Home > Hip-Hop Dilemma
By Moya Bailey
Over Christmas break I was up late one night on the
phone. As I passed the den I glanced at the TV and what
I saw made me stop. Nelly and the St. Lunatics were
throwing money at nearly naked women. Women were
simulating sex with other women as Nelly and company
looked on. Then I saw Murphy Lee sliding a credit card
between a woman’s butt cheeks. I was too disgusted to
even speak and got off the phone quickly.
When I came back to school, along with the usual "How
was break?" and "What’d you do?" came the soon equally
familiar, "Have you seen ’Tip Drill?’" My Spelman
sisters and Morehouse brothers alike were shocked by
this recent low in depictions of African-American women
on the small screen. Our critique of the video was not
isolated. Fellow Historically Black College/University
(HBCU) students at Howard had protested in front of
Viacom to show their outrage towards the video in mid-
December. It became apparent to me, as Spelman’s
Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) President
that this was something that we, too, needed to
address.
The FMLA had its first showing and discussion of the
"Tip Drill" video at the beginning of February. A
significant number of students came, including men from
Morehouse. Many differing viewpoints were brought up.
One student asked if women could ever be in these
videos and be sexual without being viewed in a negative
manner. The comment was eloquently addressed by FMLA
member Bettina Judd, who replied that the kind of
sexuality they were displaying was not about pleasure;
it was about women performing for a male audience. I
mean what kind of pleasure is received when a credit
card is swiped through your backside? It is impossible
to display healthy sexuality when you are being
degraded. The men in the audience noticed that watching
the video in a room full of women made them feel
differently about the video. It helped them see the
misogyny they had overlooked before.
A week later I saw Asha Jennings, The Spelman Student
Government Association (SGA) President carrying a big
box. She called me over for what I assumed would be
help carrying the load, but ended up being help in what
has been titled, "The Nelly Controversy." Asha
explained that in the box were flyers for the Jes Us 4
Jackie bone marrow drive that was set to take place on
April 2. Spelman SGA had been working with Nelly’s
foundation to bring a bone marrow registration drive to
campus. The problem was readily apparent.
How could Spelman, a historically black women’s
institution, have Nelly on campus after his heinous
depiction of black women in his lyrics and videos? Asha
had been previously unaware of the video and had just
seen it. She now stood at the crossroads of what to do.
Should she cancel the drive, knowing that the issue of
minority bone marrow registration would go unaddressed?
Should she uninvite Nelly from campus and allow the
foundation to come? Should students remain silent
altogether and not bring up the issue of "Tip Drill?"
Asha presented her dilemma to our Feminist Theory
class, citing that her other classes were in favor of
participating in the drive, and then writing Nelly a
letter which would uninvite him from the campus. Our
professor, Dr. Guy-Sheftall, was the voice of reason
and pointed out that writing a letter does not carry
the same weight that protesting or canceling a drive
have. If we were upset about his portrayal of African-
American women in the video, our actions had to be
equally powerful. Additionally, sending a letter does
not ensure that Nelly will read it. He has people who
read his mail for him and he might never know our
concern. Finally, you cannot separate the man from his
foundation. It belongs to him and should he decide to
come on campus, he could do so with his foundation.
It was then that debate broke down into the point-
counterpoint formula that is all too familiar in heated
discussion. We discussed and discussed until Asha broke
down in tears. Dr. Guy-Sheftall told her she needed to
stop beating herself up over this and make a decision
to cancel the drive or to allow students to protest it.
The class voted and the protest won out.
The FMLA took on the task of organizing and planning
the action. We decided that the next week’s FMLA
meeting would be the strategizing session for the
protest. We were excited and eager to begin our work.
In the days that followed, we did research. We made
signs with Nelly’s lyrics on them and invited people to
the meeting on Tuesday. We also found the definitions
of a tip drill (which included a woman who has a nice
figure but an ugly face, a woman who may have an STD
and therefore only the tip of the penis can be used to
have sex with her, or a stripper who prompts men to
keep throwing money at her). These were added to the
flyer inviting people to come to the FMLA meeting.
Those planning to protest also planned to join the bone
marrow registry, ensuring that the goal of the drive
was accomplished and that bone marrow recipients did
not suffer.
Fliers were up all over campus and the Nelly "Tip
Drill" controversy was heating up. However, it was not
until the Tuesday night FMLA meeting that everything
came to a head.
