Did Malcolm X Hate Women?

Manning Marable's controversial book takes a hard look at Malcolm's complicated relationship with women.

Did Malcolm X Hate Women?

by Natalie Hopkinson | The Root.com

Malcolm X was furious to learn at the last minute that a speaker had decided not to appear at a rally at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, N.Y., on Feb. 21, 1965. A flustered aide said that he'd phoned Malcolm's wife, Betty, with the information, according to Manning Marable's controversial biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.

Malcolm exploded: "You gave that message to a woman?! ... You should know better than that."

The remarks, hours before he was assassinated, capped off a lifetime of frustration with, dependence on and anger at the women in his life. The fact was, Betty, pregnant with twins, did not know how to reach him. She and her four daughters had been living with friends since they were evicted from their former Nation of Islam-owned home -- which had just been firebombed. Malcolm kept his distance from the family to keep them safe.

Read the Full Essay @ The Root.com

The Media’s Obsession with Unmarried Black Women

The Media v. Black Women:
The Peculiar Case of the Media’s Obsession with Unmarried Black Women
by Diane Lucas

By now, everyone in the country with access to a television, the internet or a book store has gotten the memo that black women marry at a dismally low rate compared to women of other races. We’ve seen and read it in the Economist, The Washington Post, U.S. News, Essence Magazine, Ebony and on The View, Oprah, and Nightline, among others. We know that of the hetero-black male population, there are significant numbers of black men incarcerated, lower rates of higher education, and disproportionate numbers of black men marrying outside of their race, as compared to black women. We heard that even setting aside those factors, there are fewer black men than woman in the U.S. population. No one is denying that there is an issue. It’s been an issue for a while now. So why the New York Times recently published what seems like the millionth and one article on why black women can’t find a man is absolutely baffling.

I have been thinking a lot about this issue and discussing it with friends — black and white, male and female — to pinpoint precisely why these articles bother me so much. I, like many other black feminists/womanists, constantly call for more discussion of issues affecting black women and other women of color in the mainstream media. Black relationships and the black family are important mainstream topics. But the media is obsessed with unmarried black women. One black woman commenting on the ABC Nightline post put it best — she said she is waiting for the article about black women tripping down altars riddled with reporters and social scientists. The inundation of these articles, T.V. specials, and books is an attack on black women. The overall message conveyed is unproductive and harmful.

Specifically, here’s my beef (and bear with me, because I have a lot of it):

Blame Game

The media often places the blame on black women for their perceived inability to find successful black men, especially when black women become more educated and achieve greater success in their careers. Although some articles and T.V. specials acknowledge the disparate number of available black men vís a vís black women due to the racialization of the criminal justice system, the discussion rarely turns to how black men can improve their romantic interactions with black women. Rather, the media often focuses on black women and their “issues.” Many of these articles, T.V. specials and books are purposed to instruct black women on how to be more desirable to black men or how to lower their standards. A prime example is the book The Denzel Principle: Why a Black Woman Can’t Find a Good Black Man, which blames black women for setting their standards too high — they apparently only want Denzel Washington, not the mail man.

The Nightline multi-part special entitled “Why Can’t a Successful Black Woman Find a Man?” sent the message that, as the title implies, black women are to blame for many of their problems finding a man. The Nightline special posed questions that begged for “experts” (including Steve Harvey, a comedian, whose “expertise” on black women and relationships remains unclear) to figure out what is wrong with black women. Are they too strong? Too powerful? Too aggressive? Too demanding? Of course, these stereotypical characteristics of black women are the same traits often attributed to successful people generally, regardless of race or gender. So the take away to black women is that the very characteristics that made you successful are the same ones that will keep you single, lonely, and of course unhappy.

Instead of being asked to make a choice between being either strong and independent or married, black women would be better served if our strengths were celebrated and not demonized, and if we were recognized as individuals. Black women would fare better if writers, experts and social scientists would take a break from hyper-examining and over-analyzing us to figure out what our “problems” are.

Read the Full Essay @ Feministe

Diane Lucas is a Attorney in New York City

Tyler Perry More Dangerous Than (bad) Rap Music?

Tyler Perry's Gender Problem
by Courtney Young

Tyler Perry has rapidly become the most bankable African-American moviemaking brand in Hollywood and an entrepreneurial heavyweight. The seven feature films he has conceived and produced have earned more than $300 million at the box office, with an average opening-weekend gross of $25 million--no small feat for films with predominately black casts. He credits his creative inspiration for these films, in part, to African-American women. So far, so good--that is, until you see the films.

Perry's films typically follow the same timeworn narrative: a woman experiences abandonment and/or abuse at the hands of a "bad" man; she takes umbrage, lashing out at those closest to her, most notably a "good" man in her life; she experiences a revelatory moment of change; and she ends the film settled down with the good man who promises her a better life.

Though Perry repeatedly references his admiration for and allegiance to African-American women as a foundation of his work, his portrayal of women of color undermines the complexity of their experience through his reductionist approach to his characters and his dependence on disquieting gender politics. Perry may see himself as creating modern-day fairy tales for black women, but what he may not realize is that fairy tales, in general, have never been kind to women.

