We both know that I not so secretly LOVE Kanye West. I’ve been promoting his new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, like I’m singing on one of the tracks. Lol. I’m sure my friends are sick of hearing me talk about it and most of them probably purchased it just to shut me up (it didn’t work). I love the album. I have so much respect for Kanye. BUT, in spite of all of that, I have a confession to make…
Sometimes, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to feel about his lyrics, you know, being a woman and all. In other words, even though I may try, I can’t ignore the blatant misogyny spread through his verses, and it’s very annoying because I truly appreciate his artistry.
Up until this point I’ve avoided commenting extensively or writing a review on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy precisely for this reason. The first time I listened to the album the whole way through, I couldn’t help but cringe at how sexism was just inherent, entrenched in the lyricism—it was just always there, mocking me. When I got to the end of the album, I was so impressed and surprised with the honest vulnerability and raw emotion exhibited in “Blame Game” just to be completely disappointed by Chris Rock’s offensive two and a half minute postlude, where he repeatedly asks a woman (post sexual encounter) in just about every offensive way possible where she’s learned her “techniques,” to which she responds (over and over and over again…it’s painful) “Yeezy taught me.” * BIG FREAKING SIGH * Seriously though, I was so disappointed.
After listening to the entire album for the first time, I was very conflicted. The arrangements and production were amazing, but I couldn’t ignore that so many of the lyrics were damaging to my person, as a woman, as a sexual being, as a fan. The blatant disrespect for women in so much of the album is at times overbearing. It’s just not affirming at all, but I was still compelled to keep it in rotation on my Ipod, because it just sounds so damn nice. And let’s be real, it’s not just Kanye, this is a symptom of Hip Hop pretty generally.
To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of Hip Hop. Part of the reason for that is because I didn’t grow up listening to it, but a bigger part of it is because I often feel as if I can’t relate to it. The genre is still overwhelmingly male dominated and with men always telling the story mine is usually pushed to the margins i.e. in male fantasies and imaginations, which too often translates to sexism, homophobia, and violence. And it’s even more annoying when the so-called “conscious” artists do it too. Smdh. I understand that it’s not all bad, but rather than sifting through it, I often just find myself ignoring it all together, and instead following only a few select artists. Kanye (lucky man) has made my list of “a few select artists,” and so I fast forward through the last three minutes of “Blame Game,” and roll my eyes at the way the words “bitch” and “pussy” are thrown around as colloquial parts of speech. I’ve learned how to ignore the sexism, but at the same I recognize that I’ve also learned how to internalize it. “Yeezy taught me.” And it’s a problem. SIGH.
Kanye’s new video for “Monster” inspired me to finally say something and put my complicated love/hate relationship with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on blast. The video was just too much to handle. The imagery is highly reminiscent of domestic violence and other forms of violence against women and there are several particularly jarring scenes—Kanye in the bed with two dead bodies, dead women hanging from the ceiling, the entire scene during Jay-Z’s verse, Kanye holding a severed head….Gaaah. It’s just too damn much. You have been warned (may be slightly NSFW).
I know, right?! It’s ridic. So to echo (kinda) this post on postbourgie.com, what the hell is a conflicted feminist (sorta) and music lover to do (except let out another big freaking *SIGH*)?
I was reading an older essay(trigger warning: it’s difficult to read) of Latoya’s over on Racialicious.com about her experience, and those of her friends, of “not rape” or the many forms of sexual violence. It was heavy and deep, and I suddenly began to cry as I read the comments section – so many women describing their own experiences. It was as Latoya wrote – a widespread occurrence and a culture that is too often accepted.
At first, I thought of how my own life did not reflect the experiences of these women. I was grateful that I had never experienced the violence they had. I’ve thankfully never had a boy or a man use his strength against me. But as I continued to reflect, I realized how this violence had in fact crept into my own life. It is widespread. It is invasive. It is ever-present. A threat.
I remembered the boy in grammar school whose hand went to my thigh every time we sat next to each other. How I alternated between pushing his hand away and trying to ignore him as he crept further up or rubbed my thigh until I had no choice but to try to make him stop….again. To this day, I wonder how that really affected me, an 11 year old.
I remembered standing on the corner waiting for my bus when a man walked by, stopped, turned back and asked if I wanted to wait in the front hall of his building. I wondered if another 13 year old girl was not as smart as I.
I remembered the man, clearly much older than me, staring at me at 15, practically following me (how far if I had not turned around?) – a funny story I tell, but with a definite creep factor.
I remembered the letter sent home explaining that one of my classmates had been assaulted. I remembered a friend, so inescapably broken, describing how she’d given head to all these older boys, one telling the other to go find her.
I remembered the stories told by friends of the violence they had experienced – the brokenness they carried with them. I remembered the male friend who asked me, “why do women feel ashamed after being raped? It’s not their fault,” and the shock I felt when I realized he didn’t understand what every woman, whether having been raped or not, understands.
I realized I did, in some small way, know Latoya’s story. I was not as far removed as I thought. And I began to think of all the ways we get so used to it. To the stories. To not remembering them. To casting them aside as an afterthought. We get so used to the battles.
I felt the same way when I read a post on PostBourgie. It was amazing. I felt like I had my eyes opened – “I wasn’t the only one!” She described her experience of being unable to walk down the street without someone stopping her, wanting to talk to her, wanting her number, just wanting a reaction. I read with such satisfaction to realize I wasn’t the only woman who avoided the eyes of men while walking home. I felt so amazed at realizing, hey…maybe this really wasn’t okay?! (and I call myself a [sorta] feminist.)
I have even started to really (you know…truly) notice what makes me uncomfortable. That it isn’t unreasonable for me to become irritated or closed-off when cornered by a man with that look – you know ladies, that look that is “interested” but really only in you as an object, smiling at you like they may have found a prize. You know that feeling.
But too often I second-guess my feelings, wondering if I should really just give them a chance or not be so “mean” or smile because that’s what’s expected of me. It gets so tiring.
And inevitably these thoughts lead me to recall the fights with my father, starting in high school – his insistence on picking me up from the bus stop after dark, his wanting to know where I’m going and when I’ll be back, my resentment at these intrusions on my life – intrusions that exist because I am a woman, because I am not safe.
But these aren’t really forgotten stories. They aren’t old thoughts. They sit in the back of my mind, brought forward at the slightest prodding. They hide in my feelings – feelings of anger or discomfort or insecurity. They’re there. Always.
So…I had no purpose when I first began. I still don’t. I just needed to write. I needed the space – to respond to what I’d read, to untangle the thoughts jumbled in my head, to remind myself of my own experiences.
How do we, as women, work all this out?
And just cuz any deep topic is better with music and I don’t want to be too depressed:
I was reading the latest post on The Crunk Feminist Collective, a call for a “No Uncle No Uterus” campaign, and was thoroughly confused for a good minute till I realized it was a critique on another campaign, “NWNW.” And I had no idea what that was.
Thank goodness for Google. Turns out it means “No Wedding, No Womb” and is a campaign of 100+ bloggers writing in support of marriages before pregnancies in black communities.
And it’s apparently created a stir (I love the blogosphere). In my googling discoveries, I’ve found various critiques: one reporter writes, “Regardless, the bloggers associated with “No Wedding, No Womb” aren’t focused on the outcomes for children. The campaign is instead telling black women how they should act sexually. Reducing women to their childbearing capacity is right there in the title: Wombs are blocked off until matrimony.” Another writes, “While Karazin’s heart is in the right place, I have to agree that equating marriage with familial and economic stability is wistfully wrongheaded….I think what Karazin’s trying to get at, in our sound-bite culture, is that poor women, all women, need to value themselves enough to protect themselves from the avoidable pitfalls in their already difficult lives.”
Here I think are the critiques: having a campaign for marriage does not solve poverty; it does not address the institutional and historical causes for persistent poverty; it shames women and promotes a narrow view of family.
So first off, yes to all of the above. Making marriage the solution to poverty and violence is not a good solution. Marriage alone can not solve the inequitable policies hurting families (whatever those families look like). Nor does placing the responsibility solely on women solve anything. There is an element of “slut-shaming” to this, mostly because where are the men in this solution? What’s their responsibility?
But with all that said, I don’t necessarily want to jump on the “oh hell no!” bandwagon against NWNW. I wouldn’t sign up to blog for them, but when criticizing their campaign, neither do I want to deny that there is something going on when 72% of African American children are born out of wedlock. That “something” is not just one thing (or two or three), but I am hesitant to completely dismiss a discussion on marriage and relationships.
I don’t like it when ten year olds ask me “do you have kids?” before asking me if I’m married (or even have a boyfriend). I’ve written before about teenagers’ views on relationships and the brokenness of their understanding. Many of these teens come from families that do not have a solid two parent relationship – whether married or unmarried. In order to understand how to relate to one another, they need to see other strong relationships.
Let me be clear: there are hundreds of issues flying and dancing around this statistic. I think NWNW is too simplistic, lets men off the hook and ignores wider social and political problems. And really, it’s just another tired story about what black women need to do that CNN will probably run with analysis from a panel of “experts” (yay Steve Harvey!). And then there’s the whole issue of it being heteronormative…
But I do think it’s okay to ask (along with a million other questions), how do we solve gender/relationship/family issues on a personal and social level?
Let’s have a holistic approach to understanding the problems facing our children, young people and families. Let’s understand that marriage is only a good solution if it is healthy and stable – and fighting against that health and stability is sexism, racism, classism, all those damn “isms” and the policies that go with them.
And there are fantastic single moms and dads (aunts and uncles and grandparents) who raise healthy, supported children in this world. And there are married couples who don’t. For a variety of reasons. But, how do we address all those reasons? Is there just one campaign or solution?
No. It’s complicated. And so deep. I don’t know how to unravel it all….
My disclaimer: I’m posting this without feeling entirely comfortable with it. With every sentence I write, another sentence pops into my head that problematizes the one before. But since this blog is really a conversation, I’ll consider this post only the beginning.
