Friday, July 8th, 2005

Don’t Miss These Events

This weekend in Chicago…

A DISCUSSION ON RACE AND HIP-HOP

July 9, 1pm @ Betty Shabazz School
7823 South Ellis, Chi-City

with authors and activists
Raquel Z. Rivera: New York Ricans From the Hip-Hop Zone
William ‘Upski’ Wimsatt :Bomb The Suburbs, No More Prisons.
Oliver Wang: Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide
Ernie Paniccioli: Who Shot Ya?
Bakari Kitwana: Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: Wankstas,
Wiggers, Wannabes and the New Reality of Race in America

Moderated by Amina Norman Hawkins, Chi Hip Hop Initiative
and poetry by Kevin Coval

For Further information call 773-651-0700.

And next month in Philadelphia…

“THE STATE OF BLACK-ASIAN RELATIONS:
INTERROGATING BLACK-ASIAN COALITION 50 YEARS AFTER BANDUNG”

Tuesday, August 2 from 6:30pm-9:30pm

Complete info is here.

AFSC Friends Center, 1515 Cherry Street/Philadelphia (Rufus Jones Room)

In April of 1955, 29 African and Asian nations came together in Bandung, Indonesia for the Asian-African Conference to promote economic and cultural cooperation and oppose colonialism. More popularly referred to as “Bandung,” this gathering was historic because it brought together newly independent colored nations and posed a challenge to western and white dominance. It is believed that the notion of the “third world” emerged from Bandung to demonstrate a rejection of both the west and ideologies associated with it. Bandung has been celebrated and referenced by many activists and intellectuals including W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Malcolm X, Yuri Kochiyama, Vijay Prashad, Robin Kelley, and Makani Themba-Nixon.

Today, calls for coalition between Blacks and Asian American are common and therefore rarely interrogated. But since Bandung, the world has changed somewhat, with the Asian population in the US growing rapidly through immigration. Today, Asian Americans have more wealth and education than Blacks and are also less residentially segregated. Since the 1992 LA Riot, the call to “go beyond Black and white” has gained more political momentum among both the left and right. Blacks have been charged with anti-Asian racism, including the murders of Chinese food delivery workers, Shaq versus Yao and the Hot 97 “Tsunami Song.” Today we also have Asian Americans opposing affirmative action, generating wealth from owning businesses in Black neighborhoods, creating the board game “Ghettopoly” and using Black cultural and political expressions to critique African Americans.

Thus, fifty years later, we seek to explore the possibilities and reality of Black-Asian relations in the US. Join us in Philly as Black and Asian American activists come together to discuss tensions between Blacks and Asians, what we see as the roots of conflicts, how this informs our activist projects, and whether coalition is viable between our communities. Panelists will draw from their activist experiences, which includes international solidarity work, educational justice, immigrant rights organizing, non-profit funding analysis, anti-gentrification projects, queer justice, and anti-police violence work. We hope you join us as we convene a panel and community dialogue that honestly explores the state of Black-Asian relations today and whether solidarity is really possible.

Sponsored by the Third World Coalition of the American Friends Service Committee

Free and open to the public

Panelists will include:

Rodney Camarce
Nijmie Dzurinko
Kenyon Farrow
Helen Gym
Tiffany King
Tamara K. Nopper
Ewuare Osayande

Moderated by Darryl Jordan, Director of the Third World Coalition of AFSC

For further information, please contact Tamara K. Nopper at tnopper@yahoo.com

posted by @ 4:01 pm | 1 Comment

Thursday, July 7th, 2005

Live From Iraq and London and…

Here’s my review of Live From Iraq in SPIN this month. Check Big Neal’s website here. (Buy the mag and get a bonus sidebar interview with him.)

BTW Gunner Palace is now out on DVD. Both these works are very very important.

Peace to London.

posted by @ 11:54 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, July 6th, 2005

Biggie Case Declared A Mistrial

Straight from the wires:

+ LA Times

+ AP Wire

This from the wires:

There were only three days of testimony in the trial, which began June 21 but was interrupted when an anonymous tip led to the discovery of large numbers of LAPD documents that hadn’t been turned over to attorneys for the rap star’s family…

Family attorney Perry Sanders Jr. said the family – including Wallace’s mother Voletta and widow R&B singer Faith Evans – didn’t want to have to go through another trial but would do so. He said the case would now delve into a corruption scandal in the LAPD’s Rampart division dating to the 1990s.

“We’re about to get to the bottom of Rampart,” Sanders said. “We’re about to peel the onion back to its rotten core.”

Perez was a central figure in the scandal, which involved alleged misconduct or brutality by corrupt officers in an anti-gang unit at Rampart. More than 100 criminal convictions possibly tainted by police misconduct were reversed. Perez alleged wrongdoing by others after he was found to have stolen cocaine from an evidence room.

Perez was the focus of most of the recently discovered documents, which had been sitting in an LAPD detective’s desk drawer until last month. The detective said he forgot about them, a claim the judge called “absolutely incredible” during Tuesday’s hearing.

The plaintiffs filed a motion Tuesday seeking a mistrial based on what they claimed was deliberate concealment of evidence and on the need for time to further investigate Perez.

The court did not immediately make the mistrial ruling public. A written ruling will be issued Thursday, the judge’s clerk said in confirming the mistrial.

For more background on the hidden documents, check this:

+ New York Daily News

As my man Cheo says, it’s about to get really deep.

posted by @ 4:30 pm | 0 Comments

Wednesday, July 6th, 2005

LB Rocks The Bay, Joe Morgan vs. Moneyball, E-A-Ski: A Good Week For Bay Alt-Press

Really, a great week…

+ Lyrics Born graces the cover of the East Bay Express.

+ The San Francisco Weekly asks: Why is Joe Morgan such an A’s hater?

+ E-A-Ski, more New Bay, and the Brazilian post-punk in the Bay Guardian.

Of course, behind the scenes, it’s not all love, just shitty monopoly media politics. Clear Channel and the New Times, owner of the East Bay Express and the SF Weekly, have cut a deal to isolate the Bay Guardian. See the article below…

As the three covers this week illustrate, competition is good. If the editorial staff are being inspired to new heights, the suits at New Times or Clear Channel, clearly, don’t believe in good old competition.

The Bay Guardian has filed suit against New Times for predatory pricing, charging that SF Weekly and the East Bay Express are selling ads below coast in an effort to drive the Bay Guardian out of business.

‘SF Weekly’ cuts deal with Clear Channel
Two anticompetitive chains seek to dominate concert ads
By Tim Redmond and Kimberly Chun

New Times, which owns SF Weekly and East Bay Express, has cut a deal with Clear Channel, the giant entertainment conglomerate, that could shut other print media, including the Bay Guardian, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in concert advertising, representatives of Bill Graham Presents, a Clear Channel subsidiary, told Bay Guardian ad sales staffers June 23.

Under the terms of the deal, New Times will pay Clear Channel a sum in the high six figures for naming rights to the Warfield Theatre, which for the next three years will become the SF Weekly Warfield, BGP representatives said.

In exchange, Clear Channel will spend so much money on advertising in the Weekly and Express that there will be little or no money left for competing print media.

In effect, one of the nation’s largest media oligopolies has joined forces with the nation’s largest alternative weekly chain to squeeze out an independently owned competitor.

“It’s bad,” Jeff Perlstein, executive director of Media Alliance, told us. “As all these dark tentacles become entwined, it gets more and more serious as a threat to independent media.”

Nobody at New Times, SF Weekly, or Clear Channel would return our calls seeking comment. But a press release sent out June 27 from SF Weekly and BGP described the naming-rights deal and stated that SF Weekly and BGP “will collaborate across business fronts.”

