Macklemore, Hip-Hop and tolerance of homosexuals

Commercial hip-hop pro-gay tolerance song?

I have about a 40-minute commute going and coming from work.  I listen to a lot of music, and I do listen to the top 40 radio.  I heard this song a few days ago while driving and started to think about the impact of a hip-hop pro-homosexual tolerance.  I did not know at the time the song was sung by Macklemore.  His certainly does not sound like a white Irish guy from Seattle of all places – a place usually associated with grunge and relatively white compared to New York or La or Chicago.

Learning that Macklemore is a white man from Seattle should not be that surprising in that it is a rap song about supporting homosexual tolerance.  The black community has always seemed to have more issues regarding homosexuality.  Partially due to southern religious influence, partly to do with maintaining hyper-masculine persona, and partly because of the desire to have a hyper-masculine persona for a white audience (not wanting to appear weak or afraid, hyper-heterosexual) black as a demographic have largely shunned homosexuals.

The song nominated for a 2013 BET best “Impact  Track”  He won best group that year as well.  This year he was given multiple Grammys for “Best New Rap Artist” and “Best Rap Album” for “The Heist”.  According to the LA Times,

 “The controversy was immediate. The indie Seattle duo’s early wins sparked a trending topic on Twitter as outraged hip-hop purists and critics admonished voters for picking the pair’s work over albums from Drake, Kanye West, Jay Z and Lamar.”

In addition, to his win the rap category at the Grammy Awards, he also won “Song of The Year” for his song Same Love.

I find it, while not overly significant, interesting that Macklemore is a white male who is in what is still considered a black genre.  Perhaps that is one reason he felt able to speak out about the Homophobic hatred found in some rap/hip-hop music.  I am a little sad there is not a loud debate about women in rap/hip-hop music imagery and lyrics.  

I think that it is important to make the links between degradation of homosexuals and the degradation of women, especially in terms of the black experience in the United States.  Homosexuals are mainly denigrated in terms of the males being too much like females because they allow themselves to be penetrated and/or wear “women’s” clothes and makeup.  The question I ask is:  do you hate women that much that the lowest thing for a man to be is more or too much like a woman????

Black men have historically been feminized the United States.  Enslavement, minstrel theater, sexual violation and castration connected to lynching,  even the discourse concerning their hyper-sexuality are a feminizing phenomenon.  [See Eric Lott’s Love and Theft for a fascinating historical analysis of this process].  Racism continues to feminize black men in the United States.  Black men are represented less adequate as men because they are not as smart as white men, and not as able to provide for their families as white men.  It is perhaps this feminization which pushes rap/hip-hop artists to project a persona of hyper-violent, woman abusing masculinity.

If we want to make a difference as humans, we must question concepts concerning identities that rely on negative stereotypes and violence to perpetuate themselves.  I am glad that Macklemore spoke out of this problem, but it’s not just blacks or hip-hop rap fans that hold homophobic or sexist attitudes that are reflected in music and imagery outside of hip-hop and rap categories.  And we must break down the divisive categories that perpetuate this thinking.  I firmly believe this is the heart of conscious raising, and something entirely influenced by Fanon.  Fanon was an existentialist who hung around intellectual philosophy circles with the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir.  Fanon took seriously existentialist revolutionary ethics which emphasized the notion that we are all condemned to the same fate as humans which is the fact that we must make choices and that we will eventually die.  The process of categorizing humans through binary oppositional units like gay – straight, man – woman, black – white.  Is problematic in that it has historically been used as a discursive process in which one side is seen as “naturally better, more virtuous, smarter, braver, stronger that the other.

When we closely inspect humanity we find a significant divergence in terms of size, shape, skin/hair types, formation of genitalia, and ability across all of these categories that we think of as fixed stereotypes.  Boxing people into these kinds limit their ability to be something other than a stereotype.  At the same time, we are limiting our freedom to be something other than a stereotype.  Bigotry of all types is based on insecurity.  Those who are often the most vocal in their bigotry are the most afraid that they will be judged negatively if people knew who they really were.  Individuals who are secure and have self-love, do not feel the need to, but other people down is a power trip which locks both sides into a distracting battle.  We are all suffering. Maybe if we respected each other and were kinder to each other, we could end some of that suffering.

