by Joan Morgan
Anyone curious about the processes and pathologies that form the psyche of the young, black, and criminal-minded needs to revisit our dearly departed Notorious B.I.G.’s first album, Ready to Die. Chronicling the life and times of the urban “soldier,” the album is a blues-laden soul train that took us on a hustler’s life journey. We boarded with the story of his birth, strategically stopped to view his dysfunctional, warring family, his first robbery, his first stint in jail, murder, drug-dealing, getting paid, partying, sexin’, rappin’, mayhem, and death. Biggie’s player persona might have momentarily convinced the listener that he was livin’ phat without a care in the world but other moments divulged his inner hell. The chorus of “Everyday Struggle”: I don’t wanna live no more / Sometimes I see death knockin’ at my front door revealed that “Big Poppa” was also plagued with guilt, regret, and depression. The album ultimately ended with his suicide.
The seemingly impenetrable wall of sexism in rap music is really the complex mask African-Americans often wear both to hide and express the pain. At the close of this millennium, hip-hop is still one of the few forums in which young black men, even surreptitiously, are allowed to express their pain.
When it comes to the struggle against sexism and our intimate relationships with black men, some of the most on-point feminist advice I’ve received comes from sistas like my mother, who wouldn’t dream of using the term. During our battle to resolve our complicated relationships with my equally wonderful and errant father, my mother presented me with the following gems of wisdom, “One of the most important lessons you will ever learn in life and love, is that you’ve got to love people for what they are—not for who you would like them to be.”
This is crystal clear to me when I’m listening to hip-hop. Yeah, sistas are hurt when we hear brothers calling us bitches and hos. But the real crime isn’t the name-calling, it’s their failure to love us—to be our brothers in the way that we commit ourselves to being their sistas. But recognize: Any man who doesn’t truly love himself is incapable of loving us in the healthy way we need to be loved. It’s extremely telling that men who can only see us as “bitches” and “hos” refer to themselves only as “niggas.”
In the interest of our emotional health and overall sanity, black women have got to learn to love brothers realistically, and that means differentiating between who they are and who we’d like them to be. Black men are engaged in a war where the real enemies—racism and the white power structure—are masters of camouflage. They’ve conditioned our men to believe the enemy is brown. The effects of this have been as wicked as they’ve been debilitating. Being in battle with an enemy that looks just like you makes it hard to believe in the basics every human being needs. For too many black men there is no trust, no community, no family. Just self.
Since hip-hop is the mirror in which so many brothers see themselves, it’s significant that one of the music’s most prevalent mythologies is that black boys rarely grow into men. Instead, they remain perpetually post-adolescent or die. For all the machismo and testosterone in the music, it’s frighteningly clear that many brothers see themselves as powerless when it comes to facing the evils of the larger society, accepting responsibility for their lives, or the lives of their children.
So, sista friends, we gotta do what any rational, survivalist-minded person would do after finding herself in a relationship with someone whose pain makes him abusive. We’ve gotta continue to give up the love but from a distance that’s safe. Emotional distance is a great enabler of unconditional love and support because it allows us to recognize that the attack, the “bitch, ho” bullshit—isn’t personal but part of the illness.
And the focus of black feminists has got to change. We can’t afford to keep expending energy on banal discussions of sexism in rap when sexism is only part of a huge set of problems. Continuing on our previous path is akin to demanding that a fiending, broke crackhead not rob you blind because it’s wrong to do so.
If feminism intends to have any relevance in the lives of the majority of black women, if it intends to move past theory and become functional it has to rescue itself from the ivory towers of academia. Like it or not, hip-hop is not only the dominion of the young, black, and male, it is also the world in which young black women live and survive. A functional game plan for us, one that is going to be as helpful to Shequanna on 142nd as it is to Samantha at Sarah Lawrence, has to recognize hip-hop’s ability to articulate the pain our community is in and use that knowledge to create a redemptive, healing space.