The press release never mentions New Times or Clear Channel and presents the deal as if it were just a friendly agreement between local companies.

The BGP staffers who informed the Bay Guardian’s entertainment account manager, Adam Shandobil, and marketing manager, Warren Spicer, of the deal said it was effective immediately. And in fact, BGP has pulled all of its ads from the Bay Guardian this week.

BGP presents concerts and events at the Fillmore, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Chronicle Pavilion, Punch Line, and Mountain Winery in the Bay Area, and at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Marysville, among other venues, and ads from all of these are affected by the deal.

Media observers we contacted said they’d never heard of a similar deal – but the arrangement comes as little surprise. Clear Channel, which owns 7 local radio stations and more than 1,200 nationwide, is known around the country for its savage, anticompetitive policies and its attempts to establish hegemony in entertainment markets (see “Clear and Present Danger,” 4/24/2002). New Times, which owns 11 alt-weeklies, has become an icon of cutthroat, anticompetitive behavior in the alternative press (see “The Predatory Chain,” 6/27/2002).

In the 1990s Clear Channel developed an aggressive strategy of buying up not only local radio stations but billboard companies and concert and sports promoters. The idea, as the Wall Street Journal reported June 24, was that “Clear Channel figured its radio stations and billboards could shill upcoming concerts, and performers would gravitate to its venues for the extra marketing. The radio stations would push concert offerings in each market.”

But it hasn’t worked out that well. “Instead,” the Journal noted, “the combination irked music fans, record labels, and artists, who complained that Clear Channel used its might to punish artists who didn’t play by its rules and contributed to the sharp rise in ticket prices at venues it controls.”

That’s why Clear Channel recently announced plans to spin off its concert business as a new subsidiary.

The media company has also been accused of censorship. The day after the Sept. 11 attacks, Clear Channel issued a list of songs that its stations were advised not to play, including John Lennon’s “Imagine” and anything by Rage Against the Machine. Shortly after Clear Channel bought Bay Area radio station KMEL, the station fired producer David “Davey D” Cook, who had dared to air a show about Rep. Barbara Lee’s objections to the invasion of Afghanistan. The corporation has close links to the Bush administration, and in 2003 Clear Channel stations sponsored rallies supporting the administration’s war in Iraq.

These are the people SF Weekly is getting into bed with.

New Times and Clear Channel have at least one thing in common: They hate competition. In October 2002 New Times cut a deal with Village Voice Media in which the two chains agreed to end competition in Los Angeles and Cleveland by shutting down a pair of alternative papers. New Times closed its LA paper and secured the Cleveland market for itself; VVM reciprocated by shutting down its Cleveland operation. The US Justice Department declared the deal illegal (see “New Times Nailed,” 1/21/03).

Sherry Wasserman, a senior official at Another Planet, a BGP competitor, said the deal sounded highly unusual. “Look at the Chronicle Pavilion, which still advertises in the Contra Costa Times and every other place,” she said.

Guy Carson, owner of Café du Nord, said the arrangement might have a negative affect on the local music scene. “Obviously this has big implications,” he told us. “To the extent that it hurts the Bay Guardian and [the] Chronicle, it’s going to hurt the local scene.

“Maybe,” he added, “SF is not immune to general homogenization.”

posted by @ 3:30 pm | 0 Comments

Wednesday, July 6th, 2005

Davey D at the G8

Hip-hop journalism in full effect at the G8. Check here.

posted by @ 9:44 am | 0 Comments

Sunday, June 26th, 2005

San Francisco, Who’s Your Daddy?

His name is Rich Harden, aka Fido. A 16-0 one-hitter means you pay next time you come across the bridge.

Barry Bonds’ annual salary, $18 million.

2 Wednesday night Tickets to A’s + 2 Hot Dogs, $6.

Sweeping the Giants (even without Mr. Steroid Withdrawal), priceless.

