnations of its ultra-violent lyrics and persona were being voiced even then. Hypocritically, the bloody Genovese and Colombo crime family wars were taking place in New York in the early 70’s (when the first two Godfather movies were released) and a correlation between that reality and The Godfather was not made. Neither was any strong assertion made concerning Brian DePalma’s Scarface glorifying and promoting the actual cocaine-financed mafia that was on the rise in the 80’s.

In American popular culture and in the consciousness of the American public, real and media white violence and crime is deracialized. For example, when the tragedy occurred at Virginia Tech there was a flurry of questions about how it would impact people’s views of Korean Americans. Was that question asked in regard to whites when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City? What about Columbine? Or Ronald Gene Simmons? For every Cho there is 10-15 Bundys, Gacys, Specks and Dahmers, and yet there is no condemnation of white culture (nor should there be) or a feared backlash against whites because of the actions of a notorious few. The same can not be said of Black folk and other people of color. Our problems and concerns are usually treated as some sort of racialized pathology, whereas white indiscretions and transgressions are viewed as the innocuous and colorless “societal” or “social” ill---detached and divorced from whiteness. On a related note, Salon.com’s headline story, about the Sopranos, for Saturday June 9, 2007 is titled: “Our Favorite Murderer.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude. Although, as a principle, I am against a great deal (if not most) of the violent messages that is being transmitted through some films and music, that does not prevent me from gleaning powerful ideas, concepts and perspectives from those same films and forms of music (The Godfather, N.W.A, Scarface and [pre-Barbershop] Ice Cube included). The sexism and carnage, that I am opposed to, in The Godfather, does not blind me to depth of the characters and the complexity of the plot. Likewise, the misogyny and violence, that I abhor, that is present in the earlier songs of gangsta rap (I can not embrace anything or anyone in the current field), does not negate the fact that those artists did bring to the forefront many issues and concerns of the Black community---such as racial profiling, poverty, gang life and police brutality.    

So what is the point that I am trying to make here? I suppose that it is this: that if the problem or concern is violence in entertainment, then make the condemnation of it across the racial and ethnic board---no matter how sympathetic, charismatic or heroic they make the Michael and Vito Corleones, the Tony Montanas or the Tony Sopranos. Because, if the eradication of violence in entertainment begins and ends with Black faces and voices, then it is a strategy that is bound to fail. Or, if one believes that proper perspective and context must be used in critiquing these popular mafia films and series, that’s fine. However, don’t fail to apply that same drive for context and perspective when judging the music and messages that flow from a Black outlook. And finally, don’t divorce that critique from the long history of white ethnic violence in American cinema and popular culture that preceded and helped to influence that same outlook.

Note: this is the first of two parts

Singing Soprano, While Dissin’ the Bass: America’s White Thug Love & Ethnically Acceptable Violence Part 1

Introduction

As the popular HBO series The Sopranos winds down to a close; and the show’s stars make the rounds of talk & late-night shows, I find myself perplexed by America’s fascination with this program. Then again, why should I be? This is just another example of America’s propensity to embrace the glorification of violence and criminal activity in entertainment when those pulling the triggers and those doing the killing are white----A&E, which airs Sopranos reruns, just unveiled a commercial promoting the show and it shows a tractor exploding after the driver turns the key, a woman in an convenience store removing a bag of ice from a freezer and revealing the face of a murder victim and two kids beating a bicycle with baseball bats. This is accepted, ignored or celebrated. And so the decolorization of white violence in entertainment is achieved.

In that same vein, not too long ago AMC (American Movie Classics) was promoting a Godfather movie marathon and the promo consisted of scenes from the Godfather trilogy with gangsta rap playing in the background. Maybe they were just trying to reach a more contemporary audience, but whether knowingly or unknowingly AMC made a critical cultural & historical connection---a connection made by far too few people in this country. Many people, White and Black, continue to treat gangsta rap (and Black culture as well) as if it were not informed and shaped by the dominant culture’s values. Even a great deal of my white liberal & progressive brothers and sisters, seem to believe that Blacks in America hail from a different planet than they do---a planet that hasn’t been touched by this society’s long-standing history of glorifying violence and celebrating gangsterism. Indeed, most Whites believe that only Blacks have influenced Blacks and the diseases that are contracted from the defects in American culture have played no significant role in impairing or impacting the Black folk of this nation.