Notice the emphasis on “community.” Hip-hop isn’t only instrumental in exposing black men’s pain, it brings the healing sistas need right to the surface. Sad as it may be, it’s time to stop ignoring the fact that rappers meet “bitches” and “hos” daily—women who reaffirm their depiction of us on vinyl. Backstage, the road, and the ’hood are populated with women who would do anything to be with a rapper sexually for an hour if not a night. It’s time to stop fronting like we don’t know who rapper Jeru the Damaja was talking about when he said:
Now a queen’s a queen but a stunt’s a stunt
You can tell whose who by the things they want
Sex has long been the bartering chip that women use to gain protection, material wealth, and the vicarious benefits of power. In the black community, where women are given less access to all of the above, “trickin’ ” becomes a means of leveling the playing field. Denying the justifiable anger of rappers—men who couldn’t get the time of day from these women before a few dollars and a record deal—isn’t empowering or strategic. Turning a blind eye and scampering for moral high ground diverts our attention away from the young women who are being denied access to power and are suffering for it.
It might’ve been more convenient to direct our sistafied rage attention to “the sexist representation of women” in those now infamous Sir Mix-A-Lot videos, to fuss over one sexist rapper, but wouldn’t it have been more productive to address the failing self-esteem of the 150 or so half-naked young women who were willing, unpaid participants? And what about how flip we are when it comes to using the b-word to describe each other? At some point we’ve all been the recipients of competitive, unsisterly, “bitchiness,” particularly when vying for male attention.
Since being black and a woman makes me fluent in both isms, I sometimes use racism as an illuminating analogy. Black folks have finally gotten to the point where we recognize that we sometimes engage in oppressive behaviors that white folks have little to do with. Complexion prejudices and classism are illnesses which have their roots in white racism but the perpetrators are certainly black.
Similarly, sistas have to confront the ways we’re complicit in our own oppression. Sad to say it, but many of the ways in which men exploit our images and sexuality in hip-hop is done with our permission and cooperation. We need to be as accountable to each other as we believe “race traitors” (i.e., 100 or so brothers in blackface cooning in a skinhead’s music video) should be to our community. To acknowledge this doesn’t deny our victimization but it does raise the critical issue of whose responsibility it is to end our oppression. As a feminist, I believe it is too great a responsibility to leave to men.
A few years ago, on an airplane making its way to Montego Bay, I received another gem of girlfriend wisdom from a sixty-year-old self-declared non-feminist. She was meeting her husband to celebrate her thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. After telling her I was twenty-seven and very much single, she looked at me and shook her head sadly. “I feel sorry for your generation. You don’t know how to have relationships, especially the women.” Curious, I asked her why she thought this was. “The women of your generation, you want to be right. The women of my generation, we didn’t care about being right. We just wanted to win.”
Too much of the discussion regarding sexism and the music focuses on being right. We feel we’re right and the rappers are wrong. The rappers feel it’s their right to describe their “reality” in any way they see
fit. The store owners feel it’s their right to sell whatever the consumer wants to buy. The consumer feels it’s his right to be able to decide what he wants to listen to. We may be the “rightest” of the bunch but we sure as hell ain’t doing the winning.
I believe hip-hop can help us win. Let’s start by recognizing that its illuminating, informative narration and its incredible ability to articulate our collective pain is an invaluable tool when examining gender relations. The information we amass can help create a redemptive, healing space for brothers and sistas.
We’re all winners when a space exists for brothers to honestly state and explore the roots of their pain and subsequently their misogyny, sans judgment. It is criminal that the only space our society provided for the late Tupac Shakur to examine the pain, confusion, drug addiction, and fear that led to his arrest and his eventual assassination was in a prison cell. How can we win if a prison cell is the only space an immensely talented but troubled young black man could dare utter these words: “Even though I’m not guilty of the charges they gave me, I’m not innocent in terms of the way I was acting. I’m just as guilty for not doing things. Not with this case but with my life. I had a job to do and I never showed up. I was so scared of this responsibility that I was running away from it.”3 We have to do better than this for our men.