Contemporary art in Harlem Africa Omitted

Be of Our Space World, 2010

  Silk and Soul, 2007

“Robert Pruitt (b. 1975) is Houston-based artist well known for drawings, videos and installations dedicated to examination of the historical and contemporary experiences of African Americans. Robert Pruitt: Women includes nearly twenty large-scale conté drawings of black women. Combining elements of science fiction, hip-hop culture and comic-book graphics, each figure is at once politically charged, physically grounded and fantastic—a blend of willful self-determination and culturally conditioned myth.”

Late last summer I made a pilgrimage to Harlem.  One of the must-see stops was The Studio Museum Harlem.

At the time, Robert Pruitt was a featured exhibit in the Museum.  I was fortunate to see the above drawings up close as well as many others which were stunning and thought provoking.  The entrance information – posted in quotes from the museum website above- has a glaring omission.  Whether consciously, or not, the works certainly reflect West African aesthetics.   influence.  As with reviews of the 30 Americans  exhibit (see previous post) there are several ready references to West African art that are forgotten.

This Image of a bronze head from Benin circa 16th century is very reminiscent of the hair in the first drawing.  As well as the pose itself which is similar to the Egyptian figure perspective

The cloth pattern in the second drawing is similar to Kente cloth patterns as left –

The point is this.  There is a tendency in reviews of black American artwork to neglect to mention the fact that African influences persist.

From my research, I see this as a trend that started when the first West African objects (alternatively labeled at the time as first artifacts then art) are collected by Karl Stekelmann and then William H. Sheppard, (late 1800’s).  People like Sheppard used the objects on speaking tours to show that people in sub-Saharan Africa were skilled artisans.  He also seemed to believe that the objects showed that black Americans were superior to their African kin.  This is notion of black American superiority in comparison to sub-Saharan Africans can be seen in the writings of various black intellectuals at this time such as Alexander Crummell.

Perhaps West African aesthetics is not the central theme in Pruitt’s work, and there certainly are many other influences visible in his work.  However while negative attitudes concerning sub-Saharan Africans, much less the Diaspora, persist it seems highlighting cultural connections to sub-Saharan Africa would be something a place like The Studio Museum Harlem should do.

The denial of Racialized social realities has real consequences

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/justice/florida-loud-music-murder-trial/

Did Jordan Davis have a weapon? Attorneys spar in loud music murder trial

It’s not a real victory because the jury that convicted Dunn, 47, didn’t convict him for killing the 17-year-old Davis. They convicted him of almost killing Davis’ three friends who were riding in the Dodge Durango with him. They found Dunn guilty of three counts of second-degree attempted murder and one count of shooting deadly missiles. Each attempted murder count carries a minimum sentence of 20 years.

This case has similar overtones to the Travon Martin case with the accused (George Zimmerman) was acquitted of shooting an unarmed black teenager.  The defendant (Dunn) claimed that Davis had a visible weapon and was justified regarding using self-defense.  It is evident that Dunn was afraid of young black men.  The issue lies on whether Dunn or Zimmerman was justified in their vaguely paranoid fear of young black men.  The answer is clearly that these young black men were killed by guns and were unarmed themselves.  So concerning rightfully believing their lives were in jeopardy neither defendant can show just cause.  That these young men are dead is because these men were completely wrong about how dangerous they were.

These defendants are not alone in the fear of young black men.  Look at the statistics in terms of incarceration and race and we see that some who lack critical insight into the United States justice system, economic system, education system, and political system could say that so many black men are in prison today because they are dangerous.  The stereotypes of the lecherous, dangerous, criminal black man stretch in the United States back to the begins of Jim Crow in the late 1700’s.  Popular media then included the Minstrel Show,  cartoons, novels, advertising and a little latter photography.  Popular media today has many more outlets but still the major players in news coverage perpetuate the discourse of dangerous young black men, blacks themselves perpetuated this stereotype in various musical genera.  If you never talk to black people, never lived in a predominantly poor black neighborhood you could easily believe the hype.