The Beginnings of White Thug Love

It can be argued that the beginnings of the deracialization of white violence in America began in the colonies when the Native Americans were portrayed as savages for acts that Whites were equally guilty of or acts of aggression that  would have been deemed self defense had the “aggressors” not been Native-American. However, I want to focus on the American romanticization of the white outlaw and gangster in popular culture and film.

One of the most powerful examples of this “whitewashing” of history and criminal activity is found in the legend of Jesse James.  The story of Jesse James remains one of America's most cherished myths... and one of its most erroneous. Jesse James, so the legend goes, was a Western outlaw, though, in fact, he never went west; was America's own Robin Hood, though he robbed from the poor as well as the rich, and kept it all for himself; and a gunfighter whose victims, in reality, were almost always unarmed.

Less heroic than brutal, James was in fact a product, from first to last, of the American Civil War; a Confederate partisan of expansive ambition, unbending politics and surprising cunning, who gladly helped invent his own valiant legend. A member of a vicious band of Missouri guerrillas during the war, James sought redemption afterwards. But as the American Experience production revealed, year by year, he rode further from it, redeeming instead the great and glorious memory of the Old South. In a life steeped in prolific violence and bloodshed, he met what was perhaps the most fitting end; like so many of his own victims, James himself was an unarmed man, shot in the back. Nevertheless we see his image romanticized time and again through various films (the most popular being the 1939 version starring Tyrone Power) and historical retellings. He is sensitively portrayed as the reluctant outlaw; the Confederate idealist who was pushed into a life of crime---in this description we see the interconnectedness of the media, popular culture and public perception in creating and buttressing America’s time-honored folktales. This is repeated in the tales of Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and so on.

The American Gangster in Early American Cinema

Of course Al Capone, by the end of the 1920s, was the quintessential symbol of American gangsterism. Capone was accepted as a force in American life that government was powerless to control; his mercurial rise to power in Chicago's underworld made him not only feared and hugely wealthy but a substantial political influence and an example of how a gangster could make a business asset of his reputation---a popularity and perceived charisma that is imitated in every popular gangster film. Other figures such as Bonnie & Clyde, the Barkers and Pretty Boy Floyd have all been sanitized and romanticized as well; giving them Robin Hood-like status in popular culture.

The mythologized gangster can only be understood in relation to the wider society, whether he is cast as a villain whose actions confirm the need for law and order or as an outlaw hero admired for the toughness and energy with which he defies the system---the “outlaw hero” perspective has to also be understood in its racial context as well. Let’s face it, Blacks who were hounded by even harsher social realities than White ethnics, never were or would be cast as “outlaw heroes” in the early days of film. The gangster films of the early 1930s use the rebellious figure of the criminal and the hierarchical structure of the criminal organization both to challenge and to ironize capitalism and the business ethic. Having made a career of illegality, the gangster functions as the dark double of 'respectable' society, undermining its claims to legitimacy and parodying the American drive to succeed; underworld activities image the injustices and vicissitudes of American economic life, with its illusions of upward mobility, its preoccupation with image-building and its hierarchy of exploiters and exploited.

Many types of criminal, from the urban white ethnic gangster to the poor farm boy who drifted into crime, acquire, in the Depression, cross-class and cross ethnic appeal (the best discussion of which is in Jonathan Munby’s Public Enemies, Public Heroes). Both types become symbols of a rebellion impossible for ordinary law-abiding citizens to enact. The heroic rebel image was reinforced by the Hollywood versions of the myth, featuring performances of great dynamism and energy.

Movie gangsters such as Cagney and Edward G. Robinson were heroes of dynamic gesture, strutting, snarling and posturing, possessing a blatant, anarchic appeal. Standing outside the law in a period when Depression America was cynical about all sources of moral authority, they possessed an awe-inspiring grandeur, even in death. At the same time, however, they were a reflection of legitimate society. The criminal big-shot, viewed in the distorting mirror of the satirist, is a parody of the American dream of success, ironizing the business ethic by the illegality of his methods as well as by his ultimate defeat; the inevitable fall of the big-time gangster creates a sense of entrapment in an economically determined reality. He is the victim of a society in which everyone is corrupt.

