Why Is Anyone Watching Or Debating About BET's Hip Hop Vs. America Series?
I am sick and tired of panels endlessly discussing and debating hip hop music and culture. The panels are always a mixed up mishmash of recording artists, preachers, journalists, academics, and video vixens all trying to defend and deflect their positions with the hip hop universe. There are never any solutions and very little truth. And it all reflects badly on black people in the end.
Over the past couple of days, numerous hip hop blogs and a few black bloggers have been going on and on about the second installment of the BET series, Hip Hop vs. America II - Where Did The Love Go? This second segment was supposed to focus on women and hip hop.
One look at the promotional ads could have told anyone paying attention that this "discussion" was going to be a disaster. Putting Michelle Obama on the same advertisement with Karrine "Superhead" Steffans is not only a mega insult to Michelle Obama, but a reinforcement of the Madonna/Whore stereotype of black women in the black community.
And if the discussion was supposed to be about women and hip hop, why wasn't the discussion panel and host all female? What is exactly is the point of having men discuss women and their history and role in hip hop music and culture? Men, particularly black men have clearly already had more then enough say about women and hip hop.
If this show's producers couldn't find enough women panelists to adequately discuss women and hip hop, then clearly there was nothing of substance to discuss. Clearly, they didn't believe women were worthy or important enough to discuss their own perceptions and problems with hip hop music and culture, by themselves.
The only reason why there was a special segment on women and hip hop in this series is because of the controversial responses and reactions this subject always brings up. It about ratings, not resolutions for women in hip hop. BET knows that women can't resist watching this tired topic of women and hip hop being re-hashed over and over without any resolution.
It's a very simple formula, stack the panel with a couple of men to reinforce the negatives of women and hip hop and to support the misogyny and sexism, find some women to talk about the tragedy of women in hip hop, include a couple of folk who actually work in hip hop for a living to support the genre, a preacher to tell us we are all going to hell for listening and liking hip hop in the first place and you have a women and hip hop panel. Completely pointless, without purpose, but damn good television.
Black folks, particularly black women need to stop being easy marks for this kind of debate.
If black women and girls really want to change the female image of women in hip hop, we must start locating, supporting, and celebrating positive alternatives. I have just introduced two wonderful prospects. Don't let them down!
