Denigration of women in rap videos

#053

Lately, there has been so much news about the battle against rap music/ lyrics. Since the Don Imus incident, when he referred to the Rutgers female basketball athletes as “nappy headed hoes”. A lot of people have blamed Rap musicians to contributing to this negative portrayal of black women in videos. In most rap music videos the portrayal of women is very demeaning; the women wear almost nothing as the musician objectifies them. Even in the rap lyrics the words in which the women are described are words such as bitch, ass, nigger, it, thing. These words are degrading to women and shouldn’t be allowed. These words encourage people like Imus by reducing the value of women and influencing the younger generation to perceive women as such. No one is saying the musicians should be held responsible for Don Imus’ ignorant and racist comments but they play a vital role.

Recently, I watched the Oprah town meeting program. A lot of people commented that that some of the blame rests on the music industry particularly producers and executives. If the producers are able to restrict the content of musician’s lyrics then the root of the problem could be resolved. However, most musicians argue that this restriction would be a violation of their freedom of expression. Nevertheless, this so called freedom comes at an expense to the respect to women in the society. The abuse and disrespect of women must stop.

There are little boys calling girls bitches and asses. This is not what needs to be taught to our future generation. They need to be taught how to respect women. If we don’t we would have incidents like Don Imus happen again.

Please, we cry out to the music executives and musicians to not make an extra buck at the expense of the honor and pride of their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.