We’ve won 12 of the last 15. Now if the Mets can take care of the Yankees, the universe will be back in balance. What a great weekend this is shaping up to be.

(BTW what happened to the Twins this weekend? Frickin’ Santana cost me $60 in Vegas!)

posted by @ 2:54 pm | 7 Comments

Monday, June 20th, 2005

Asian American Studies Commencement Speech

Oh man. This was the toughest 10-minute speech I’ve ever had to write.

I saw a bumper sticker in Berkeley today–yeah it’s a bumper sticker kind of town–“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.” The problem is getting to the truth in the first place. Sheesh.

Thank you to the 2005 graduates of UCLA’s Asian American Studies and best of luck!

To Dr. Min Zhou, Dr. Don Nakanishi, the Asian American Studies department faculty, the Asian American Center staff, Dr. Sue Ann Kim, Dr. Kay Song, Irene Soriano and the student graduation coordinating committee, and most of all, to the 2005 graduates of the UCLA Asian American Studies Department, please let me extend my heartfelt gratitude for being granted the honor to speak to you this afternoon. To you graduates, let me offer a hearty congratulations on your great achievement.

You are graduating into a dangerous world, a much more dangerous world than the one I graduated into 10 years ago.

During the time you have studied here, you have witnessed the unveiling of the U.S. as a warfare state. Indeed, the last three decades of wars—in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, in domestic wars on graffiti, on drugs, on gangs, and on youth—seem but a prelude to this imperial moment.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the kind of politics that conditioned the emergence of the hip-hop generation—namely the politics of containment and its twin, the politics of abandonment—are on view daily.

The logic of abandonment that left the Bronx and Watts to burn now leaves Kabul and Baghdad shattered. The logic of containment that has led to the incarceration, disenfranchisement, and dehumanizing of 2 million people in the U.S. takes on an ugly, globalized form in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

War is the backdrop to even the most pressing local issues. The plague of joblessness, the resurgence of gang violence, the explosion of interracial and interreligious tensions, and the debt-driven real estate speculation that is driving massive racial displacement are all effects of war.

Every day we ask ourselves the question: how do we begin to turn back such catastrophic trends?

In a single, startling line of hope, Arundhati Roy has written, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.”

But what will that world look like? And will Asian Americans be there to help midwife her birth?

ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES AND TRANSFORMATION

Twenty years ago, I took my first Asian American Studies course at UC Berkeley, a freshman composition class. On the first day, the teachers told us the theme would be “transformation”.

Now when you take an Asian American Studies class, things happen. Some people get very good grades. Other people get a lot of phone numbers. But everyone undergoes some sort of transformation.

You start thinking about the way you grew up, how you were socialized, who influenced you. You remember the first time you were made to feel different, and the way you reacted. You look at the dry cleaner, the bus driver, the waitress, the seamstress, your parents, your grandparents, your siblings and cousins, all a little differently.

Sometimes you develop a profound rage that you feel you have to unleash.

You walk into an Abercrombie & Fitch store and you can’t believe they’re selling t-shirts that say “Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make It White”.

You watch a sports show and you can’t believe a basketball superstar is insulting another by making fun of his Asian accent.

You turn on your favorite hip-hop radio station, and you can’t believe the African American host is defending a racist song about the tsunami by saying Asians who don’t like the song probably think they’re superior to Blacks.

Sometimes you stay there in your anger. Your first rage is so powerful, it’s blinding.

Sometimes you think about it a little more, and you wonder about the sweatshop workers being forced to manufacture those racist t-shirts. You wonder what kind of masculinity requires an athlete to mock his opponent in racial terms. You wonder what happened to make that Black radio host want to be so hurtful.

Sometimes you then acquire a deep sadness, a disabling melancholy that you don’t feel you can overcome.

Asian American Studies is a different kind of intellectual experience. It always takes you somewhere, and it also never leaves you.

