Don and Delores
Where were you when she led the charge?
In view of the fact that it took the recent comments by Don Imus to draw national attention by our so-called leaders to the misogynistic lyrics common in hip-hop music and culture, I question why an earlier effort went almost unnoticed.
For years the late C. Delores Tucker waged a passionate national campaign against obscenities in rap music. The political and social activist focused a spotlight on rap music in 1993, calling it “pornographic fifth” and saying it was demeaning and offensive to black women. She was mainly left out in the wilderness by the very same protesters who are so forceful today. Is it because they didn’t want to share the spotlight with a black woman?
C. Delores Tucker passed out leaflets with lyrics from gangsta rap CDs, urged people to read them aloud, picketed stores that sold the music, handed out petitions and demanded congressional hearings. Where was her support from the men who are campaigning against it now?
Why did it take so long for women to recognize the obvious hatred of their gender expressed in rap videos? Why haven’t more women become furious at being continually depicted as sluts willing to do anything for a chance to be with a young man with money and a flashy car and jewels?
I believe, C. Dolores Tucker, who passed away October 12, 2005, had the right idea when she picketed the record stores, but I think she did not go far enough. I propose she should have begun a selective buying campaign targeting the recording artists and their labels. During the civil rights years, African Americans used buying power as political leverage in the struggle for equality.
Women constitute the largest of today’s consumer markets, crossing ethnic and sexual preference groups, and influences over 80 percent of dollars spent. Can you imagine the impact females can have on the recording industry if mothers did not allow their sons and daughters to buy what is considered music that is denigrating to women?
Ethnic women will have more than $1 trillion in buying power by 2008, according to a study from Packaged Facts, and the 32 million African-American, Hispanic and Asian women in the U.S. have a combined $723 billion in purchasing power. That population will grow to 36 million by 2008. A consumer boycott can be overwhelmingly effective.
Women should adopt the strategy of The Black Feminist Movement. The purpose of that movement was to develop a theory which could adequately address the way race, gender, and class were interconnected in their lives and to take action to stop racist, sexist, and classiest discrimination; but then came hip hop and gangsta rap. No group other than black women has sat in silence while being constantly dehumanized for so long a time.
I think that after years of letting rap videos define them as skin-revealing harlots, black women have decided enough is enough. In April 2004, the women at Spelman College in Atlanta demonstrated they were tired of being referred to as B’s and H’s and freaks. And in April 2005, a conference on feminism and hip-hop drew thousands to the University of Chicago.
Women have demonstrated considerable leadership in community and informal organizations, as well as in public office, and it is time they took the leadership position in the fight against pornography and other harmful material to women, children and families. Women are without question the dominant sex in our society, and have determined the course of events and the forms of human culture. They have originated, founded, governed, created great art, fought for our rights, and for our peoples, and it is now time for them to rid our community of misogyny or overt sexism. It is the truest form of woman power. Women must openly display their ability, knowledge and skill, and that time is now.
I can be reached by fax at (314) 837-3369 or by e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net.