Warner Bros. was considered the gangster studio par excellence, and the “Big Three” of Warners' gangster cycle, all actors who established and defined their careers in this genre, included:

1.      Edward G. Robinson

2.      James Cagney

3.      Humphrey Bogart

Others who were early gangster stars included Paul Muni and George Raft. Three classic gangster films (among the first of the talkies) marked the genre's popular acceptance and started the wave of gangster films in the 1930s in the sound era. The lead role in each film (a gangster/criminal or bootleg racketeer of the Prohibition Era) was glorified but each one ultimately met his demise in the final scenes of these films, due to censors' demands that they receive moral retribution for their crimes. The first two films in the cycle were released almost simultaneously by Warner Bros.:

(1) Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar (1930) starred Edward G. Robinson as a gritty, coarse and ruthless, petty Chicago killer named Caesar Enrico (or "Rico") Bandello (a flimsy disguise for a characterization of Al Capone), who experienced a rise to prominence and then a rapid downfall; Robinson was the first great gangster star

(2) William Wellman's The Public Enemy (1931) starred James Cagney (in his first film) as a cocky, fast-talking, nasty, and brutal criminal/bootlegger named Tom Powers - most memorable in a vicious scene at the breakfast table where the scowling gangster assaults his moll girlfriend (Mae Clarke) by pressing a half grapefruit into her face. [Both are still in their pajamas, indicating that they spent the night together.] The finale included the door-to-door delivery of Cagney's mummy-wrapped corpse to his mother's house - the bandaged body falls through the front door.

(3) Howard Hawks' raw Scarface: The Shame of a Nation (1932), a Howard Hughes' produced film from UA starred Paul Muni as a power-mad, vicious, immature and beastly hood in Prohibition-Era Chicago (the characterization of Tony Camonte was loosely based on the brutal, murderous racketeer Al Capone). Other stars were George Raft (as his coin-flipping emotion-less, right-hand killer).

The ultra-violent, landmark film in the depiction of Italian-American immigrant gangsters included twenty-eight deaths, and the first use of a machine gun by a gangster. It was brought to the attention of the Hays Code for its unsympathetic portrayal of criminals, and there was an ensuing struggle over its release and content. The disturbing portrayal of irresponsible and anti-social behavior by the gangsters almost encouraged its attractiveness. [In tribute over fifty years later, Brian de Palma remade the film with Al Pacino in the title role of Scarface (1983)].

Eventually, two of the most successful gangland “Mafia” films ever made appeared in the 1970s with Francis Ford Coppola's direction of Mario Puzo's best-selling novel, The Godfather (1972), and The Godfather, Part II (1974). Both were epic sagas of a violent, treacherous, and tightly-knit crime family superstructure from Sicily that had settled in New York and had become as powerful as government and big business. Returning war veteran/son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) had to loyally follow in his father's criminal path, without questioning its legitimacy.

Both contained a number of brutal death scenes, including Sonny Corleone's (James Caan) flurry-of-bullets death at a toll booth in the first. Part II was the first sequel ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The third and final (this episode received far less critical acclaim than the previous two) installment in the trilogy was The Godfather, Part III (1990).

Director Martin Scorsese also explored the theme of family ties being torn apart by unpredictable violence. His intense films regularly starred actor Robert De Niro. Scorsese's “crime trilogy” included two mob pictures in the 1990s. The first film in the trilogy was Mean Streets (1973) - the one that established Scorsese's reputation. It was about the lives of aspiring, small-time crooks in the Little Italy section of New York.

The other two films were GoodFellas (1990) - adapted from Wiseguy, which followed thirty years in the lethally-violent criminal careers of rising mobsters and was based on the life of actual ex-mobster Henry Hill. And Scorsese's Casino (1995) examined a Mafia criminal dynasty making its presence known in a brutal takeover of 1960s-70s Las Vegas.

