I am not every girl

Today's music industry (at least most mainstream rap) is not my piece of cake...more like nails scratching a chalkboard. Now, calling a woman a bitch is more common than calling her by her name. But before you rolls your eyes and think this is another one of those "let's be PC", anti-hip hop blogs, I'm not going in that direction completely (although there will be some elements of this). What I will do is shed some light on a story that moves us in a more positive direction.

So we all know about the performance featuring Drake, Lil Wayne, and Young Money at this year's BET awards (I even knew about it...and at the time, I was in friggin SPAIN!). We all know that in general, the performance took the meaning of tasteless and the attempts of T.V. censorship to another level. And we all know that they rapped the following lyrics to the hit song "Every Girl":

Uh, I like a long hair thick red-bone
open up her legs to filet mignon that pussy
I'ma get in an' out that pussy
if she let me in, i'ma own that pussy
go on' throw it back and bust it open like
you 'posed to girl,
i got that dope dick
now come here lemme dope you
you gon' be a dope fiend,
your friends should call you Dopey















All that after saying that the performance was dedicated to the late Michael Jackson. Yea. Ok. Yes, yes it was another "head down in shame" moment for many. And with the little middle school and high school girls (at least that's what they looked like) dancing around to the very song that degrades and dehumanizes them, I thought kinda hopelessly to myself, "This is how it is now? Have we become this desensitized? This is how we view our young girls and women? This is hip hop? This is what we consider Black entertainment?" And I also thought that from airing this song on radio stations and the performance on television, this must be what the majority of people today deem as acceptable. But thank the Lord not everyone found the performance acceptable, let alone entertaining.

Milan and Imani Ford also tuned into the BET awards and that gut-wrenching performance...and were appalled like people with sense should be. But they didn't just sit around like me and many others complaining about how disgusting and outrageous the song is...they created a movement against the song and all that it glorifies. The movement is an online campaign called IAMNOTEVERYGIRL.COM that petitions for the removal of the song "Every Girl" from every radio station or at least limit the play time during the hours of 12:30am-6am. Currently however, the couple is focusing on three popular radio stations in Atlanta. There are also other important objectives to this campaign such as educating audiences about the effects of listening to these type of explicit lyrics.

What makes me extremely pleased about this particularly campaign is that a man, a BLACK man, is the navigator for a change. So many times, people just roll their eyes and let out a big sigh when they hear another black woman complaining about sexually explicit lyrics in rap music. But this time, a brotha has stood and said enough is enough! What are we teaching our daughters? (That is no way to say that the rap industry is responsible for raising our children...but whether people in and outside of the rap industry want to believe it or not, rap music DOES have an influence on the youth). Also, the couple is not anti Lil Wayne or anti-hip hop. They seem to be however anti-exploitation, anti-objectification, anti-ignorance, and may I dare say anti-coonery. They acknowledge Lil Wayne's talent but feel that it is unfortunate that he has chosen to use it disdaining manner (and I completely agree). Lil Wayne isn't the first nor will he be the last rapper to include inhumane lyrics about owning pussy and hoes and the whole nine yards. That's the image many rappers have to sell (when in reality they are really selling themselves short...look beyond the fame and money please).

What I can't understand is why some people are completely against this campaign. First, we have the people who feel the campaign takes away from the freedom to choose to listen to any type of music and the freedom of speech. Riiight. Don Imus had that same freedom of speech when he called Rutgers University women's basketball team nappy headed hoes...and the black community about had a fit and demanded that he be fired. Now, I am not saying what Don Imus said was no where near right (I was with the black community on this one). BUT what I fail to understand is why we aren't demanding something similar from rappers. Does it really have to be racially fueled and take a white man to call a black woman a hoe for some people in the black community to realize that this type of degradation is unacceptable? Better yet, why is it acceptable for rappers (who are majority black) to call women (who are often times black women) bitches and hoes. Please, do us a social favor and stop referring to black women and women in general as bitches and hoes...please be more creative.

Others are asking , "why this song? Why now? There have been plenty other songs of this nature and some worst." Yes these people are right, there are far worse songs out there (although honestly, sometimes this is hard for me to believe since most of mainstream hip hop is about the same ol same ol). But we CAN NOT continue to bob our heads to songs with this type of message. After all, I am sure black people would not dance to a song that talks about how slavery and segregation were the best things in history..at least I hope not. When it comes down to issues of race/racial discrimination, black people sound the horn and out comes Al Sharpton. But when it comes down to issues of gender/objectification of women, at times it seems as though we turn our head the other way.

Needless to say, I am elated that Milan and Imani have decided to turn the other away to this type of entertainment. For more information about the movement, check out their website iamnoteverygirl.com