That is what I am calling the latest campaign organized by both the NAACP and the HSAN to bleep out certain words within hip hop music when they are broadcasted on the airwaves. (read what I just said again and let that sink in)
What happens when someone purchases the album? Or how about the “uncensored” video?
(tvweek.com) Upset about the way African Americans and especially women are portrayed in music and music videos, the NAACP is unveiling a campaign to get cable TV, radio and music companies and recording artists to “stop demeaning African American images in the media.”
[...]
Stefanie Brown, national director of the NAACP’s Youth & College Division, said the yearlong campaign will attempt to work with artists, recording companies and the media. She said the portrayal of women in rap music was a big target, suggesting they “objectivize” and demean women.
Mr. Hayes said the NAACP wasn’t blasting media companies because it hopes to work with them and with artists. NAACP wants the artists, record companies and media companies to pledge to do a better job of portraying African Americans. (source)
#
(myhot105.com) In a joint statement, rap mogul Russell Simmons and Benjamin Chavis of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network said the group of business and community leaders is concerned about the growing outrage over the use of offensive words by both musical performers and on-air personalities.
“We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words ‘bit**’ and ‘ho’ and the racially offensive word ‘ni**er,’” they said.
“Going forward, these three words should be considered with the same objections to obscenity as ‘extreme curse words.’”
The two said the recommendation wasn’t about censorship.
“Our discussions are about the corporate social responsibility of the industry to voluntarily show respect to African-Americans and other people of color, African-American women and to all women in lyrics and images,” they said. (more…)
Translation: “Whitey, we are asking you to censor our demeaning behavior. Because if we were to FULLY admit that we are the originators of this material, we will not be able to hold perpetual guilt over you.”
This whole thing has taken a very sickening turn. As I have said many times before, while we regularly boast in our ability to “tell it like it is“, when it comes to confronting the dark side of hip hop we cannot accept blame unless Whites are portrayed as EQUAL co-conspirators. That is the equivalent of a grown, rusty, dusty behind man stating in court “Well, he made me do it”.
I say, let’s put the moniker of “strong Black man” or “strong Black woman” to the test. If we are serious that we want to rid the airwaves of “offensive” music, let’s stop listening to it (that includes legal and illegal copies of these CDs)! And please don’t bring up the partial statistic about how more Whites than Blacks listen to hip hop music. Of course they do because we only make up 13% of the population. Do you really believe that our kids are listening classical music instead? Of course not! Our lil’ 13% is right smack in the middle of the listening audience. If we are going to be real about this issue, then let’s boycott any radio station that plays this type of music or stores (INCLUDING ONLINE MUSIC STORES) that sell this music. How about stop going to concerts where this type of behavior is glamorized? Or how about comedy shows where the same ills of Black America we consistently and angrily blame White America for becomes bust–yo–gut, roll on the floor, holla’n material? The sad reality is that many of us lack the real guts and courage our parents and grandparents had when they boycotted against White establishments during the civil rights era. They were willing to face police dogs and fire hoses while this generation begs the White establishment to help US to stop demeaning ourselves.
[exhale]
I think what really sets me off about this issue is that I know that there are many of you out there who agree with what I am saying here, but you prefer to be a fence sitter on the issue–lest you are accused of “beating up on your race”. So in your conversations on and offline you say just enough to stay “safe”. Occasionally you may chime in related conversations by admitting that we as Black folks have been wrong for falling asleep at the wheel when it comes to our kids. But you quickly have to follow it with a jab at the White man, lest you sound like the “heartless” Bill Cosby. Having worked with at-risk kids for a number of years, the one thing they appreciate is when grown folks like me would tell them the truth STRAIGHT UP! They did not want a social commentator–they wanted someone that not only love them enough to tell them the truth, but will show them how they can become better human beings. One of the worst things we could do for our kids in this situation is to lead them to “whitey” for a demonstration on how to censor OUR behavior. This is EXACTLY what both the NAACP and HSAN are doing with this latest campaign.
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April 24th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Let me start by saying I agree people need to get off the fence. However, how can we clean up hip hop without first cleaning up the community. BTW don’t they already bleep out those words on the radio. Why is it demeaning when it is rappers but okay when the rolling stones have strippers on stage at every concert. Where was the outrage over “Brick house” a song completely about a woman’s body. Or over “I be stroking” (Clarence Carter) This outrage over music is not new. Elvis was going to destroy the world because he shook his hips. (some not all) Hip hop is a product of the environment in which it was born. We are a highly sexualized society. Look at prime time TV. Almost every show has a least one sex scene or joke about sex. I don’t hear the call to ban all TV. But Hip Hop is the big black man that is causing all the problems in the world. That is a bunch of BULLSHIT!!!! now censor that.
April 24th, 2007 at 8:01 am
while we regularly boast in our ability to “tell it like it is“, when it comes to confronting the dark side of hip hop we cannot accept blame unless Whites are portrayed as EQUAL co-conspirators. That is the equivalent of a grown, rusty, dusty behind man stating in court “Well, he made me do itâ€.
Saudia,
Our kids are not listening to the Rolling Stones or Elvis. They are listening to music that we produce and fund.
