Youth Summit discusses portrayal of blacks in TV, media

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on February 15, 2008

Nelly is a best-selling St. Louis rapper who also raises money for a bone marrow charity he founded to help his sister, but he owns an energy drink company called "Pimp Juice" and his music videos are demeaning to women.

Student presenters at the 2008 Minority Student Achievement Network Regional Youth Summit at Amherst Regional High School last week asked participants what they thought about that.

A lot of them didn't like it, but it's not all Nelly's fault, student and faculty from four high schools said. Consumers, the women who are paid to appear in the music videos, recording companies and American culture at large received blame, too.

Dozens of participants from Brookline, Cambridge and Windsor, Conn., gathered at the Feb. 8 summit to discuss why students of color are not succeeding as they should be in their schools. The question they're trying to answer is, why the achievement gap persists and what they can do to close it?

Madison, Wis.-based MSAN was founded in 1999 by superintendents from 15 urban and suburban school districts to publish research, analyze policies and examine practices affecting students of color.

In addition to the student-led workshop "Beyond the Gap: Hip-Hop and the Perpetuation of Stereotypes," at the summit, there were presentations on minorities in the media, myths and realities about the achievement gap as well as factors contributing to it and a workshop on race.

The hip-hop workshop was led by ARHS students Josh Friedlander, Rebecca Lieberman, Akua Murray-Adoboe and Kindyl Tolson, who offered a tightly organized slide and video presentation on stereotypes and demeaning images of black men and women, followed by a lively discussion.

The "brute" image of black males was created during the Reconstruction period and portrayed them as thuggish and oversexualized, while black women have sometimes been portrayed as the "mammy" who enjoys being a servant or a promiscuous "Jezebel." Images in hip-hop music videos and lyrics often reinforce the stereotypes, showing black men treating women like objects much as slave owners treated slaves as their property, the presenters said.

"You might listen to music or watch music videos and you don't realize the underlying messages we receive from them," Lieberman said.

The students showed snippets from a Nelly music video "Tip Drill," showing Nelly swiping a credit card down a woman's bare backside. Summit participants learned from the documentary "Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs In on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture," that the video was greeted with protest at Spelman College, where Nelly was to appear to raise money for his charity.

The dispute prompted hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons to say in the documentary that, "I think we have to challenge sexism the way it stands in the community and not the poetry that's a reflection of it."

Some participants at the workshop said they found the response troubling. People who make money from hip-hop, as Simmons does, can't just throw up their hands and say nothing can be done, one student said.

Others said the women who are paid to appear in the videos also bear responsibility, as do consumers and recording companies. "There has to be responsibility in how you let yourself by portrayed," said Terrell Hill, a teacher from Windsor. "The consumer has a part and also the participants. Ladies need to say, 'I'm not going to apply for that job,' and that will help."

Friedlander said he didn't realize the extent to which he had been complicit in perpetuating demeaning images of black men and women until he saw "Beyond Beats and Rhymes" at the Academy of Music, in Northampton, where he heard the director Byron Hunt speak.

"When people think of a rapper, they're going to think of girls looking hot," Friedlander said. But he thinks about his 12-year-old sister now when he sees images of black men treating black women like objects.

"I wouldn't want my little sister seeing girls up there doing that. She's going to be like, 'I like the music. Oh, that must be OK,'" Friedlander said. "After seeing that movie, I'm like, I can't even believe I enjoyed looking at that."

It should be noted that the majority of people who listen to hip-hop are not people of color, Friedlander said. "It's white people. Think of the image they see."

Several participants said there has been a shift toward more sex and violence in hip-hop, since it became profitable for recording companies.

"These things are American values and not owned by one culture," said Khari Milner, an administrator at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. "What you see is not about making music; it's about making money."

"I certainly love hip-hip music," said Laurance Kimbrough, a teacher at the Cambridge high school. "But it's certainly not how I identify myself and want to be portrayed."

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.