THE CRISIS AFTER MULTICULTURALISM

When I was at UC Berkeley during the 1980s, multiculturalism was our rallying cry.

At its best, rainbow multiculturalism unveiled race in the production of knowledge, culture, and power. And it proposed alternatives, such as affirmative action or independent community-centered arts. Jesse Jackson’s presidential bids and Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It”, the anti-apartheid movement and the redress and reparations movement, the push for diversity graduation requirements and Don Nakanishi’s successful tenure fight—they were all part of this moment.

Times have changed.

I was part of the first cohort of graduate students to enter the Masters Program here after the Los Angeles Rebellion in 1992. Those riots shook Asian American Studies to the core. The idea of Third World solidarity that had guided us from the founding of Ethnic Studies seemed to be in ashes. And in many ways, we are still sorting through the rubble.

After the rebellion, multiculturalism was absorbed into global capitalism, made easy for consumption. Its insurgency was contained.

Now dark skins—like Jet Li or the Wu-Tang Clan—provide global entertainment. Alberto Gonzales and Condoleeza Rice—not Yuri Kochiyama and Philip Vera Cruz—are presented as American icons of racial struggle and success. Universities and corporations increasingly see the value in diversity in a globalized world. And, post-affirmative action, it is Asian American bodies who largely provide that value.

For us, the Duboisian question is turned upside down, and is made to haunt us: How does it feel to be a solution?

TOWARD ANOTHER WORLD

Cast this way, we cannot avoid our responsibility. We can only dispatch ourselves with clearer purpose, principle, and integrity.

If we were to describe the world that we want, would it be a world in which professional athletes are tested for accent sensitivity the way they are tested for steroids? Would it be a world in which Abercrombie and Fitch only sells us yellow-power t-shirts?

I ask, because this world is certainly possible. But it’s not what we should settle for.

Hot 97 radio personality Miss Jones tore open unhealed wounds with her comments on Asians’ supposed perceptions of superiority over Blacks. But how do we heal those wounds? Where did those wounds come from?

We cannot begin to answer these kinds of questions if we allow ourselves to be caged by our first rage, or incapacitated by our first sadness. That rage and sadness can block us from understanding our truer roles, our unfulfilled responsibilities, our necessary allies, and the larger forces at work against us all.

They prevent all of us from healing. They blind all of us to the possibility of another world. We need to act from love.

So the transformation that we begin in Asian American Studies does not end once classes do.

As the great Glenn Omatsu reminds us, the fundamental practice of Asian American Studies is to build community. Building community goes beyond centering the self. It is about imagining what it takes to revere justice, to respect difference, to reduce hurt, to correct wrong, to nurture growth, and to discover joy. It is about activating and propagating these values within a conception of “we” that continually expands, and is always concerned with caring for the least of us first.

For us, the possibility of another world can begin with the project of recuperating a progressive Asian American identity, one that stands against the totalizing push of global capitalism and the new imperialism, the disintegration of an anti-racist movement, and the destruction of other oppressed communities, particularly African Americans and indigenous peoples.

That possibility, in fact, begins with you.

To you, the graduates of Asian American Studies, here in this dangerous moment, I regret to say—and I am also happy to say—that we place a lot of hope in you. I regret it because it means in some sense we have not fully done our job. I am happy because I know our faith is well-placed.

We look to you to lead the way forward toward a new Asian American left, a new progressive movement, and the shining new world waiting to be born.

Thank you for this opportunity, and once again, congratulations on your most important achievement.

posted by @ 1:35 pm | 21 Comments

Friday, June 17th, 2005

HARD KNOCK RADIO IS UNDER ATTACK

The groundbreaking hip-hop talk show, HARD KNOCK RADIO, is under attack:

From: hardknock@kpfa.org
Subject: HARD KNOCK RADIO UNDER ATTACK
Date: June 17, 2005 5:39:56 PM PDT

Folks,

I hate that I have to reach out to you like this. Some of you know whats up, but most of you are hearing this for the first time. Hard Knock Radio is under attack. This is not a joke. HKR is in jeapordy, and only your support can save it. We are asking for our supporters to speak on our behalf at Pacifica’s National Board Meeting tomorrow 11am-1pm at Doubletree Hotel 200
Marina Blvd in Berkeley. Supporters and allies will gather at 10am for breakfast and strategy at Westside Café located at 2570 9th St in Berkeley.