It is not surprising that people like Dunn and Zimmerman still have an ignorant, irrational fear of young black men.  The political media and legal climate in this country makes sure to perpetuate these ideas.  Consider the controversy over the black NFL player who acted like a “Thug” when he bragged after the opposing player refused to shake his hand after the game.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/richard-shermans-rant-aga_b_4638270.html 

In fact two predictable things happened with him in the aftermath of the interview. The stereotypes flew fast and furious. Sherman was of course a “thug,” “dirtbag,” scum,” and “disgrace.” But make no mistake those were the genteel ones. The boing chorus heaped on him the racist favorites, “gorilla,” “ape,” “monkey,” and “animal. ” All the epithets were amply punctuated with the N-word.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson notes the predictable aftermath concerning how these two opposing players were described in the media frenzy that ensued.

My students sometimes say they don’t think about colour (only those privileged by whiteness say this) and that racism is not a problem anymore.  That is easy to say if you are not forced to think about your skin colour every day of the week because of your daily interaction with people who often only possess a negative stereotype to give them an idea of who you are.  Cops do not follow White people in the same ways black people in the United States are followed.  They are not followed around in stores when they shop: they are not shot for playing their music: they are not denied jobs only because of their skin colour: they are not economically disadvantaged by their skin colour.

I believe the dream of Fanon was a world in which did not matter so that the oppressed who are representative of all categories of gender, race, and class can work together to make the world a better place for everyone, not the privileged few.  We cannot come close to a “post-racial” world until we start to address these issues head on and talk about them in public as well as private.

Paula Deen Cooks Up $75 Million Deal With Investor

The answer to the question “can Paula Deen recover” from the uproar over her past use of the “n-word” is apparent yes.

Paula Deen is part of a growing company of open derogation of persons deemed “other” or “unacceptable” in the media recently.    Many should be aware of the debacle over Duck Dynasty.  Phil Robertson, a star of A&E’s “Duck Dynasty,” has been suspended indefinitely after slamming gays in a magazine interview. 

I want to believe that society is good enough not to reward hate, but the truth is these people make millions of dollars a year and so are granted the opportunity to propagate hatred served with a smile and a money making a product of some sort.

I don’t think these people deserve the amount of money they earn and would not participate in consuming their products willingly.  But I am not their target audience anyway.  I don’t even have cable television.  I rely on places like redit for lots of news and the BBC.

I do not think these people should be censored.  I do believe they need a lot of education, and I think people need to take the opportunity to talk about race and white privilege especially in the southern regions of the United States.

I teach at a small university in southeastern Virginia, and I can say for sure that my less educated white students who come from majority white small southern communities are not always comfortable with my discussions on race.  One student told me her grandfather was in the KKK and had a dog named “Sambo”.  There is a growing body of black students that take my class and I enjoy the opportunity to share some of their histories with them that others have forgotten to provide along their way.  I want all my students to know that while enslavement shaped the majority of the black American experience in serious ways (psychological, emotionally, ideologically, economically) there are great black intellectuals that everyone should read and that had incredible dreams.  One reason I enjoy my work is that it enables me to do much-needed work to break down radicalized discourse and thought processes.  Along with fluid of identity categories.

I do not think it is ethical to pay hateful “celebrities” millions of dollars, but if a firm chooses to do so, I can choose not to pay them money.  It might be time to use your dollars to vote, a tactic in line with events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

everyone should check this out

everyone should check this out

the sentencing project

wow – some subversive Fanonian agency

this is amazing and so poignant. as we celebrate valentine who martyred himself to bring lovers from different races into recognition [even if they were both white skinned] let us think of the love that so many people in prison do not receive.