Although many of the gangsters in these films met with death and destruction, this did not prevent America’s love affair with them---the glorification of the white ethnic gangster in cinema became an American guilty pleasure. Indeed, the vast majority of these films are considered classic. Even though these glorified thugs flouted the law at every turn and committed despicable acts of violence, they were still cast as charismatic and strangely sympathetic figures. The audience and the American public somehow found itself subconsciously; as well as consciously, pulling for them.

If you watched Nightline this past Wednesday, you would have seen Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron go toe-to-toe with two hardcore atheists (in this writing I won’t be concentrating, much, on what they had to say). Before the debate, Ray Comfort boasted of being able to prove the existence of God without faith…. And that, in my opinion, was his fatal flaw. If it is impossible to please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6), then (in my opinion) it is impossible to prove His existence without faith.

Ray & Kirk would have served the cause of Christ much better had they focused more on faith. Hebrews 11: 1 states that “faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen”---and this phenomenon is not unique to the Christian experience. As a matter of fact, everyone, whether they be atheist, agnostic or believer, exercises faith in a thousand and one different ways each and every day. In faith, millions of people fly planes; ride buses and trains and drive automobiles with no guarantee that’ll reach their destination, and yet in faith, they still drive; they still ride; they still fly. In faith, millions of people fly in planes and never ask to see proof of the pilot’s license or certification, and yet without knowing; without seeing they still fly.

Everyday millions of people go outside of their homes and stick the keys of the car into the ignition and, in faith, expect it to start. Their cars may have started yesterday and the day before, yet they have no proof it will start today or tomorrow and nevertheless, in faith, they turn the key. In faith, millions of people make vacation plans, doctor’s appointments and various other plans for the future with no proof; with no guarantee that their plans will come to pass, but, in faith, they still plan.

The evolutionist tells us to have faith as well. According to their theory, they tell us that one species evolved into another one, knowing that in order for that to be true, we should have a multitude of evidence (the missing links if you will) that validate this transition. Yet, without us seeing one single fossil to prove this or seeing one species evolving into another, we are asked to “have faith” that their hypothesis is true.

We all exercise faith in a myriad of other ways. We can have faith in our human vision which can be faulty or deceived; in our ears that can be mistaken and deficient; in our own intellect and intelligence that can be limited, flawed or diminish with age and disease. We can even have faith in our own character or integrity even though, at times, we have fallen far short of our best ideals and stated values.

Additionally, most atheists do believe in love. Whether it is familial, friendship or an intimate relationship between lovers. A parent; a sibling; a friend; a lover says “I love you,” but what is the proof? The things that people usually list as evidence or proof, can be mimicked or feigned; the things that are ordinarily detailed are merely signs of what we believe love to be, not the source. On demand, no one can place a pound or ounce of love in another’s hand to prove its existence. So the recipient has to, in faith, accept the evidences of love as proof although they can not see the source--- for none of us, can fully know what’s inside another.  And yet, when all is said and done, we continue to give and receive declarations of love.

 So seeing that we ALL use faith to one degree or another; or in one way or another (whether we be Atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or otherwise) it has to be understood that it is not faith that puts us (Christians) at odds with our atheist neighbors, but rather in WHOM and WHERE we have placed our faith.

Nevertheless, before we bemoan what we perceive to be a “faithless” society, country or world, let us first look inward. The greatest proof of Christ should be a Christian; the greatest evidence of God should not be found in the stars, the trees or the mountains (although they do a pretty good job), but in the people who say they believe in Him. It should pain us to admit that we have done a very poor job, as a whole, of properly representing God. We don’t have to look any further than our lack of obedience; our lack of unity and harmony; and most regrettably, our lack of love. If it is our desire that people believe in God, then we must have love for God. Let us go forth and make the case for His existence by loving our neighbors as ourselves. And finally, let us strive to put His reality beyond dispute or contestation, by how much and how well we even love our enemies. Love never fails….. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Hello All,

I have added audio excerpts of some of my blog posts. Please take a listen and let me know what you think.

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 American misogyny (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 of my book and the 400^th year anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. This commemoration has even drawn Queen Elizabeth to our shores for this celebration. 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 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 final installment in the series.

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.

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 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.