We have exhausted ALL internal processes, and putting this on BLAST is our last resort. Pacifica and the Local Station Board have ignored requests from KPFA staff and the KPFA Union to resolve the situation.

The situation is this: KPFA GM Roy Campanella assaulted me on the job; KPFA GM Roy Campanella has sexually harrassed several women at the station; there is increasing evidence that KPFA GM Roy Campanella and members of KPFA’s Local Station Board are spreading rumors that I am accepting payola from local artists and that I’m laundering money. A recent “anonymous” note sent around the station states that I have “a rep for abusing young women” and that I’m racist and an Anti-Semite.

I know this is last minute, but Pacifica just now told us when public comment would be. I hope some of you can join us for breakfast. For those who can’t come through, there will be other opportunities to help us. Thank you for you support.

-Weyland

(Following is a letter from the KPFA Union attorney…)

Hoffman & Lazear
Attorneys at Law ARTHUR W. LAZEAR

180 Grand Avenue, Suite 1550 Email: awl@hoffmanandlazear.com
Oakland, CA 94612
Phone: 510.763.5700
Facsimile: 510. 835.1311

May 17, 2005

Rosalinda Palacios
Local Station Board Chair

Dan Coughlin, Executive Director
Pacifica Foundation
1925 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704-1037

Dear Ms. Palacios and Mr. Coughlin,

Please be advised that I represent Communications Workers of America, Local 9415, the union representing workers at KPFA. My client is concerned about the conduct of KPFA General Manager Roy Campanella. The purpose of this letter is to advise you of the nature of that conduct and to alert you to possible litigation that may result from such conduct if it is permitted to continue.

1) A substantial number of women working at KPFA radio have reported sexual harassment, emotional abuse and discriminatory treatment. These accounts are numerous and have been documented. Such treatment has been perpetrated
both against employees represented by the Union and against unrepresented employees. This conduct constitutes violations of both California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act and the federal Civil Rights Act. As a result of such conduct, the station may be held liable in civil litigation brought by the affected individuals.

2) Mr. Campanella was recently involved in an incident where he followed an employee, Weyland Southon, outside of the building apparently to commit physical violence. Such conduct constitutes an assault. The threat that formed the basis of the assault was witnessed by another employee. This witness is a very credible person with a sterling five-year record, who had no prior personal issues with Mr. Campanella. In addition, several other employees witnessed the act of Mr. Campanella following the threatened employee outside. No one, in fact, has denied that Mr. Campanella followed Mr. Southon outside. Mr. Campanella, in his position as a General Manager representing KPFA, is expected to defuse possibly violent situations,
rather than inciting or participating in them. It is our belief that this incident creates a potential for both criminal and civil litigation against KPFA.

Given the pattern of behavior that these instances portray, we insist that a thorough and fair investigation be conducted into Mr. Campanella’s conduct. Mr. Campanella should not be on KPFA Station premises during the course of the investigation currently taking place. Any lack of action on the part of KPFA and other responsible parties would constitute a failure to protect persons on the premises of KPFA from exposure to a hostile work environment and from possible violence. Again, KPFA may be held civilly liable for damages that result from such a failure.

We ask that you ensure that Mr. Campanella does not work at KPFA Radio until the investigation has concluded and a final disposition has been rendered.

Thank you for your attention and anticipated cooperation.