And we have to do better for ourselves. We desperately need a space to lovingly address the uncomfortable issues of our failing self-esteem, the ways we sexualize and objectify ourselves, our confusion about sex and love and the unhealthy, unloving, unsisterly ways we treat each other. Commitment to developing these spaces gives our community the potential for remedies based on honest, clear diagnoses.
As I’m a black woman, I am aware that this doubles my workload—that I am definitely going to have to listen to a lot of shit I won’t like—but without these candid discussions, there is little to no hope of exorcising the illness that hurts and sometimes kills us.
strongblackwomen
To Whom it May Concern:
For reasons of emotional health and overall sanity, I’ve retired from being a STRONGBLACKWOMAN. Since I’ve been acting like a SBW for most of my life, I’ve taken the liberty of drafting a re-orientation memo.
To the white folks I work with—the fake “Fine” and compulsory smile? Gone. Deaded. Don’t look for it. From now on, when asked “How are you?” I’m going to tell you the truth —so if you really don’t give a shit, do yourself a favor and don’t ask. Some days I really am an evil black woman.
To the folks in my life who are used to calling me at all hours of the A.M. or P.M. and repeatedly dumping their emotional refuse —start looking for a therapist. I apologize for not telling you before that I’m not the “strongest sista” you know, that my shit is not “always so damn together.” (Then again you would have known if you’d interjected an occasional, “Hey, girl, how you doing?” in your tirades.) There are days my shit is downright raggedy and on those days I’m not feeling you. I’ve officially given myself permission to ignore all twenty of your messages on my machine, especially the ones telling me you feel abandoned.
To the brothers trying to kick it. Stop. Let me save you some time. If my financial independence, education, ambition, looks, or basic determination to survive makes you question whether or not you’d have anything to give a such STRONGBLACKWOMAN, don’t bother. Return to the valley of the chickenheads, cuz I don’t fuck wit’ that anymore. SBWs do not have needs. I got plenty—and I’ll gladly tell them to you while I’m running your bathwater, or you’re rubbing me down with oil, or we’re playing tag with our tongues. Bring it on if and only if you really believe you deserve me.
And while I’m at it, mad love for my peeps who didn’t need anything of this, who knew I was never a STRONGBLACKWOMAN—just fronting. Thanks for sticking around while I was tripping. Y’all know shit goes. We get there in the by and by.
Peace & Love, Joan
Since sistas are quick to call themselves STRONGBLACKWOMEN and loathe to call themselves feminists, I realize my retirement requires explanation. This is not to be confused with being strong, black, and a woman. I’m still alla that. I draw strength daily from the history of struggle and survival that is a black woman’s spiritual legacy. What I kicked to the curb was the years of social conditioning that told me it was my destiny to live my life as BLACKSUPERWOMAN Emeritus. That by the sole virtues of my race and gender I was supposed to be the consummate professional, handle any life crisis, be the dependable rock for every soul who needed me, and, yes, the classic—require less from my lovers than they did from me because after all, I was a STRONGBLACKWOMAN and they were just ENDANGEREDBLACKMEN.
Retirement was ultimately an act of salvation. Being an SBW was killing me slowly. Cutting off my air supply.
It started one autumn, when I no longer noticed the changing of the leaves. Fall came and went without my usual marveling at nature’s decision to appear most beautiful before she dies—adorning herself in brilliant burgundies, oranges, and golds. Part of it was work. My job as a staff writer for a new black entertainment magazine kept me too busy for anything that wasn’t industry related—including, pathetically enough, family and friends—and often at the expense of my emotional and physical well-being. But after paying the hellish dues expected of a Non-Trust-Fund-Having-Writer-Living-in-New-York, I convinced myself this was my dream job. So despite glaring indications that celebrity journalism was rarely made of the stuff that made my nipples hard, I wrote my ass off, stayed fabulous, and sank, deeper and deeper into denial.
