The Devil's Advocate: Imus/Rap industry

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by laylo

Black people in the various communities I interact with regularly did not spend much time talking about Imus in our homes and with our friends (It was more just "Have you heard..."), but I've spent hours in heated conversations about misogyny and hypermasculinity in hip hop with Black people in all socio-economic situations.

Exactly. Any conversations among my colleagues and friends were only passing ones.

Originally Posted by laylo

I also don't advocate censorship, but people who do surely recognize that getting all offensive rap off the airwaves is not a realistic endeavor, especially considering the enormous amount of money made by it, mostly off of White youth.

Right. And offensive varies in definition. I can be entertained by "pop, lock and drop it" without needing to hear what's on the unedited version. There's still a degree of mysogyny in the edited version but there's always been mysogyny in every form of popular media.

Originally Posted by laylo

I do think that Black men are generally less angry about misogyny than they are about racism, but I think that is to be expected. Unfortunately Black male voices are often seen as the only (important) Black voices.

Yes because this is where their masculinity and position in the patriarchal structure give them power. They feel powerless in race affairs but not in gender affairs.

That's similar to how racial civil rights movements are headed by men and the concerns of black women are often ignored eventhough we are the backbone of many of these organizations. These groups' efforts will address racism but not address negative images of women and black women, in particular, because the black men are part of the reason for these persisting images and treatment.