Very truly yours,

ARTHUR W. LAZEAR

cc: Christina Huggins, Vice-President CWA 9415

Weyland Southon
Executive Producer
Hard Knock Radio Mon-Fri 4pm PST
KPFA FM 94.1
www.kpfa.org
www.hardknockradio.com

posted by @ 4:48 pm | 3 Comments

Thursday, June 16th, 2005

Music Dork Meme

This is like a chain-letter in blog form. Thanks Nate for getting me to waste precious time I should be using to write semi-important speeches!

Total volume of music files on my computer: iTunes says 116 GB and 22,000 songs. I compress at a higher rate. (Yes, that’s my new personal motto.) My iPod is the generation whose battery sucks and I only have 20GB so I wipe it every two or three months or so and reload it. Like Sizzla, I like the element of surprise.

Last CD I bought was… Au Pairs’ “Sense and Sensibility” on iTunes, and a UGK Chopped and Screwed set I got on the road in Madison or somewhere. Probably a lot of other stuff too, but it’s all joined the mess that is my office. Mainly in the last few months, I’ve been downloading O.P.P. (Other People’s Post-Punk or Other People’s Pre-Hip-Hop Funk or Other Pan-African Party Music)…

Song playing right now: Blackalicious’ “Powers”! And it’s playing all the time, even when I don’t have the stereophonic equipment on, because I can’t get it out of my damn head. Did I say the album was better than “Be” already?

Five songs I listen to a lot these days: Kaiser Chiefs “I Predict A Riot” (don’t blame me, blame my involuntary neck spasms), Eddy Grant “Hello Africa (Live At Notting Hill)”, Rufus & Chaka Khan “Papillion (Hot Butterflies)” (shout out to Dave Tompkins–keep your head up), Wgandakenya “Bridges”, and Sonora Carruseles “Micaela” (thank you Lizz!)…Sonora Carruseles is sick.

OK, your turn:

+ andrea duncan-mao
+ carlito rodriguez
+ dan charnas
+ danyel smith
+ joe schloss
+ kandia crazy horse
+ miranda jane
+ wayne marshall
+ yancey strickler

I think it was just supposed to be 5. But I can’t…well, you know already.

posted by @ 1:56 pm | 3 Comments

Monday, June 13th, 2005

J-Shep On Hip-Hop Feminism

How did I miss this brilliant piece? Our girl Julianne on the B-Girl Be Festival, contextualizing the event in the larger picture:

Uniting and empowering women in hip hop, and encouraging them to collaborate, is certainly the shiny, happy side of a coin where the other option is the mainstream’s violence and naked, gyrating women as props. However, if there was ever a ripe time in history for an event like B-Girl Be to occur, it’s now. Over the past year, the hip-hop feminist movement has congealed somewhat magically. About a year ago, Spelman College initiated a boycott of Nelly for his graphic, misogynistic video for the song “Tip Drill”; subsequently, the Ying Yang Twins were barred from performing at Florida Atlantic University for their women-degrading lyrics. Essence magazine launched a “Take Back the Music” campaign, printing a series of articles addressing “hip-hop’s outlook on black women’s sexuality.” And recently, the University of Chicago hosted a Feminism and Hip-Hop Conference, which brought together activists, academics, and critics for three days of panels on the mistreatment and degradation of women in hip hop. To some, these events and activities look like signposts that the ladies are getting organized: It’s too soon to call it, but the signs are there for a critical mass of hip-hop feminism, which could, ideally, change the way women–especially women of color–are viewed in the hip-hop mainstream.

posted by @ 8:16 am | 4 Comments



Previous Posts

Feed Me!

Revolutions

Word

Fiyahlinks


twitter_logo

@zentronix

Come follow me now...

Archives

We work with the Creative Commons license and exercise a "Some Rights Reserved" policy. Feel free to link, distribute, and share written material from cantstopwontstop.com for non-commercial uses.

Requests for commercial uses of any content here are welcome: come correct.

Creative Commons License