Asha informed the group that the foundation had pulled
out of the drive. Apparently, the foundation had been
to campus earlier that week and seen the signs that the
FMLA put up all over campus. They scheduled an
emergency meeting with SGA and requested that no
protestors be at the drive. SGA could not meet the
ridiculous demand of assuring their request. The
foundation then left the room so that SGA could vote on
whether or not the drive could continue if, at the
foundation’s request, Nelly agreed to participate in a
forum to address student concerns. Despite a unanimous
vote to continue with the drive under the new
stipulations, when the foundation came back they had
already decided to cancel the drive.
The foundation was apparently so upset about this issue
that they went to the press, saying that Spelman
canceled the drive because of the video "Tip Drill."
Unfortunately for them, their plan backfired and the
media coverage blew up and ended up depicting them
negatively.
MTV broke the story, erroneously reporting that Spelman
was responsible for the drive not happening because we
had planned a huge protest against one video. The
Atlanta Journal Constitution’s piece, however, included
interviews with Asha and myself and set the record
straight, explaining that the foundation had canceled
the drive and that our issues were much bigger than
Nelly and "Tip Drill." Fortunately, it was sent out on
the AP wire.
We cropped up in the Dayton Daily News, an editorial in
USA Today, a segment of Essence Magazine, and various
websites, blogs and discussion boards. We appeared on
five local Atlanta radio stations and I did an
interview with the new liberal radio station Air
America. All of this press was largely affirming,
letting us state our case and explain once again that
we were in support of the drive the whole time — we
just didn’t want to support sexist images in the media.
The foundation attempted to save face by trying to
reschedule the drive, but was once again unwilling to
have Nelly address student concerns.
As the media ran with the story, so many things
surprised me. First of all, with all the activism that
goes on at Spelman’s campus, of all the problems we see
in the Bush administration and in the world, a handful
of students willing to stand up against problematic
depictions of black women in the media got national
attention.
The public outpouring of both support and opposition
has also been surprising. The old guard of the black
feminist movement has said they are re-energized by our
efforts. Spelman alumna Pearl Cleage said that it was a
welcome sight to see young black women giving voice to
the issue of misogyny in the media. Jill Nelson, author
of "Straight No Chaser" was equally impressed with what
we have done, saying that our action gave her hope for
the future.
But not all people have seen the situation in a
positive light. Some thought we were angry emasculators
who were too concerned with images and not at all
concerned with bone marrow. It is so easy to portray us
as angry black women unwilling to stand behind a black
man, even though he is doing something good. Our
questions for Nelly were recast as vociferous attacks
and have allowed people to feel sorry for Nelly, a
supposedly helpless bystander caught in the misdirected
rage of young black women.
One of our most valid criticisms came from a former
civil rights leader who spoke to the classism that
seems to be lurking in this issue. As middle class,
college educated black women, we can very easily speak
to the issue of video images, but the issue of the
financial barriers that lock women into being in these
videos is not something that we seemed to address.
I understand how it looks that way; that those of us
with privilege are judging those less fortunate than us
for the economically driven decisions they make to
participate in this medium. But in every interview
we’ve had we stated that this is systemic, a part of
the larger racist, capitalist, patriarchal society we
call America. But once you start talking about
interlocking systems of oppression, the press stops
recording.
I also do not wish to demonize the women who
participate in the videos and who feel the tug of the
capitalist puppet strings and see this as an easy way
to make money. Our criticism was directed toward Nelly,
not the women in his videos, but I do hope to help them
see that while they may feel autonomous in the choices
they make, the implication of their decisions are
global, impacting how African-American women are viewed
world wide.
This whole Nelly controversy sapped a significant
amount of energy from me and other obligations I had to
school, to other organizations, and projects. Sometimes
the situation seemed to have a life of its own,
especially when the media picked up the story and ran
with it. At times I felt like I was along for the ride.
Although the Nelly controversy was completely
unexpected and caught me off guard, I will not shrink
from the challenge of sustaining a movement around
images of black women in the media. I want to make it
clear that this is so much bigger than Nelly, that he
is not the scapegoat but the spark that ignited the
need for a public critique of how we as women are being
portrayed. I see "Tip Drill" in the broader context of
a racist, capitalist, patriarchal system that has a
vested interest in feeding stereotypes of both black
men and women as hypersexual in the quest for the
almighty dollar. It is because I love hip hop that I
critique it and as part of the hip hop generation, who
better than I to bring the music back to what I loved
about it in the first place? For me, that sentiment can
be summed up by one of the signs we had at the
demonstration. "We love hip hop, but does hip hop love
us?"
Moya Bailey is a Comparative Women’s Studies/Pre-Med
major at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia