Words of Fire (92 page)

Discussions about the alleged breakdown of the black family and the need for strong African American male role models serve as an important backdrop to the resurgent interest in and celebration of Malcolm X. Spike Lee's
X
, which has, unfortunately, become the final word on Malcolm X
for millions of Americans, is but an expensive Hollywood ending to a much longer period of reconstructing his memory. One of the many distortions and omissions surrounding the retrospective of Malcolm's life and times has been the conspicuous inattention to gender politics. Malcolm's own view of women, as well as the implications of a largely masculinized version of the black freedom movement, is uncritically accepted by many who invoke his memory.

In this revisionist reconstruction of the past, and especially in Lee's film, Malcolm has been amputated from the larger social and political context of the 1960s to stand on his own as representative of an entire movement and era. We rarely see the problematic dichotomy of Malcolm versus Martin anymore—even that has been glossed over in an attempt to give an essentialist veneer of “race” as thicker than “politics.” What we are also left with is an erasure of the grassroots component of the Black Power and Civil Rights movements, especially the role of grassroots women organizers, who were the very backbone of groups like SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), MFDP (Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party) and, in a different way, the Black Panther Party. Organizers like Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker have been literally “X'd” out of the popular—and, unfortunately, most academic—histories, African American youth and others are left with the disempowering misperception that only largerthan-life great men can make or change history, and that this process is an individual rather than a collective venture. The struggle for black liberation is thus equated solely with the struggle to redeem black manhood, and with individual triumph over adversities and indignities. Moreover, black manhood is redeemed by militant posturing heroes, not by the arduous and often unrewarding task of daily organizing and struggle. The deified persona of Malcolm X, a strong black male who overcame a life of poverty, immorality, and crime to become a critic of American injustice, a steadfast and manly defender of black people and a paragon of puritanical morality, fits neatly into this scenario. Thus, the prescription for solving the problems and dilemmas facing the African American community today is—add strong black men and stir.

This Hollywood image of Malcolm X readily lends itself to the current political agendas of the various and disparate groups who seek opportunistically to lay claim to his legacy—from Nation of Islam leader and former Malcolm adversary, Louis Farrakhan, to ultraconservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. What has been created in popular culture, according to historian Robin D. G. Kelley, is a “Malcolm safe for democracy.” While most portrayals of Malcolm, even twenty-second sound bites, display his incisive critique of racism, they systematically exclude any reference to his positions on other crucial issues such as imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and, of course, gender. In one of the rare published critiques of
Malcolm's gender politics, black feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins argues that “masculinist assumptions pervade Malcolm X's thinking, and these beliefs, in turn, impoverished his version of black nationalism ... [his] views on women reflected dominant views of white manhood and womanhood applied uncritically to the situation of African Americans.”
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In most accounts, however, Malcolm's patriarchal and sexist ideas, which regrettably remained static through most of his life, are either ignored, downplayed, or reinforced. For example, in the movie X, Betty Shabazz is portrayed uncritically as “the strong woman behind the great man.” No mention is made of the fact that she left Malcolm after the birth of each of their five children, or of her subordinate status within the context of their male-headed family. Furthermore, no mention is made of Malcolm's own effort to grapple with and challenge the sexism that characterized most of his adult life. In a correspondence to his cousin-in-law, Hakim Jamal, in January 1965, Malcolm himself confronts this issue:

Although Paul Lee, one of the few researchers who has attempted to address Malcolm's gender politics, was a consultant to Spike Lee (no relation) during the making of the movie, Spike opted to ignore this aspect of Paul Lee's insightful work. It did not fit, apparently, with the type of Malcolm the filmmaker was attempting to fabricate. The hero worship of Malcolm as great black father and the uncritical acceptance of his retrograde views on gender, a weakness that he himself recognized, is quite consistent with the new culture of poverty theorists, who blame African American people—women, in particular—for perpetuating our own oppression, and who propose strong male-dominated families as the solution.

While the celebration of Malcolm as a cult hero offers us a stifled and restricted ideal of black womanhood safely relegated to the footnotes of a self-consciously masculine text, many male rappers project a different, although equally problematic, set of gender roles. The Nation of Islam's position on male-female relationships, and one that Malcolm endorsed most of his life, suggests that black women should be “respected and protected,”
confined to a domestic sphere, and serve a subordinate role relative to their husbands. In contrast, a significant amount of the gender imagery in rap, especially in the subgenre of gangsta rap, simultaneously celebrates and condemns the kind of black woman who is presumably undeserving of either respect or protection, the bad girl, Jezebel, whore, bitch. The oversexed black woman who is only relevant to the extent that she serves as a source of male entertainment and pleasure. This prototype is described as a possession, a thing, like a car, jewelry, and clothes. And if she dares to overstep her bounds, assert her humanity, and demand something in return, she is characterized as a deserving recipient of violence. The imagery is graphically reinforced in the music videos and on stage, where back-up dancers gyrate, almost naked, and in some cases simulate sex acts. At the same time, they are taunted with insults and derogatory names by the male rappers. The women are usually smiling with welcoming approval at this abusive and degrading treatment. This is certainly not a liberatory vision, but one, sadly, quite consistent with the racist and sexist stereotypes we have endured for centuries. Moreover, it feeds directly into a public discourse in which the criminalization of poor black women is linked to their sexuality. For example, in the current debate about welfare reform, African American women have been scapegoated as the undeserving recipients of public aid because of their alleged sexual irresponsibility and immoral behavior.

The cultural and ideological assault upon black women not only helps to justify reactionary public policies that compromise the lives of poor black women and their children, it also helps to justify direct acts of physical violence. The real life case of Dee Barnes—the New York City talk show host who was publicly beaten into submission by rapper Dr. Dre in a Manhattan nightclub for allegedly making critical comments about him on the air—is one clear example of the relationship between art and real life. This incident illustrates the extent to which some male rappers actually believe and internalize the misogynist messages they put forth in song. The believability of Dr. Dre's recent public service announcement against battering is undermined by the lyrics of his new single, “Nothin But a Thang,” in which he once again advocates “puttin' the slap down” on a ho that doesn't know her place.

At the same time, coexisting alongside these sexist lyrics are some that are very positive and progressive. Groups like Public Enemy and Arrested Development call for “revolution” and for “poor whites and blacks [to] bum rush the system.” Furthermore, an alternative to the antiwoman messages of other artists is offered by rap groups like Digable Planets, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and Arrested Development. A few songs actually identify fighting sexism as a priority for the black freedom movement. Still, while some of these groups consciously reject the verbal slander and sexual objectification of black women, most do not advocate total
gender equality or feminist/womanist empowerment. Rather, a number of these artists idealize traditional nuclear families with strong patriarchal father figures as the ultimate salvation of the race. But, in addition, female rappers from Queen Latifah to M. C. Lyte and Salt 'n Peppa also speak in a different and distinct voice with regard to gender politics. Although these women rappers have been reluctant to criticize fellow rappers in public for fear that such criticism might fuel racist biases against the genre as a whole, they have created a counterdiscourse through their own music. For example, in her song, “The Evil that Men Do,” Queen Latifah challenges white male patriarchal power and outlines the ways in which it targets poor black women, especially those trapped by the welfare system. This type of lyrical content not only offers an alternative to the sexism of many male rappers, but is an indirect challenge to their authority to articulate the black experience in exclusive male terms.

Many critics have had a difficult time reconciling the positive and progressive messages of rap with the often sexist and misogynist references to African American women. For example, how do we reconcile the call for reparations, the freeing of political prisoners, and self-defense against police brutality with slanderous references to black women as bitches, hoes, freaks, and sack chasers? On one level, the ability of some (not all) rap artists to merge the call for black empowerment with the call for black female subjugation seems like a glaring inconsistency, yet, on another level, it is not incongruous at all. In fact, this issue reflects the ongoing and longstanding contradictions of cultural nationalism with regard to gender and, by extension, the gender dilemma that the African American freedom movement has yet fully to address or resolve. As E. Frances White points out in her brilliant article on nationalism and gender, there is a precedent, in the cultural nationalist movements of the 1960s, for “an oppositional strategy that both counters racism and constructs conservative utopian images of African American life ... (especially) utopian and repressive gender roles.”
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The reconciliation of sexism and antiracism is typical of a particular strain of cultural black nationalism. This vision of black struggle and empowerment equates black liberation with black male liberation only; uncritically accepts the dominant society's patriarchal model of gender and family relations; sees the sexual objectification and sexual manipulation of black women as a male prerogative; and defines political militancy as a part of some exclusive male domain.

These flawed and erroneous assumptions about gender and liberation provide a perfect rationale for the continued subjugation of black women, almost as a matter of principle. That is, if Black Power is defined as redeeming black manhood, and black manhood is defined uncritically as the right to be the patriarchal heads of black families, and the exclusive defenders of the black community, black women are, by definition, relegated
to a marginal status. The point here is to suggest that the type of political radicalism defined by some male rap artists is not antithetical to their promotion of antiwomanist messages, but, rather, is quite consistent, and goes to the core of the contradictions and limitations of the political framework itself.

To paraphrase the radical intellectual and activist Ella Baker, even dissidents are products of the societies we seek to transform. That is, it is part of the dialectical nature of popular protest that groups and individuals can and do oppose certain modes of oppression, while they simultaneously reinforce others. Therefore, while rap artists express a just and righteous rage against the myriad of forces poised to undermine the survival of black men, it is often an undirected rage and one in which black women get caught in the crossfire of a war to defend black manhood. In essence, some rappers embrace a political vision that uncritically accepts and internalizes the dominant society's narrow and patriarchal definition of manhood, and then defines liberation as the extent to which black men meet those criteria: the acquisition of money, violent military conquest, and the successful subjugation of women as domestic and sexual servants. This is, ultimately, not a revolutionary praxis, but an assimilationist one dressed up in black face.

Criticism of the negative, particularly sexist, tendencies within rap has often met with a defensive response. While, on the one hand, some observers have romanticized rap music as the authentic and uncensored voice of black protest, other scholars and activists have been reluctant to criticize certain rap artists for fear of being perceived as divisive, or of “airing the dirty laundry” of the black community to a mixed audience. These reservations are not without merit. It is true that part of the attack on black musicians by censors of various brands reflects a racial double standard, which exempts racist rock groups and sexually explicit performers like Madonna. Nevertheless, this fact alone does not explain away or excuse the negative and abusive verbal assaults made upon black women.