And You Even Licked My Balls: A Black Feminist Note on Nate Dogg

Oh boy…Here we go again, let’s blame White men for what Black men are doing because you know, Black men are children and cannot be held accountable for their own actions. (that’s sarcasm FYI)
No one is forcing those Black male rappers to rap about how “you even licked my balls” so spare me and yes I am a Black woman myself and I’m sick and tired of the blaming of everyone other than the Black male himself.
This is why you can’t walk in the streets without being bothered…in fact, i’ll even go as far as saying if it weren’t for the police there would be mass rapes in the BC which btw is already happening.
I’m sick of Black women tip toeing around it so to not hurt Black males feelings (read:egos).
Enough is enough. If you’re tired of being disrespected, do not buy their albums, do not support them with your money and speak up and against it! Stop victimizing Black men, they are not victims, they are grown adults like you and me.

“Ain’t No Fun” seems like a song about running trains and passing chicks around. And since running trains is really and truly only one step up from rape in most situations, and not even that in some cases, I can no longer support that song.
But, as a young man, I thought it was the cool and the correct attitude to have about women. However, as a black man, with a black mother, I also understand that black women were to be respected and adored as well. As the author noted, with many white cats they don’t get that latter education, just the former.

I don’t agree with everything Val has said, but please do not dismiss street harassment. It is very, very real.

I’m not sure I understand what the author is trying to say. This saddens me, because I would probably agree. Is the author saying that white men shouldn’t listen to black men talk about degrading black women because they don’t understand it, or just that they (the white men) shouldn’t laud it (the music)? What exactly do white men have to do with black misogyny? How does a black man’s disrespect of her have anything to do with white men listening to Snoop and Dre? I’m sorry, but I’ve missed the point.

This article is clear as glass! When looking at Black misogyny in rap follow the money and it leads back to White men. Rappers are pawns that are being played by record executives. When Black men started rap music it was about fighting the establishment or talking about one’s background.

@Val– Renina is not letting one off the hook especially not Black men. She called us out on our “stuff” quite a few times.

White guys get to live the fantasy of watching/listening to gangsta culture while Black women bear the grunt of it period! Black men while perpetrators we didn’t create misogyny we learned it. It’s passed down from generation to generation and especially if your African American. History shows us. Slaves learned how men should act from the white guys who owned us. Being a man meant being in power, no emotions and having control over women and other men. Fast forward til today and the same dynamic is here.

It seems every time a woman of color especially a Black women wants to talk about misogyny, especially how White male sexism effects and infects Black men the same predictable behavior happens people want to move/deflect the conversation away where misogyny starts and try to rest it at the feet of Black men, basically silencing the voice of the Black woman who started the convo in the first place. Give credit where credit is due and misogyny didn’t start with Black men.

Thank you all for your comments.

It is always interesting to see how folks read, and what they take away.

I hope to clarify some points here:

In this post I am talking about how White mens investment in a Nate Dogg song impacts, shapes and constrains the popularity of the Snoop-Nate catalog and the impact that the popularity has on how Black men treat Black women, particularity in public.

@Jane…You get it and thank you.

Men in general Black men in particular are harmed by janky assed lyrics, because it creates a rigid public idea of what “real” Black masculinity looks like. When heterosexual men fall outside of the norm they risk being dominated through violence or the threat of violence, similar to how Queer and Gay men are, and Women in general are as well. This is no way to live.

I was very particular in naming that we learn HOW to be racist and sexist. We learn how to perform race, femininity, masculinity, etc. It is not “natural.”

@Charles Rappers are human beings, meaning that they have a will to act. They are not objects. To make this music is a choice. I am certainly mindful of how lucrative rap music has been for music industry corporate entities, who largely, are neither Black men nor women, but to simply say that they are puppets allows us to conclude that they had no choice. Our choices are limited to our options.

When I wrote this post originally, a White male commenter, SoSa, left a message saying:
“The question is, what is the CONNECTION between me as a white male and you a black woman who feels the negative effects. The issue I see here is the extreme DISCONNECT. We are so culturally distanced that your average white male (living in a equally white neighborhood) is so unaffected by your struggle that we are completely unaware.”

I was floored. In his being honest, he opened the door to ideas that I suspected but had never confirmed.

-R

I really liked your article, but men cat calling women in the street was going on long before rap music was ever invented and yes, I am talking about nasty comments.

As for what SoSa said, well it makes perfect sense. If something doesn’t affect you directly, most people really don’t care. Many people don’t understand how things, even if they don’t affect you directly, affect you anyway.

Stepping into the mine field here. I would answer your question with an analogy from the movie “The Accused.” White men may not be participating in the direct misogyny against black women but by patronizing this music they are the audience “clapping” and “hooting” their encouragement. I would say to this audience if your excuse is that you didn’t participate in the act, you are “masturbating” to it nevertheless which is still reprehensible as was laid out in the movie.

How I interpreted the article is that rap music has a very different impact on/meaning for black women than it does for white men, partly by way of the influence that it has on black men. While rap is just something cool to listen to for white men, something that they are distanced from lyricallly in their real lives, conversely, black women are affected by the lyrics/culture of rap directly, sometimes on a daily basis, through their interactions with black men. This is because of how black men incorporate/live out the sexist lyrics that are written in these songs, and they act them out in their interactions, encounters, and relationships with black women. Because white men (in general terms) don’t live in the communities of or interact much with black people, they never have to deal with or see the consequences that this problematic music, which they are large consumers of, has on its main target, black women.

While men as a group are not subjected to the treatment that the lyrics in this type of music suggest because of the larger system of patriarchy that protects them, White men are especially removed from the situation. They never get called out/criticized for supporting it.

Two things. 1. I think that you’d be hard pressed to justify saying Doggystyle was tailored to white men’s taste. Continuing along this line of thought how do you justify saying that rap music (currently or in the past) has ever been tailored to the tastes of white men? Are they a ubiquitous cartel exercising minute control over the recording decisions Kanye West makes in the studio? Are ‘sales to white men’ a prized metric for studios or recording companies? I think you could make the argument that they exercise an influence in what music is marketed and which new artists are signed but good luck trying to sell the idea that their style is groomed for consumption by the faceless white male masses to any hip hop artist. A more realistic statement would be that white males make up a large (but diminishing) segment of the music consumers market and executives and companies attempt to predict their tastes and make marketing/development decisions thusly. 2. What is the rationale that motivates lyrics like those in ‘Ain’t No Fun’? Is it a mindset created by listening to rap music, or is it endemic to the culture from which rap music, by and large, springs forth? You point out 3 strike laws, drug laws, bad grocery stores (?), etc. as things that matter, but you don’t provide any context and lend zero depth to that statement. It should be more than a throwaway crammed in whenever possible. If you’re going to bring up the shortcomings you perceive in society, particularly as it relates to the black experience, spend more than 1/2 inch of white space to do so please. You bring up some compelling points from a perspective that receives (comparatively) zero attention by mainstream and alternative media, I just wish you had gone into your ideas a little more. Thanks!