Urban Thought Collective

I have to go along with Bill O’Reilly on this one. Eminem’s parody of Alaska governor Sarah Palin is foul. Gov. Palin is a lot of things that I don’t respect: she’s arrogant, has dubious ethics (remember Troopergate and the “Bridge to Nowhere?”), has used political position for personal gain (she’s accepted expensive gifts from business and civic leaders in Alaska and she ran up that behemoth wardrobe bill during McCain campaign) and she’s an irresponsible parent (she allowed her teenage daughter’s boyfriend to move into their house and was surprised when the girl turned up pregnant). Sarah Palin is contemptable on a lot of levels, but she is not a slut. So, Eminem crossed a line when he rapped about wanting to “nail” her and used a scantily clad Palin look-alike in his new video.

(Actually, the fact that Eminem chose to dis Gov. Palin with a sophomoric sexual reference is further proof of just how unimaginative and politically-irrelevant mainstream hip hop has become. But that’s a whole ‘nother story…)

Of course, Eminem has built his career on being as shocking and offensive as possible. He’s the same guy who wrote songs about wanting to violently murder the mother of his beloved daughter. So this vulgar Sarah Palin dis comes as no surprise.

Not that I’m shedding any tears for Gov. Palin. Eminem’s parody was lightweight compared to the kinds of degrading, violent things that rappers routinely say about women – particularly black women – in their songs. (You’ll notice that Eminem did not call Palin out of her name.) Make no mistake, when black rappers throw around the b-word and the h-word, they’re talking about black women. A black man who called white women names like that on a record wouldn’t survive long in the music industry – and might not survive long in the world.

White America isn’t about to allow its women to be publicly degraded. But a lot of Black Americans accept, even justify the degradation of black women. We’ve seen this through all the girls and young women who’ve hit up blogs and radio stations to blame Rihanna for the bloody beat-down she got from Chris Brown. Another recent reminder was Soulja Boy’s arrogant dismissal of the University of Minnesota, Duluth students who protested his concert because of his viciously misogynistic 2006 song “Pimp Slap Dat Hoe” which includes evil lyrics like:

“I’m something like a pimp from the dirty dirty south,
If you keep talkin crazy imma slap you in yo mouth,
This nigga ain’t playin bout my cheddar or my cake,
if you do something wrong then my hand gon meet yo face
My hand comin fast bout a hundred miles per hour,
Gettin hit in yo face while you bathin in the shower”

Yes, I know that track is three years old and I don’t know if Soulja Boy performs it in his concerts. But he could have used the UMD protest as an opportunity to denounce lyrics like that. Instead, Soulja Boy went on Twitter and launched a profanity-laced tirade against his critics.

Sarah Palin’s got plenty of folks to defend her honor. But who’s going to defend our black queens and princesses? It’s up to us to shun the gangstas and start loving the sistas.

Thanks for listening. I’m Cameron Turner and that’s my two cents.

THINK! IT AIN’T ILLEGAL…YET!

Cameron Turner is a Los Angeles-area native whose editorials, entertainment news features and audio documentaries have appeared on national radio networks, online and in print for over 20 years.