Clutch Magazine: Black & White Gender Traps In Rap Fandom
Friday, January 18, 2013 at 11:11AM
In my latest post for Clutch Magazine Online, I take on a recent article on Vice Magazine's site about men being "initimidated" by girls who like rap. At first I didn't get what the article is referring to, until I realized it was about white men trying to dismiss white women who like rap because white ladies can't possibly know what Chief Keef is talking about, but somehow they do and they need to protect the integrity of 2Chainz from white women and their cooties. Which is a whole other ball of "Wait? What? Why?"
Here's a snippet:
The misunderstanding reminded me of the time I referred to a gaggle of very sweet, elderly black women as “ladies” in a newspaper article and one of my editors, a white woman, argued with me that using the term “lady” was sexist and offensive. Being 23 and inexperienced at the time, I had no idea of what to say as a counter to her argument other than it just sounded “wrong” for it to be bad to call a black woman a lady.
An older male editor got her to back down by pointing out I was raised by Southerners and it’s “probably not as offensive there.”
Now, much older, I get why my editor was so heated, but she also did not get that many black women are routinely treated like pack mules or degenerates or non-existent. Call me a lady now, even knowing what that “means” in terms of gender politics, and the most I’ll do is giggle.
My subjugation ain’t like yours.
Reader Comments (2)
Danielle,
I'm a 54 year old white boy but I can usually keep up. But this one went right over my head. So its bad to refer to a black woman as a lady?
I'm in little Rock now but grew up in your hometown, read ya all the time...go Hazelwood
I'm a dyed in the wool southerner as well...
Can you explain to me why "lady" is so sexist and insensitive?
I'm confused. And I'm in my 30s. lol