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The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend:
"a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego)."Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist."
(Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger."
(MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
--"Joe"
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Thu Apr 12, 2007 at 06:00:00 AM EDT
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Most of the apologists for Don Imus have been pointing fingers at those in the black community who have supported (or ignored) the woman-degrading -- and often virulently homobigoted -- hip-hop artists, assuming that blacks are some monolithic group. It's telling that this debacle brought out a wide political range of people of color calling for Imus to be held accountable -- from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, to Clarence Page and Al Roker, to black conservative Amy Holmes, who said this on AC 360:And I think all of us on this show would agree that if any of us would said any of these things that we would have been fired instantly. Now, you know, I've said before, being a radio show host, it is a privilege, it is not a right.
And MSNBC, CBS, or any of these sponsors are not obligated to subsidize or financially sponsor someone who regularly is spewing out these types of slurs. But back to the matter of hip-hop, some of us have been concerned about it for years. When I reposted a diary at Daily Kos on the topic I caught quite a bit of heat for raising the issue, as if this calling women "bitches" and "hos" is an acceptable form of cultural expression, as if an effort to quell the problem in one genre gives any other a pass to treat women like crap.
Please. It's time to stop making excuses when people like Don Imus can appropriate "ho" under the cover of "rappers do it." I quoted dnA in an earlier post: Hip-hop has granted black men greater access to white women. It has also granted white men greater access to black women; make no mistake, your teenage son, little brother, or husband is tuning into the "booty channel" (also known as Black Entertainment Television) when you're not home. The attitude towards women in mainstream Hip-hop is that women are commodities, an attitude that mimics attitudes towards gender in greater American society, a fact made obvious by any beer commercial. Imus brought it out into the open, but will the door slam shut on further debate about the larger issues of race and misogyny? More after the jump... |
| Pam Spaulding :: Addressing the problems of Imus and hip-hop |
| The reason the dominant culture has been reluctant to address the debasing of women in elements of hip-hop is the third rail of race. People, we won't get anywhere unless everyone can speak about these issues out in the open, and that also means black folks have to stop automatically throwing up the "race shield" of defensiveness. Racism and sexism are pervasive in our culture regardless of race. We can endlessly comment on gay issues without a thought, but when it comes to race, clamming up has always been the trend. What we have to realize is the goal of civil equality and the elimination of the misogyny in popular culture knows no color. We all have to work together, ask the "dumb" questions on race, and get it all out on the table to move forward.
It's a common assumption that we're not going to get the help of the dominant community in taking on misogyny and homophobia in hip-hop -- as if the genre at this point doesn't have a huge slice of white consumers buying it, listening to it and absorbing the negative images of women and gays put out by some artists (or that it's the only genre of music doing so). I call bullsh*t.
It was black gay bloggers who protested the homophobic lyrics of artists like DMX and brought down an AIDS benefit concert put on by LIFEbeat, the music industry's AIDS charity. that featured recording artists Beenie Man and TOK; little attention was given to this by the MSM.
There is no excuse, and there's no place to hide. If you're going to call Imus on it, it's also time for all of us to talk about profiteering off of sexism, racism and homophobia. Paul Butler at Blackprof.com: As soon as I heard Don Imus' sexist comments about the Rutgers basketball team, I knew that people would blame hip-hop for its own promiscuous use of the word "ho."
..You'd expect people like 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg to use the epitaph, and they do. But the word even crops up in the lyrics of more politically conscious types like Jay-Z. In 99 Problems, Jigga's classic commentary on racial profiling, he tries to take the sexist fangs out of the word by referring to a racist male cop as a "ho". Jay raps "Now once upon a time not too long ago/ a nigga like me had to strong arm a ho/ This is not a ho in the sense of having a pussy/ but a pussy having no god damn sense try and push me."
The "H" word carries too much baggage to be neutralized. But it would be a mistake to focus on that one word. After calling the racist cop a "ho", Jay-Z calls him a "pussy." This illustrates the real problem - misogyny.
...All this is about wanting to keep women - especially black women - in their place. It would be more constructive to focus on the ugly roots of that ideology than to talk about banning a word. I am tired of hearing all the commentary about how something needs to be done about the problems of misogyny in music as if there is no counteropinion or action out there, let's point to one effort that has been doing it -- and needs the spotlight on it.