The crux of Perry's gender problem lies in his reliance on conservative gender politics that eschew a more progressive, inclusive agenda. Each of his films advances nearly the same message to his audience (which is overwhelmingly African-American, female, devoutly Christian and over 30). Be demure. Be strong but not too strong. Too much ambition is a detriment to your ability to find a partner and spiritual health. Female beauty can be dangerous. Let a man be a "man." True female fulfillment is found in the role of wife and/or mother. To this effect, the black church plays a central role in Perry's vision. While the church championed equality during the civil rights movement and was instrumental in fighting for the advancement of African-Americans along the lines of race, it has routinely adopted a more conservative agenda along the lines of gender. In using a traditional religious paradigm as the linchpin for his work and by investing in prevailing gender politics, Perry is proposing an agenda that reinforces rather than revolutionizes the marginalized way that black womanhood has been portrayed in popular culture.

Read the Full Essay @ The Nation

Even So-Called "Conscious" Rappers Cross the Line

"Make Her Say (Poke Her Face)”:
Un-conscious Hip Hop, Oral Rape and the Silencing of Women
by Jennifer McLune

Author’s Note: The following essay represents my attempt at articulating a response to Kid Cudi’s “Make Her Say (Poke Her Face),” featuring Common and Kanye West. I’d like to be honest in stating upfront that, during the process of writing this piece I only listened to the song and read over its lyrics on an absolutely-as-needed basis. The words & the images these contempt-ridden lyrics created in my mind left me feeling physically sick and emotionally depleted, even at times to the point of being traumatized.

As a female listener, one willing to allow herself to really hear this song’s words and take them to heart, the message was painfully clear: women like dick; we like it violently shoved in our faces, and, according to Common at least, we want oral sex forced upon us, however brutally men see fit to give it. We even enjoy having a man’s penis shoved down our throats, pushed up our mouths, literally rammed through our faces so far and with so much force that a penetration of the internal matter of our skulls occurs, i.e. the man hits “brain” with his dick. According to Common, Kanye and Kid Cudi, some women enjoy this kind of brutal, body punishing oral sex; they can learn how to beg, not only to be used as receptacles for men’s semen, but to be violated to the point of physical injury. Having to deal with this type of pure, unmitigated misogyny, and needing to think about it for an extended period of time in order to write about it made the completion of this piece extremely difficult. I enlisted the help of another radical feminist, Stephanie Cleveland, whose support and contributions in editing and writing spared me the ordeal of having to complete this essay all alone.

When the song “I Poke Her Face” was first brought to my attention, I thought that, if nothing else, at least Common’s “consciousness pimping” would finally being exposed. I imagined the singer would no longer be able to hide behind what we his listening public have so long pretended he’s about; this songs lyrics seemed to make it painfully clear who Common really is, and has in fact always been: a consciousness pimp who likes and expects to get my dick sucked by “stripper bitches,” just like any other woman-hating guy. Common seemed to be indisputably articulating that sentiment in the song, but leave it to one of his male fans, DC area poet and activist Kenneth Carroll, to dissent with a comment that is not only unoriginal, but also does exactly what Common and Kanye must have banked on—it demonstrates how their fans will dismiss any song, even one this overtly hateful, as a mere “inconsistency” in their struggle to be better men, certainly not an overt manifestations of the sadistic, full-blown misogynist these men really and truly are. Carroll writes:

I like Common, but this song reminds me of the Gil Scott Heron admonition to rappers on his album Spirits, when he told rappers "You can't be progressive on every other song. She's your queen on one song and your bitch on the other." Inconsistency is an issue for all of us however, that's part of the struggle to live to our highest ideals.

Why did the above statement make me feel almost as nauseated as the actual song itself? For starters, Carroll's response demonstrates no mere inconsistency, but rather, a particularly dangerous form of hypocrisy with respect to violence against women. He purports to care about honoring black women, but then proceeds to mask the sexual abuse of his sisters in callous euphemisms. "Inconsistency" is way too mild a term to use for inflicting the kind of sexual abuse on a woman Common sings about. Often times, I have noticed that most men, who won’t actually bring themselves to defend a song like “Poke Her Face,” but will instead use vague excuses in order to avoiding critiquing its message, may be doing so in order to continue living vicariously through these kinds of misogynist lyrics. Common creates a fantasy with these songs that many men can relate to, a fantasy world where men can be sexually dominant over a woman, and, at least in their own minds, put her back in her place.

Read the Full Essay @ Celie's Revenge

Defending Palin? Challenging Media Sexism

from NewsOne.com


LEFT OF BLACK
Sexism, Misogyny and Sarah Palin
by Mark Anthony Neal

Much of the election news cycle these past few days has been devoted to wardrobe issues, specifically, the amount of money that the Republican National Committee has spent on clothes and makeup for the Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. In addition, questions have arisen regarding Palin’s use of Alaska state funds for travel with her family, travel that may not be related to her official duties as Governor.

That many cable news networks felt compelled to devote air time to speculation about the cost of Palin’s wardrobe and her family’s travel itinerary is the by-product 24-hour news programming. This incessant need to fill every hour with content, no matter how trivial, contributes to the dumbing-down of an American electorate salivating for information. But there’s something more troubling at play here, an issue that has everything to do with the brave new world that Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have ushered in.

Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin share very little ideologically or politically, but during the 2008 election cycle, they will be forever linked by the palpable sexism that has accompanied mainstream media coverage of their campaigns. Frenzy over the cost of Palin’s RNC sponsored wardrobe is not unlike the mocking of Clinton’s pantsuits. In a society largely concerned with the physical attractiveness of women, it’s not surprising that women politicians with national constituencies would also be subject to beauty contest standards, even by so-called respectable journalists. Indeed, the lack of mainstream commentary about the not-so-hushed descriptions of Palin as a “MILF” and Clinton’s lack of so-called MILF appeal speaks to how insulated many of us are to how these dynamics function in media coverage.

Read Full Essay@