Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

THE POLITICS OF RAPE

Hip Hop is a place where a culture of misogyny, rape and violence is embraced, cultivated and financed by American capitalism. Rapper, Eminem, whose net worth is over $140 million, with endorsements from Chrysler, Lipton, and G-Shock, exemplifies what the corporate culture validates with his Hip Hop lyrics “Stay Wide Awake” produced by Dr Dru.

32 Overlooked Rape Lyrics In Hip-Hop

EMINEM – STAY WIDE AWAKE LYRICS // //

Fe fi fo fum
I think I smell the scent of a placenta
I enter central park its dark its winter in decemba
I see my target with my car and park it at a poacha tenda
Young girl by the name of Brenda and I pretend to befriend her
I sit down beside her like a spider hi there girl you mighta
Heard of me before see whore your the girl that ida
Assault and rape and figure why not try to make your pussy wida
Fuck you with ad the umbrella and open it up while the shits inside ya
Im the kinda guy thats mild bt I mite blip in get a little bit wilda
Impregnate a lesbian gal and lets see ya have triplets nd milda

In 1993, Mia Zapata of the Gits Punk Rock Band was brutally raped and murdered while walking home in Seattle Capitol Hill area. Some of her ‘girlfriends’ who had also been sexually assaulted took part in a documentary created by Leah Michaels and Rozz Therrien’s “Rock,  Rage; Self Defense: An Oral History of Seattle’s Home Alive” to promote self-defense strategies for women who are at risk. Many of those at risk are one out of five women who are raped on college campuses across the US. A few of the following statistics bear this out.

(http://www.oneinfourusa.org/statistics.php)

1. One in four college women report surviving rape (15 percent) or attempted rape (12 percent) since their fourteenth birthday.
2. In a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease control of 5,000 college students at over 100 colleges, 20% of women answered “yes” to the question “In your lifetime have you been forced to submit to sexual intercourse against your will?” Thus, one in five college women has been raped at some point in her lifetime.
3. 99% of people who rape are men, 60% are Caucasian.
4. 35% of men report at least some degree of likelihood of raping if they could be assured they wouldn’t be caught or punished.

The White House released a “FACT SHEET: Not Alone – Protecting Students from Sexual Assault” from the Office of the Press Secretary, April 29, 2014, and a

(http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/29/fact-sheet-not-alone-protecting-students-sexual-assault)

“Reaction to a series of highly publicized rapes on college campuses, a White House statement on Monday released guidelines that increase the pressure on universities to more aggressively combat sexual assaults on campus.

The task force says that one in five female college students has been assaulted, but that just 12 percent of such attacks are reported.” (NYT, Jennifer Steinhauer, April 28, 2014)

These statistics are in line with another Report to:

Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice
December, 2000

The Sexual Victimization of College Women
Authors: Bonnie S. Fisher, Francis T. Cullen, Michael G. Turner

(https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf)

“College campuses host large concentrations of young women who are at
greater risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault than women in the
general population or in a comparable age group. Based on their findings,
Bonnie Fisher and her colleagues estimate that the women at a college that
has 10,000 female students could experience more than 350 rapes a year—
a finding with serious policy implications for college administrators”

After fourteen years the policies and guidelines don’t go far enough for the maintenance of a civilized society for women. In an uncivilized society men who choose violent instinct over reason become predators to a coded and commodified political “game of thrones” (NYT, 5-3-2014) which diminishes, if not forfeits their own humanity. Therefore, more drastic solutions maybe required if these dynamics are to change.

I SOLUTION: is offered by Eileen MacDonald “Shoot The Women First” (1991) an exploration of women’s bi-lateral acts of extreme violence and the police/military’s’ response to it. She states that “Women involved in violence have always provoked both revulsion and fascination. They are interlopers in a world assumed to be exclusively male.” Hip Hop Rappers “The Raveonette’s” both provoke revulsion and offer a militant if not a vigilante call for mutually assured destruction (MAD).

Boys Who Rape

Date Rape Anthem: “The Raveonette’s “Boys Who Rape Should All Be Destroyed”; an ode to eliminating perpetrators of sexual violence

Three to one girl
How can you win
One horrid night
You hope that it’s a bad dream
They rip you to shreds
Make you feel useless
You’ll never forget
Those fuckers stay in your head
Boys who rape should all be destroyed
Boys who rape should all be destroyed

The Raveonette’s Rap demands revenge, a consequence of sexual violence, similar to Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” rapping against police brutality in the documentary “From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale” (2006). These Rappers want respect instead of violence.

Other responses include American rapper Queen Latifah who collected a Grammy for U.N.I.T.Y in 1995 as a protest against the violence and assault against black women. She is one of raps pioneering feminist to challenge male rappers use of the terms “bitch” and ‘ho” which dehumanize women.  She raps, “Every time I hear a brother call a girl bitch or ho. Trying to make a sister feel low, You know all of that’s got to go.”] (Citation:  Katherine Cheairs, Radical Women, “Women, Feminism, & Hip-Hop, December, 2005)

 

II SOLUTIONS:

Political Women’s Movement confronting and changing the male homo-socialization power structures reproducing the politics of rape both internally and externally.

Women Rappers rant against those who would destroy female bodily integrity. Their Rap is recorded and heard, in line with LaBennet Oneka, “Histories and ‘Her Stories’ from the Bronx: Excavating Hidden Hip Hop Narratives” 2009.

Women taking active legislative roles to redefine who and what constitutes a Civilized Society.

Panic Buttons; Social Media; Reduction in Male Births (MAD)

CONFRONTATION WITH PATRIARCH’S ‘MAN IN THE MIRROR’

WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION?