Roxanne Roxanne

I grew up with a Hip Hop. Blasted from every television, every c.d., every car stereo. The music I listened to was not the same hip hop that is on the airwaves today. While reading Love Feminism but Where's My Hip Hop?", I knew exactly what she meant by "rap music... offers space for public dialogues about love, romance.." My parents were very much into the rap of the 1980s and 1990's and into my early teens I listened to all of the rappers the author lists and so much more. I knew the lyrics, I idolized those hip hop divas. I also understood the audacity that some male rappers had. The music blasting from the stereo would speak lustfully of watching women walk down the streets, and the plans "to bang Roxanne" (Roxanne, Roxanne by UTFO). In almost all of these songs written by male MC's, they were merely making a world where "women are portrayed as objects of conquest" (89). In this world, to fulfill my role as a bi-racial woman, I needed to wear short little spandex skirts and dance with my ass sticking out. But, there were also those songs that spoke of love, that made me dance around the house singing at the top of my lungs like a crazy little 8 year old.... the romance and not just wanting to chase that "skirt", but to keep her, and treat her right. I see the competing ideals in hip hop that was evident in its prime-the 1980s. I was born and raised in it. I was taught to value my body, and to be able to realize that not all men valued me for the right reasons like the men in my family. I loved the author's connection between feminism and hip hop.... Something that has been a staple in my life in all 19 years, could also be a reflection of society's sexist views.

A Black Feminist Statement

While reading A Black Feminist Statement, an article from Women's Lives, there were many things in the article that I related to and disagreed with. I felt that the author did a great job in telling me, the reader, the struggle that her and her colleagues went through to get any form of equality, not just within white society, but with black men as well. She quoted a black man who said, "Women cannot do the same things as men-they are made by nature to function differently" (39). I wish that I could say that this is the first time I've heard this. She talks about sexism within the black community, and how it was just another struggle for equality for black women. I think that the struggle for equality is not always about white against black, female against male; I think the hardest battle is not just breaking through those barriers, but also just within your own culture-your own community that you have to fight through.
Something else that she talked about was a stranger, more subtle form of sexism. She does not want to be seen as a queen or put on a pedestal. "To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough" (39). When I first read the quote, I laughed a little. Not in a mocking sense, but in agreement. Instead of being taught that women are lesser beings then men, some younger men are taught to put their girlfriends, and the girls they are courting on a pedestal.. To treat her like a princess, buy her pretty things, take her pretty places, open the door for her, stand up for her. Why can't I do these things myself? I'm not gonna lie, it's nice when someone opens the door for me, but is it a symbol for women being weak? Am I not able to buy myself that purse I'm looking at, or to be the one who asks you out, or when some jerk cuts me off, is unladylike for me to flip them the finger; does this make me scary? More manly? Am I too aggressive?

Body Bag Journalism

In Chapter Two of Inequality and Violence in the United States, the author uses a term that for some reason stood out. On page 34, Chasin goes into detail about television news and how its main topic is crime stories. This is not the first time that I have heard the crazy idea of people who relay the news to me are searching for ratings.... and to them it is by instilling fear into me. Stories of murder and rape and missing children fill the nightly news. She then drops a few phrases that are used by the television news.... "if it bleeds, it leads"; "a lurid crime report with a high body count will.. become the lead story, no matter how insignificant its actual news value" and my personal favorite "body-bag journalism" (34). For me, it seems like the medias need for that sensational, violent, and high body count story, helps to fuel the fire of American violence. I'm not saying that the media asks for the violence, or that people who illicit violent reactions are responding to the news; but it makes me think of those killers and rapists who, for whatever reason, are searching for glory in their violent acts. Another thing that I found startling and a little sickening, was on page 33, when the author brings up George Gerbner. He "is convinced that economic motives explain much media content. Violence, he claims, is a 'good commodity for the global market'" (33). While this can apply to anything from sitcoms, to video games to movies; in my mind I created a connection between Gerbner's statement and the channel four news I watch before I go to bed each night. The bottom line for a news service is getting those coveted ratings- they want people to watch... their advertisers who pay those big bucks to have a slot in their evening news, want people to watch. I find it ridiculous that something we have, the freedom of speech and the right to have a free press, is now marketable. We are told the stories that they (media conglomerates) want us to hear.