Protesting hip-hop the wrong way
http://www.gbmnews.com/articles/1628/1/Protesting-hip-hop-the-wrong-way/Page1.html
TuPac .
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Published on 10/8/2007
By MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
As an ordained Baptist minister, university professor and social activist, I applaud the expression of dissent and protest in the public realm. And I encourage all citizens of conscience to articulate their views about the treatment of the images of black people in media.
A Maryland-based Baptist minister is organizing a protest outside Black Entertainment Television's Second Annual Hip-Hop Awards show Oct. 13, outside Atlanta's Civic Center. It is his right to voice his concerns. However, I find the minister's recent protests at the home of BET Networks CEO Debra Lee to be extremely problematic while setting a dangerous precedent. The rich history of black civic and social protest has never targeted individuals at their homes. Rather, such protest identifies institutional and corporate sources of offensive behavior.
The black church of which Lee's critics and I are members has been heroic in its defense of black people and in its pursuit of justice for our people. But the black church, too, must continue to reflect on its own actions. There is sexism within the church. Many churches do not allow women to become pastors in the very churches where they worship. Homophobia exists in the church. Gay and lesbian Christians are sometimes religiously mistreated and insulted from the pulpit. Yet the homes of those ministers who offend women, gay men and lesbians, have never been targeted for protest.
As an ordained Baptist minister, university professor and social activist, I applaud the expression of dissent and protest in the public realm. And I encourage all citizens of conscience to articulate their views about the treatment of the images of black people in media.
A Maryland-based Baptist minister is organizing a protest outside Black Entertainment Television's Second Annual Hip-Hop Awards show Oct. 13, outside Atlanta's Civic Center. It is his right to voice his concerns. However, I find the minister's recent protests at the home of BET Networks CEO Debra Lee to be extremely problematic while setting a dangerous precedent. The rich history of black civic and social protest has never targeted individuals at their homes. Rather, such protest identifies institutional and corporate sources of offensive behavior.
The black church of which Lee's critics and I are members has been heroic in its defense of black people and in its pursuit of justice for our people. But the black church, too, must continue to reflect on its own actions. There is sexism within the church. Many churches do not allow women to become pastors in the very churches where they worship. Homophobia exists in the church. Gay and lesbian Christians are sometimes religiously mistreated and insulted from the pulpit. Yet the homes of those ministers who offend women, gay men and lesbians, have never been targeted for protest.
Protesting hip-hop the wrong way
By MICHAEL ERIC DYSON
As an ordained Baptist minister, university professor and social activist, I applaud the expression of dissent and protest in the public realm. And I encourage all citizens of conscience to articulate their views about the treatment of the images of black people in media.
A Maryland-based Baptist minister is organizing a protest outside Black Entertainment Television's Second Annual Hip-Hop Awards show Oct. 13, outside Atlanta's Civic Center. It is his right to voice his concerns. However, I find the minister's recent protests at the home of BET Networks CEO Debra Lee to be extremely problematic while setting a dangerous precedent. The rich history of black civic and social protest has never targeted individuals at their homes. Rather, such protest identifies institutional and corporate sources of offensive behavior.
The black church of which Lee's critics and I are members has been heroic in its defense of black people and in its pursuit of justice for our people. But the black church, too, must continue to reflect on its own actions. There is sexism within the church. Many churches do not allow women to become pastors in the very churches where they worship. Homophobia exists in the church. Gay and lesbian Christians are sometimes religiously mistreated and insulted from the pulpit. Yet the homes of those ministers who offend women, gay men and lesbians, have never been targeted for protest.
Social protest and the expression of dissent is the lifeblood of our democracy and black people's quest for justice. But the demand to squelch artistic freedom and shape it according to a narrow idea of acceptable black identity is simplistic and unreasonable.
We must not forget that every form of black creativity, especially in the musical realm, has been subject to protest and censorship by narrow and reactionary forces. Jazz, blues, gospel and R&B have all come in for cultural and moral drubbing by forces within and beyond black life, only to be later embraced as the standard bearer of black artistic excellence.
Hip-hop has likewise been subject to broad-ranging criticism. While I have made vigorous critiques of the genre myself, I cannot support the wholesale assault on a genre that has remade popular culture here and abroad over the last quarter-century. At its best, hip-hop has revived social critique in popular music. At its best, hip-hop has provided brilliant pavement poetry that contests social and racial amnesia about the fortunes and status of the black poor. At its best, hip-hop has permitted the upward mobility of (mostly male) young blacks through their artistic abilities.
When Lee hired renowned director and artist Reginald Hudlin — himself a vocal BET critic — to lead BET into the 21st century, it showed that she heard the most insightful critics of her brand and responded with a sophisticated corporate and intellectual gesture. That teaming of black corporate conscience and free black artistic expression must be allowed to paint its picture — even when it satirizes black culture to force it into sharper recognition of its flaws. That may hurt, but it may be helpful to our people in the long run.
Social protest is healthy, but targeting Lee in her home is an ugly rejection of the noble art of black resistance and protest in the name of our collective freedom.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/10/07/protested_1008.html
As an ordained Baptist minister, university professor and social activist, I applaud the expression of dissent and protest in the public realm. And I encourage all citizens of conscience to articulate their views about the treatment of the images of black people in media.
A Maryland-based Baptist minister is organizing a protest outside Black Entertainment Television's Second Annual Hip-Hop Awards show Oct. 13, outside Atlanta's Civic Center. It is his right to voice his concerns. However, I find the minister's recent protests at the home of BET Networks CEO Debra Lee to be extremely problematic while setting a dangerous precedent. The rich history of black civic and social protest has never targeted individuals at their homes. Rather, such protest identifies institutional and corporate sources of offensive behavior.
The black church of which Lee's critics and I are members has been heroic in its defense of black people and in its pursuit of justice for our people. But the black church, too, must continue to reflect on its own actions. There is sexism within the church. Many churches do not allow women to become pastors in the very churches where they worship. Homophobia exists in the church. Gay and lesbian Christians are sometimes religiously mistreated and insulted from the pulpit. Yet the homes of those ministers who offend women, gay men and lesbians, have never been targeted for protest.
Social protest and the expression of dissent is the lifeblood of our democracy and black people's quest for justice. But the demand to squelch artistic freedom and shape it according to a narrow idea of acceptable black identity is simplistic and unreasonable.
We must not forget that every form of black creativity, especially in the musical realm, has been subject to protest and censorship by narrow and reactionary forces. Jazz, blues, gospel and R&B have all come in for cultural and moral drubbing by forces within and beyond black life, only to be later embraced as the standard bearer of black artistic excellence.
Hip-hop has likewise been subject to broad-ranging criticism. While I have made vigorous critiques of the genre myself, I cannot support the wholesale assault on a genre that has remade popular culture here and abroad over the last quarter-century. At its best, hip-hop has revived social critique in popular music. At its best, hip-hop has provided brilliant pavement poetry that contests social and racial amnesia about the fortunes and status of the black poor. At its best, hip-hop has permitted the upward mobility of (mostly male) young blacks through their artistic abilities.
When Lee hired renowned director and artist Reginald Hudlin — himself a vocal BET critic — to lead BET into the 21st century, it showed that she heard the most insightful critics of her brand and responded with a sophisticated corporate and intellectual gesture. That teaming of black corporate conscience and free black artistic expression must be allowed to paint its picture — even when it satirizes black culture to force it into sharper recognition of its flaws. That may hurt, but it may be helpful to our people in the long run.
Social protest is healthy, but targeting Lee in her home is an ugly rejection of the noble art of black resistance and protest in the name of our collective freedom.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/10/07/protested_1008.html