Hip Hop’s Betrayal on Black Women Essay

In â€Å"Hip Hop’s Betrayal of Black Women†, McLune addresses the influence of hip hop’s choice of words towards African American women and females. McLune’s article is written in response to Powell’s opinions in â€Å"Notes of a Hip Hop Head†, along with various other hip hop artists, that black females are the leading cause of poverty and racism why black men undertake racism and poverty, as if women do not face these struggles from day to day. McLune disagrees with this remark and states that this is just one of many excuses that men use. McLune addresses an audience that is well educated along with informed with the different sexism opinions towards women in our society, though many men feel that some of their statements or opinions are not affecting women. Therefore, McLune’s article deserves to be recognized in PopMatters. With all the arguments and comebacks she had, â€Å"Hip Hop’s Betrayal of Black Women† should be considered for the top prizes for persuasive essays due to the problems that our African American society faces on a daily basis. The energy of McLune’s argument is its energetic appeal to African American women along with different races. Her argument implied that men want women to give in to them and accept the fact that they are being degraded, simply so that men can boost their confidence and masculinity: â€Å"It’s obvious that if these are the winning terms for our creativity, black women are ultimately the losers. And that’s exactly how these self-proclaimed players, thugs, and hip-hop intellectuals want us—on our backs and pledging allegiance to the hip hop nation. (Analytical Writing: A Guide to College Composition 300) McLune also covers the fact that even the hip hop artist â€Å"who have an underground and conscious force in hip hop— like Common, The Roots, Talib Kweli and others— remain inconsistent, apologetic, and even eager to join the mainstream player’s club† (297) She is bothered that they have yet to come forward and defend the women who are being belittled by the misogynistic hip-hop artist. By expressing this with the African American society of women who are ontinuously torched by the demanding words of men, McLune appeals strongly to all American women’s intellect of equality and respect. Women should not have to be judged by men and expect to be treated as if they owe anyone something, let alone have to be mistreated and belittled, if that were to be the case then men should be treated the same, therefore McLune’s audience, should understand that that is not how you define a black woman in any terms. This denotation to the silent cries supports for an emotional appeal to an example of the silent cries in African American women. As stated in the title, Powell is aware that black women are merely being betrayed in the hip-hop industry and simply states that the choice of words that hip-hop artist chose to rap about is simply â€Å"the ghetto blues, urban folk art, a cry out for help. † (298) and it is rubbing off on almost every man in our American society and giving them a different perspective of women all because women refuse to speak out and speak up. As a result, female rappers are often just as male-identified, violent, materialistic, and ignorant as their male peers. † (298). Over 100 years ago, women were not even allowed to vote, the closest they got to voting was sitting there and watching. They were not allowed to work, they were forced to be stay at home wives while their husbands went out and worked hard to provide for the family. They also didn’t h ave the opportunity to speak up for themselves, it was known as a man’s duty. As you see in â€Å"Hip Hop’s Betrayal of Black Women† McLune states that women still sit back in silence in accept the belittling words that men throw at them through their lyrics. Hip hop did not evolve from speaking down on females, it started out as a way suppress differences between two rivalries or to speak on behalf of shortcomings and mishaps in the past. This comes to question our audience why it is that hip hop has transformed into a way of lashing out a man’s anger towards a woman and how their imaginative character dreams to look at women. We can look at the past years when women were not given the opportunity to make their own decisions and to speak on behalf of themselves, also how and why did hip hop change its meaning behind music. McLune provides a great example to the female hip hop artist as to why they would chose to be viewed in the same eyes that the misogynistic hip hop male artist are viewed. Also as to why after so many years why is that men still have the upper hand. She does this by bringing up the point from Powell’s socioeconomic explanation for the sexism in hip-hop is a way to silence feminist critiques of the culture. It is to make an understanding of the misogynistic objectification of black women in hip-hop so elusive that we can’t grasp it long enough to wring the neck of its power over us (297). From this information, we can conclude that is very much true, because most females will accept the belittling comments rather than words of wisdom and motivation. Because McLune gives great appeals to the not only the African American society, but the various races, her article deserves to be one of the top prized persuasive essays in PopMatters. It can be used as an example to our upcoming generation of young men to not treat or speak down on a young lady as something they hear in a rap song. McLune’s article demonstrates why women, especially African American women should speak up and out regardless of what the outcome will be. Her argument would have been more effective have she spoke about all the other races seen in videos because it’s not just black females now.