Over at the Daily News, Stanley Crouch notes [1], regarding hip-hop…
The most successful black women’s magazine, Essence, is in the middle of a campaign that could have monumental cultural significance.
Essence is taking on the slut images and verbal abuse projected onto black women by hip hop lyrics and videos.
..
At a listening session that Weathers and the other staffers had with entertainment editor Cori Murray, “We found the rap lyrics astonishing, brutal, misogynistic. … So we said we were going to pull no punches, especially since women were constantly being assaulted.”
Come on, gang… I’ve written about this stuff for the last decade and more, in various venues. This stuff has been going on for well over a decade… and black women are just now figuring this stuff out?
And note the lean, here. Cops, Pols and other leaders have been under the same kind of verbal assault for a decade, now. (Can YOU say “Cop Killer?” Can You say “David Artest?”) All that’s OK, apparently. But suddenly to attack women per se’… That’s a major issue? Where the beep have you folks BEEN for the last 10 or 15 years, hmmm? Hell, these people have been attacking anything that doesn’t move too fast. That’s what it’s all about… Attacking Anything they can.
I mean, look, if it serves to clamp this business, I’m OK with it. I agree that we have reached crisis proportions. But we did that 15 years ago. Don’t let anyone jumping on this current bandwagon tell you they’re anything but late to the party, and therefore part of the problem.