Where I do agree with you is how bleeping out something doesn’t come close to solving the issue they are trying to address.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:53 am
“I honestly feel it’s a lot more important things [to worry about],” T.I. said last week in his Grand Hustle Studio in Atlanta. “If you want to fix America, you have to start at George Bush and work your way down — you can’t start at hip-hop and work your way up. Me, I got children and I’m with my children every day I can be there. They know if they call somebody out there a name, if they disrespect a woman, if they do anything to imitate a 50 Cent or a Snoop Dogg or a T.I. or what they see on MTV — they can’t blame that on hip-hop. They gonna have to deal with Daddy. [Some] parents let their children blame it on hip-hop. I think that’s the beginning of the problem, personally. I think hip-hop is being used as the scapegoat.”
Fat Joe took a similar tack. “I know that Don Imus did not disrespect those young ladies because of hip-hop music,” Joe said last week. “I’m 99 percent sure that he doesn’t even listen to hip-hop like that. Everybody who’s taking on hip-hop music are the same people who are just looking for a moment or window of opportunity. This is their moment to say, ‘F— hip-hop.’ I don’t know how a 60-year-old white dude has any relation to hip-hop music. What we need to know is there is freedom of speech: That’s the biggest thing. My kids listen to hip-hop, they love Dipset, they love gangsta rap. But they also do great in school.
“Being that I’m a father and I take great pride in having a relationship with my kids,” he continued, “they can listen to hip-hop and understand the difference between reality and entertainment. Some of these parents, if they don’t want their kids to listen to hip-hop, tell them to listen to gospel [music]. Play some other kind of music! It ain’t like anybody is forcing people to listen to hip-hop.” source
April 24th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
we also produce and fund the situations that create some of the things being said. How many times have your been out with your wedding ring on a woman approached you. How many times have you seen a female with skirt up her butt dropping it like it was hot. Please if women want to be respected they must first respect themselves. It pisses me off to no end that we have allowed this white boy(Imus) to come in a stir a pot and absolve him self of responsibility.
April 24th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I have to state this: Mos Def, Talib Kwalle (sp), Speech from Arrested Development, Quest Love, Common Sense, and some others, have stated a few times how record company execs have come to them stating they had to be more “hard core.” They held their ground but others didn’t.
If some of those execs are white, and they are, then what?
I think a multi-pronged “attack” is the only thing that is going to work and it includes going after the suits with pickets. It includes buying stock and making a ruckus at the stock holders meetings. It includes going after the radio companies (Radio One, Clear Channel, etc). It includes parents saying kids can’t buy certain things.
Ordinarily, I’d just use the latter, but lessons need to be taught with many hickory switches.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I guess personal accountablity is just never the answer. Until we address the situations that produce the people that behave in this manner you can picket until you wear holes in your shoes and nothing will happen.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
The thing I find interesting about this effort by the NAACP and HHSAN
is the suggestion of a disconnect between authentic Hip-Hop (incl. Rap music) and what’s presented as Hip-Hop by commercial media. I’ll give a Russell Simmons (some) credit for running a label whose artists’ lyrics certainly weren’t as notorious and potentially offensive as those featured by other, larger companies. DefJam, of course, is now part of one of those larger media conglomerates, so Simmons’ voice should illustrate the relationship between artists, labels, and media outlets is far more intricate than conventional wisdom suggests. The Talib Kwelis and Commons are being produced; their production is often judged not commercially viable by the Sony-BMGs, Viacoms and ClearChannels. We should be real about who really controls what enters the public sphere if we’re going to attempt its mediation. L’il Jon and Bun B don’t own any radio or TV stations.
I’m not a big fan of bleeping words for two reasons: 1) it insults the audience’s intelligence; 2) any list will inevitably become too unwieldy to enforce efficiently. But I think it has potential as a somewhat practical compromise where art and commerce intersect in a free society. Bleeping lyrics is already commonplace along with ‘clean’ radio/video edits, so all Simmons is talking about is adding words to be bleeped. Again, adding more words for bleeping seems kind of silly to me but the basic idea does have (some) merit as a political exercise.
Unfortunately, there are those people out here who are set on addressing this issue as a front in the culture wars. I fear that attitude will prevail to work against our best interests in the long run.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
The thing I find interesting about this effort by the NAACP and HHSAN
is the suggestion of a disconnect between authentic Hip-Hop (incl. Rap music) and what’s presented as Hip-Hop by commercial media. I’ll give a Russell Simmons (some) credit for running a label whose artists’ lyrics certainly weren’t as notorious and potentially offensive as those featured by other, larger companies. DefJam, of course, is now part of one of those larger media conglomerates, so Simmons’ voice should illustrate the relationship between artists, labels, and media outlets is far more intricate than conventional wisdom suggests. The Talib Kwelis and Commons are being produced; their production is often judged not commercially viable by the Sony-BMGs, Viacoms and ClearChannels. We should be real about who really controls what enters the public sphere if we’re going to attempt its mediation. L’il Jon and Bun B don’t own any radio or TV stations.
I’m not a big fan of bleeping words for two reasons: 1) it insults the audience’s intelligence; 2) any list will inevitably become too unwieldy to enforce efficiently. But I think it has potential as a somewhat practical compromise where art and commerce intersect in a free society. Bleeping lyrics is already commonplace along with ‘clean’ radio/video edits, so all Simmons is talking about is adding words to be bleeped. Again, adding more words for bleeping seems kind of silly to me but the basic idea does have (some) merit as a political exercise.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I guess personal accountablity is just never the answer.
On the “artist” side there is no reason except for personal values to be personally accountable when money is being put in your face NOT to be accountable.
Many people have gone to offending rappers and asked them to behave better to only have the rappers laugh, rattle off economic figure$, and then, rhetorically, give them the finger.