Treatment of women is a core issue

Understand this: I am not a woman and I don’t even play one on TV. But a couple of news items about women — ironically airing within 48 hours of each other last week — caught my attention, and probably yours, too.

The Rutgers University women’s basketball team held a news conference last week to lambast radio “personality” Don Imus for remarks he made toward it. The remarks were labeled racist, sexist and demeaning, as they had, indeed, slapped broad, stereotypical and hurtful labels on the members of the team.

Understand this: I couldn’t agree more with the Rutgers team. I’ll go one step further and state that Imus should have been fired the same day. Not only for his words but for the hypocrisy involved. Have you seen this guy? He has the audacity to call another human being — man or woman — “rough looking?” The irony continues as he makes fun of their hair. Again, have you seen this guy? He has to be one of the homeliest males ever to put on a pair of boxers. He looks like he took hairstyling lessons from Hobo School of Cosmetology and he calls 20-year-old women athletes “rough looking,” with “nappy hair?” He has a face for radio, for sure — too bad he doesn’t have the intellect.

I felt the Rutgers team leveled the playing field with their excellent orchestrated press conference. They accurately pointed out how cheap and objectifying the comments were to, not just black women, but all women. They were correct to present the comments as an affront to all females.

One question posed at the conference, however, was glossed over.

One player was asked — and I’m paraphrasing now — why black women continue to accept a constant flow of demeaning and objectifying words from hip-hop music, while apparently abhoring the words and their meaning. The implication was obvious: Can black gangsta rappers say these things but commentators outside of the music industry cannot? Is misogyny exempted in the black-dominated rap music industry? Can young African-American women accept being called “”hos”” as long as there is a beat behind it?

Understand this: I am not minimizing the despicable Imus act or asking for a more muted response. However, I will jump from the edge of my seat, I will silently cheer and my heart with lace with theirs when a collection of African-American women hold a press conference and outline one by one their hatred and hurt felt from a constant flow of self-esteem destroying hip-hop language. And, if they do, will CNN cover it?

The president of Bennett College, Johnnetta Cole, an African-American woman, puts it this way:

“I strongly believe that hip-hop is more misogynistic and disrespectful of Black girls and women than other popular music genres … The lyrics and the images — and attitudes that undergird them — are potentially extremely harmful to Black girls and women in a culture that is already negative about our humanity, our sexuality and our overall worth … What value can there be in descriptions of Black girls and women as “bitches,” “ho’s,” “skeezers,” “freaks,” “gold diggers,” “chickenheads” and “pigeons”? What could possibly be the value to our communities to have rap music videos that are notorious for featuring half-clothed young Black women gyrating obscenely and functioning as backdrops, props and objects of lust for rap artists who sometimes behave as predators?”

Maybe the Rutgers players didn’t get a chance to watch the Black Entertainment Television network’s infamous Uncut video show before it was pulled from the air a few months ago. The program featured music videos in which nearly all the girls wore lingerie and performed, well, acrobatics. A common image shown as the repetitive beat pounded away was scantinly clad black women spreading their legs while money was thrown toward their midsections. “Rip Tide,” an extremely popular rap record by the millionaire hip-hop artist Nelly, features a nearly nude black woman allowing Nelly to swipe a charge card down her buttocks as he grins and “sings” about what he wants.

Understand this: As important and timely and appreciated as the Rutgers resonse was, it was only a fig in a firestorm. Women, and black women in particular, are being demeaned by the producers of their own music in ways that cannot be fully described in a family newspaper.

Another news item to weave into this quilt of commonality was the vindication of the Duke lacrosse players. They were cleared last week of all charges related to a year-long charge of rape.

Understand this: These young men may be cleared of legal charges but they aren’t innocent. They hired two exotic dancers to come to their apartment and strip for them and their teammates. Innocent? Have I already used the word “objectify” too many times?

A third news item: An increasing number of women are being solicited or are volunteering as suicide bombers in Iraq. There have been seven documented cases of suicide bombings by women. That number is expected to rise. It seems Iraqi women are much less likely to be searched and have bulkier clothers to hide the implements of death. Male suicide bombers have been quoted as saying one reason they volunteer for the work is because of the 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven to reward them for their gallant work. So — help me here — how do the Iraqi women who commit such terrorism work into this fantasy?

Be it war, music, or a party with the guys, no man – heck, no civilization – rises higher than the pedestal upon which he places women. Why can”t we understand this?

(This column orginally appeared in the Ogden Standard-Examiner in April.)