Welcome to another installment of the ReSiStance Reading Series where I analyze and discuss Black feminist texts. To advance through the books quicker, the Series will be a biweekly staple here on the blog! Right now, we are still reading When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: a hip-hop feminist breaks it down by Joan Morgan.
Clarifier
Ok, Joan Morgan explicitly states that she is working to heal Black women and the Black community at large. Both goals also require the healing of Black men. But, Morgan acknowledges that that is a task that she cannot take on herself as it is not her place.
I agree. It is not my place to guide discussions on men’s healing, nor do I want to, so I just won’t. This chapter heavily commentates on men’s relationship with hip-hop music, pain and misogynoir. I want to clarify that I see it, but it is not the crux of my concern or analysis here.
Hip-Hop Hypocrisy
Joan Morgan likens her relationship with hip-hop to an abusive one,
Sure, I’d day (all defensive). It’s easy to judge—to wonder what any woman in her right mind would be doing with that wack motherfucka if you’re entering now, before the sweet times. But the sweetness was there in the beginning of this on-again, off-again love affair…” (67-8).
Morgan is from the generation that watched the growth and development of hip-hop. The cultural staple came from New York City house parties and went on to be appreciated and emulated. She explains that not only did the beats and names of hip-hop change but so did its core content. This is what made the comparison to an abusive relationship so on point.
Before the music became bigger than the lyrical magicians of the Bronx, women were referred to as “fly-girls” and “ladies” instead of “bitches and hoes.” Joan Morgan doesn’t claim that early hip-hop was free from sexism. It indeed was not, “but the mid school’s increasing use of violence, straight-up selfish individualism, and woman hating masks the essence of what I fell in love with even from my own eyes” (69). Morgan was facing the same dilemma in the nineties that we do today.
How do we reconcile our love for the genre, for the music, when its very lyrics place us at the butt of the joke?
Now, I don’t have the answer to this whatsoever; I’m hoping Morgan will as the book continues. However, I have noticed a shift in what I can stand to hear. Not everything is as simple as “oh, I love this beat, oh, the girl on the chorus is signing down.” I have found myself to be particularly turned away by rapey rap lyrics. I cannot even think of a particular song at this point, but once you become conscientious of it, it will find you. Some rappers used to spit bars about drugging girls at parties, getting angry when a woman wouldn’t give consent, seeking out lighter-skinned women for their fetishes, and the list could continue. I’m at a stage in my life where I am so deeply entrenched in healing from the violence and prejudice of misogynoir that such things will stop the music for me.
Things were easier when your only enemies were white racism and middle-class black folk who didn’t want all that jungle music reminding them of their kinky roots. Now your anger is turned inward. And I’ve spent too much time in the crossfire, trying to explain why you find it necessary to hurt even those who look like you” (69).
Violent Consequences
Joan Morgan African-Americans use hip-hop, especially African-American men, simultaneously to express and mask their pain. The stories told in hip-hop music are not often sunny and bright. They are usually filled with struggle, wish-making, and grievances. This has slightly shifted in more modern times, focusing on money flexing and sexing, but “the struggle” is still prevalent.
“Women are the unsung victims of black-on-black crime” (71). This sentiment rang too raw and true for comfort. In Morgan’s endeavor to heal as a whole community, she wants to use hip-hop as a tool to peer into the psyche of Black men and examine their eagerness to spite us.
“Why is disrespecting me one of the few things that make them feel like men? What’s the haps, what are you going through on the daily that’s got you acting so foul?” (72)
Reflecting on this, I realize that I am in a strange place. Being born in 2001, I spent many years thinking hip-hop’s constant disrespect and hypersexualization of women was a genre marker. I always assumed that love, warmth, and basic respect were only to be had in R&B.
Another stressing factor is that music is not the only major platform Black men have to diss us and promote misogynoir openly. Now we have all types of fools of all different ages going viral on social media platforms for dissing Black women on a regular Tuesday morning.
No, really tho we are catching stray bullets all over the internet all the time; we are brought into conversations for the sake of being ridiculed!
Now people outside the Black community watch Black men hate Black women from the comfort of their homes. I don’t think music was that pervasive and overt with malice. One could respond to the light skin praise and say, “at least they’re still Black.” One could even watch the music videos and see the video girls, lovely Black women of various shades though all of a particular body type, and not immediately assume that we are victims of their hatred. Speaking of videogirls…
Videogirls are Not Objects
Ok, so I’m going to let my notes from when I read the first half of the book in 2020 do some of the heavy lifting here.
Morgan begins to discuss women’s sexuality and our widespread objectification in hip-hop.
… it’s time to stop ignoring the fact that rappers meet ‘bitches’ and ‘hos’ daily— women who reaffirm their depiction of us on vinyl. Backstage, the road, and the ’hood are populated with women who would do anything to be with a rapper sexually for an hour if not a night” (77).
Morgan calls for us to come to grips with our participation in our oppression. And you know what, I agree. A lot of us do have mentalities and habits that are only hurting us. I agree.
My gripe is with the objectification point.
I run into this discourse often, and my stance remains the same. It is not my belief that it is our fault that we are objectified. I cannot comprehend how anyone looks at another human being and strips them of their very humanity. I cannot reduce a person to an object in my mind. It enrages me when people do; it’s repulsive. But I must also remember that I’m the hard-headed daughter of the 21st century. I have never thought that women with fewer clothes on were “asking for it” or “trying to sell something.” Not even my mother could convince me otherwise, and she be on my case about wearing tank tops!
I am down with us as Black femmes getting more representation types than the hypersexualized picture hip-hop paints. But I am also not going to down the girls who just want to look sexy in the back of a music video. We are not a monolith. Videogirls and openly sexual women are just as much a part of the culture of Black American women as the book-toting activists are. I’m not going to down them for living their truth, I’m not going to erase them from the narrative, and I won’t assume they have low self-esteem.
…to fuss over one sexist rapper, but wouldn’t it have more productive to address the failing self-esteem of the 150 or so half-naked young women who were willing, unpaid participants?” (78)
I would love to be able to point myself out in a music video 45 years down the line to my grandbabies, but maybe that’s just me. Another great note that I wrote on my first read-through of this chapter is “what is self-respect when it is not policing women?”
About Sex
Here is the passage that piqued my interest the most while I was reading. I anticipate exploring this more in-depth on the Chatting with Chanise Podcast.
“Sex has long been the bartering chip that women use to gain protection, material wealth, and the vicarious benefits of power. In the black community, where women are given less access to all of the above, ‘tricki’n’ becomes a means of leveling the playing field… Turning a blind eye and scampering for moral high ground diverts our attention away from the young women who are being denied access to power and are suffering for it” (78).
In a letter addressed to hip-hop:
“Hip-hop and my feminism are not at war but my community is. And you are critical to our survival.
I’m yours, Boo. From cradle to the grave” (70).
Works Cited
Morgan, Joan. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: a Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2017.
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