A visit with Spike Lee

Last night I had the privilege of attending a black history month event organized by the “Black Student Alliance” https://gobblerconnect.vt.edu/organization/BSA  at Virginia Tech.  Mr. Lee was very down to earth and laid back and shared some encouraging stories from his life.  Do what you love was a central message he had to share.  I tell people this all the time, but they often think I’m weird.  I live off of very little money, often having to rely on the newest incarnation of food stamps, despite teaching at a University as an adjunct.  But I teach, and I love teaching more than anything I have ever done.  So it’s worth the low wages and poverty because I go to worked excited and leave excited.  Honor your family – Lee talked about how much his grandmother supported him through school.  He also spoke of the problems of being a black person in college.  He spoke of the peer pressure to fit into the lowest of expectations and the need to get good grades in school because of the competitive nature of the current job market. I know several people who work in kitchens and low-end retail jobs that have BA’s, MA’s, and Ph.D.’s – that should give you an idea of how difficult the job market is.  One student asked about making it through financial difficulties and people who tell you not to do what you love, or inform you that you cannot do what you love.  “F@#$! Them”.

All of the suggestions Lee gave of how to succeed and lived your life were spot on.  He focused a lot of the experience of being black in America but also of just being an American trying to make movies.  I am glad many people came out to see what Lee had to say. However, most of the audience were black.  Of course, I would expect a large black attendance, but this is an international award winning director who has made major box office hits with major stars in his movies.  Where were all the other people of various non-African classification, why were there empty seats in the hall?  Lee did take particular aim at the black experience tailor his comments wisely to his audience, but what he said applies to everyone.

I did get to ask a question of Mr. Lee. I mentioned the Samuel L. Jackson quote I wrote about previously. To see what he had to say, concerning the film not being makeable in America with a black director.   Lee first argued that it was every bit an American film.  When I noted as Jackson did that, it was with a British director.  He countered that the funding was American, and it was shot in the United States, and that Brad Pitt was an important resource for funding the project through his company Plan B.  It will be interesting to see if he can win the Oscar.  An Oscar, while it’s significance can be argued regarding art and aesthetics and selling out and so forth, it remains economically significant and publicly significant, and it is strange how few film coming from black directors win even though the same film won Oscar equivalents in a place like Britain or France.

Yes, that does seem to make it more American and not strictly a British directors film,  12 years a Slave is now even given the cache of having an Oscar nomination a very American institution.  However….  I think the real problem is not strictly the ability of black directors to get films made; indeed, Lee makes good money as a filmmaker.  We have to ask ourselves about the recognition that black directors receive from the media, the various film awarding institutions and the public at large.  Lee himself has received Oscar nomination, but he has won more often at international film events like Cannes, and from the British Academy of Film.  Interesting to note Steve McQueen has also won many international film awards.

This is why we still need to be having the conversations about race that Lee, McQueen and Jackson evoke- especially in the United States.

“He was the Du Bois of Britain,” Henry Louis Gates Gates Jr

“He was the Du Bois of Britain,” Henry Louis Gates Gates Jr

Jamaican Cultural Theorist Stuart Hall Dies at 82

Called the “godfather of multiculturalism,” the renowned sociologist succumbed to health problems.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/02/jamaican_cultural_theorist_stuart_hall_dies_at_age_82.html?wpisrc=burger

Samuel L Jackson: Hollywood Avoids Real Issues of Racism

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/samuel-l-jackson-hollywood-avoids-real-issues-racism-1434772

A friend posted this to Facebook today.

Jackson said the widely acclaimed film, which stars British-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, misses the point that Hollywood avoids the “real issues” of racism in modern US society.

Speaking to The Times, the actor said 12 Years A Slave only received funding because it was made by the British art house director Steve McQueen.

“I would think that if an African-American director went into a studio and pitched that particular film, they would be like: ‘No, no, no’.

“America is much more willing to acknowledge what happened in the past: ‘We freed the slaves! It’s all good!’ But to say: ‘We are still unnecessarily killing black men’ – let’s have a conversation about that.”

I think that Jackson makes some valid points, the fact that 12 years a slave comes from A black British director and not an black American points to continuing issues of racism in this country.  I agree more films need to be made documenting current events like the Travon Martin killing.  I disagree that a film like 12 Years a Slave misses the real issue of racism.

See my blog post about the importance of the film.

It is not hard to understand why McQueen made such a film if you know his previous art work (Steve McQueen has been a critically recognized visual artist in Britain for near two decades.  see: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/steve-mcqueen/#   Also we should recognize that the same equivilant of well known visual artist and director does not exist in the U.S. – not to say that the equivalent talent does not exist, but it tends to be less recognized mostly because it is less publicized.  This points to a fundamental issue for the U.S. in terms of racial issues, and one which marks the U.S. as a unique radicalized space.