Then one night at a record release party for Wu-Tang Clan, the natives got restless. The group’s performance was seriously delayed in a venue that was hot, funky, and filled way past capacity. Damage was minimal—a bumrushed V.I.P. area and a few fights, broken tables, and chairs. As a vet of live hip-hop performances, I tend not to spook easily, but that night the familiar anger and testosterone left me inexplicably fearful and gasping for air. Panicked, I broke out sans keys, wallet, or good-byes to homegirls.
I tried to write the incident off to a long-overdue aversion to concert crowds, but the feeling that hightailed me out the club that night followed me. It found me in elevators, cars, even rooms without open windows. Soon it was clear that claustrophobia was stalking me and about 80 percent of the time it was kicking my ass.
Then came the tears. The first ones felt foreign, like the forgotten reflex of an activity abandoned long ago, a ritual I’d re-evaluated and determined useless somewhere along the line. I rarely shed tears for myself in those days. Not only because I was an invulnerablesuperdiva incapable of pain (although there was much of that in the mix), but the endless masking I did from one day to the next was so convincing, I feared becoming confused. It is an unnatural act for masks to cry.
The sentence that started the initial downpour fell from the lips of a very brown and beautiful man whom I’d kissed deeply, passionately, and a bit too quickly. “Your fragility scares me.” But that did not scare him as much as my determination to deny it, even to myself. “Your pain is so real,” he whispered shakily. “I can feel it. It’s so deep it would consume both of us.” Then gathering strength but not volume he gave me his decision. “Let me love you as your friend.”
It was, of course, the prelude to good-bye.
The fact that the brother was dead-on hardly made me feel better. I was tired and miserable most of the time. But each time I’d try admitting this the SBW inside would launch a fuckin’ tirade. Girl, what more do you want. You got a good job, a fly-ass apartment, and a work/social calendar most niggas would kill for. Stop bitching and handle it. I’d internalized the SBW credo: No matter how bad shit gets, handle it alone, quietly, and with dignity. The truth was, much of what was going on in my life shouldn’t have been handled silently or stoically by anybody.
Friends and family were of little help because I refused to let them in. I didn’t know how. Like most SBWs, I’d developed a real fear of vulnerability or imperfe
ction. The few times I tried, it seemed like I could I barely get the words out before somebody reminded me I was a STRONGBLACKWOMAN. So I listened to the SBW in me and retreated in angry silence. I told no one that my highly dysfunctional relationship with my father was wreaking havoc on my self-esteem and relationships with men. I swallowed the constant rage I felt at the paucity of black editors at what was supposed to be a black magazine. I helped my crimey of damn near two decades with wedding preparations while I mourned what felt like the loss of my best friend. And nightly I was plagued by that absence of air, because I’d fall asleep drowning in tears.
Finally, in a fit of desperation I went to see my godmother.
Iconic of the sistas of her time, Iya is an eclectic blend of black girl sass and sagacity with forties glam, fifties traditionalism, and all the hell-raising rebellion of the sixties and seventies. She’s also intensely spiritual, brutally blunt, and has a perceptiveness that borders on psychic. I’ve come to depend on it—greatly. I told her as much as I could. (Everything except the claustrophobia. That shit sounded crazy, even to me.)
“So your world is starting to close in on you, hmm?” she asked, responding to the details of my latest troubles. Then, puffing on her cigarette with a Hepburnian fierceness, she told me an old Yoruba fable.
There once was this marvelous singing bird who lived in a splendiferous castle. The king was so taken with the bird’s beauty that he built it a magnificent cage with all the amenities a bird’s heart could possibly desire. Much to the king’s dismay, however, the bird fell into silent sadness—never singing nor preening itself—and languished in a general state of despair.
Soon the king started to fear for the bird’s life, so he went to see his godfather. He told him to put the bird on a very long leash and allow it to fly farther and farther afield each day. The bird would make long outings each day and seemed to be doing much better.