In January of 2005, Essence Magazine launched its Take Back the Music Campaign, a response to the degrading ways black women have been portrayed in the lyrics and videos of popular hip hop music. While coarse lyrics and half-naked women in music videos are nothing new, over the past few years the imagery has become even more graphic and more prevalent. Popular music once covered a variety of subjects, but today pimping, debasing and objectifying women is the standard. Further still, these messages are readily accessible to children on the radio and television. We're concerned about where this is heading if people don't at least start talking about it now.
...Too often, song lyrics and music videos bombard us with the message that Black women are bitches and hos whose only aspiration is to mount a stripper pole. Worse still are lyrics that advocate violence against women. As the world's foremost publication for Black women, we've been too quiet for too long. On the other hand, the magazine has always publicized positive artists and musicians who are seldom found on TV and radio, and we will continue to do so. It's clear that most of the chattering heads defending Imus with the "black rappers do it" haven't heard of this campaign -- why should they when the MSM doesn't give efforts like this the coverage it deserves -- and it doesn't suit the political point that many Imus defenders wanted to score. I'm sure if they do know about it, the matter is filed away, couched as a "problem" that needs to be handled "within the community." [What is also troublesome is that this latter attitude is also embraced by white progressives but for a different reason -- that third rail of calling out racism if you're not a POC.]
From Take Back the Music's 2007 site: Our goal is to: * provide a platform for discussion about popular music's more extreme images of Black women;
* explore the effects of such imagery on our children, especially our girls;
* seek greater balance in how Black women-and Black men-are portrayed in popular music and culture;
* encourage readers to examine their own attitudes on the subject;
* promote artists who deliver positive alternatives so that readers can vote with their dollars;
* give readers a blueprint for how they, too, can get involved in our campaign in whatever ways make sense for them.
We understand that not all of us see this issue in the same way, and that many of us are card-carrying members of the hip-hop generation. Those of us who aren't abhor censorship in any form and cherish artistic freedom even when we find the art personally distasteful.
For these reasons, we want to make clear what our initiative is not. It is not a blanket condemnation of hip-hop nor an attack on cultural liberalism. It is not a boycott of any particular artist or venue for artistic expression. It is not a lashing out at Black men in front of or behind the video camera, for we recognize these men as our brothers and understand that we all have a common stake in raising awareness of how we are individually and collectively portrayed.
Indeed, the editors shaping our Take Back the Music initiative hold complex and diverse views on the subject of popular music, but we all have one thing in common: We're deeply concerned by the pervasiveness of negative images of Black women and its effect on our girls. Each of us is charged with finding our own personal response to the negative imagery, and not all of our responses will be the same. It is quite timely that this initiative is given attention because its Take Back the Music Hip-Hop songwriting contest will reveal its top 10 finalists tomorrow, April 13. Aspiring lyricists and songwriters, between the ages 15 to 18, will compete to win tuition-free classes at the Berklee College of Music's Boston campus.
This is about creating the next generation of artists -- ones who won't perpetuate this cycle of bigotry and misogyny.
As I said in an earlier post on this topic, what this discussion of culturally-approved misogyny by a segment of the hip-hop community will bring to light is another view of the sad, seemingly widening gulf between black men and women in mutual trust and regard, and in education and economic opportunities. You see it in the disparity between college-educated black men and women, the incarceration and unemployment rates for young black men, and, if you read Essence regularly, the grim dilemma of women looking for "marriage material" with those long odds and concern about men on the DL.
The real enemies are the culture warriors who love nothing more than to see us at each others' throats rather than thinking about solutions and talking about the core challenges in overcoming these ingrained attitudes in a civil manner.
Related:
* MSNBC drop kicks Imus simulcast
* Why Imus has to go
* Sponsors yanking ads from Imus
* Imus, don't let the door hit you...
* Rutgers team responds to Imus
* MSNBC suspends Imus simulcast for two weeks
* So which pols are going to go on Imus now?
* Don Imus: Rutgers women's basketball team 'nappy-headed hos' |
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