Having lived in Britian for close to 10 years as a kid in the 80’s and an adult in 2005-2006 I see differences in the way race plays out.  This is not to say that British people do not have racial issues, but there are far more successful black British  visual artists than there are in the U.S., and this goes back to the historic roots of the U.S. which was founded as a country that had legal enslavement.  The U.S. had significantly more enslaved black people, and Britain had more free blacks before abolition given that even if they came to Britain as enslaved there were often possibilities of buying your way out of bondage – an option not given to the majority of enslaved black people in the U.S…

Perhaps when I see Spike Lee speak at Virginia Tech next week i will get to ask a question and I will perhaps ask if he thinks about making a Treyvon Martin film.

zero-sum – eonomics and enslavement

A libertarian friend of mine sent me this link – where David Henderson quotes Frederick Douglass.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/01/frederick_dougl.html.

“The old doctrine that the slavery of the black, is essential to the freedom of the white race, can maintain itself only in the presence of slavery, where interest and prejudice are the controlling powers, but it stands condemned equally by reason and experience. The statesmanship of to-day condemns and repudiates it as a shallow pretext for oppression. It belongs with the commercial fallacies long ago exposed by Adam Smith. It stands on a level with the contemptible notion that every crumb of bread that goes into another man’s mouth is just so much bread taken from mine. Whereas, the rule is in this country of abundant land, the more mouths you have, the more money you can put into your pocket, the more I can put into mine. As with political economy, so with civil and political rights.”

Henderson then writes

‘This is from the famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, November 17, 1864.  Douglass is taking on the idea that we are in a zero-sum game. If we were, it would be more understandable why some people would want others enslaved. What Douglass understands is that both sides gain from exchange.”

Comments made following the post point to how it is an argument against white privilege and that “people from different groups stand to gain from interacting with each other in non-coercive and mutually beneficial ways”

WHAT??????

Henderson seems to be missing the point.  Douglass is expressing that enslaved blacks do not make Anglo/Europeans richer or more free.  That giving enslaved people freedom does not mean that whites will become enslaved or less wealthy and so that it is not a valid pro-slavery argument.   Douglass is saying that more freedom for everyone is the result of the end of enslavement.  Douglass is arguing that there is no zero-sum game, but the emphasis is on the notion that giving rights and opportunity for economic prosperity to blacks does not mean that whites will lose their rights or opportunity.

One can argue that enslaved people benefited because more often than not the plantation owners tried to keep them alive with the bare necessities for living water, food, and shelter.  However, there is a real problem with this arrangement in that it is coercive.  Watch 12 years a slave to get some idea, or read Douglass himself for his accounts of being enslaved.  The first generation of West and Central Africans who started to arrive in 1618 were stolen from their home and sold like animals, which hardly seems like a good development for them.

Even if you want to argue that it is mutually beneficial, there is certainly a problem of who is benefiting the most and in what ways.  It is not difficult to see who benefited the most, the Anglo/European plantation owners, and by vast amounts.  This is the root of white privilege and a major obstacle in the way of race relations today.  White people often do not recognize just how much of a benefit it is to be “white.”  [Just look at the statistics concerning incarcerated men.  The majority of men in prison are black, and not because they commit more crime.  Rather black men targeted via racial profiling which means that white criminals tend to remain under the radar as well as often having better access to legal defense.]

One interesting take on this situation comes from Fanon and the notion of the master/slave relationship as a mutually constructive operation which is damaging to both parties.  The slave is defined by the master and at the same time the master is defined by the slave.  Fanon emphasizes in his work that both parties in the relationship suffer more than gain.  Those who enslave lose part of their humanity.  Those who restrict others freedom restrict their own freedom.

All in all, Douglass does use what could be considered Libertarian arguments for the abolition of slavery.  I think it is unfortunate that Douglass seems to be employed to support the idea that there is no white privilege and that enslaved people benefited from their captivity.  I do not think this use of Douglass is in the spirit of Libertarianism.