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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
By Melissa Connerly
Works Cited
Cole, Johnnetta, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Gender Talk: The struggle for women's equality in African American communities. New York : The Ballantine Publishing Group. Toronto : Random House of Canada Limited, 2003.
Turnquist, Kristi. "Spoiled by success?" [cited 06 October 2004]. Available from
<www.oregonlive.com>
Shelton, Marla. "Can't Touch This! Representations of the African American Female Body in Urban Rap Videos." Popular Music & Society 21, no.3 (1997): 107-116.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. "Marked Man. " Vibe November 2004: 104-110.
Fiske, John. "Popular Culture." Critical Terms for Literary Study. 2 nd Ed. Ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago : U of Chicago P, 1995. 321-35.
Nelly. "Tip Drill." The Derrty Versions: The Reinvention . 2003.
Lil' Kim. "No Matter What They Say." The Notorious K.I.M. 2000.
Hebdige, Dick. "From Culture to Hegemony ." Subculture: The Meaning of Style. 1979. New York : Routledge, 1988. 5- 19.
Queen Latifah. "U.N.I.T.Y." Album Unknown. 1993.
Queen Latifah. "Ladies First." All Hale the Queen. 1989.
McCullough, Bridgette. "Black Erotica." 1992.
<http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/winter 00 . NewsLetterarticle.html>
Yarbrough, Marilyn and Crystal Bennet. Mammy, Sapphire, Jezebel and their Sisters." 29 Apr. 2000.
< http://academic.udayton.edu/race/05intersection/Gender/AAWomen01a.htm >
Commentary
Ryan Gogol
The claim that Melissa Connerly sets out is a rather serious matter. Not only must African American women wage a battle in the hip-hop community itself in order to fight those stereotypes leveled against them, but she also writes, "the only way to destroy these stereotypes is for African American women such as Lil' Kim and Queen Latifah to embrace them" [emphasis added]. This second claim is considerably stronger than the first, as it is premised on the assumption that Lil' Kim and Queen Latifah are essentially forced into taking on their slave-rooted roles (respectively, the "Jezebel" and "Mammy"). One may pose this idea in the form of a question: that is, what choice do these women have if they are unable to ever fully escape the preconceived roles, norms, and social relations imposed on them by an unjust society. I would argue that they did in fact have choices available to them, and that the more that each artist has chosen to resist, rather than embrace, her respective role, the more successful her attempt has been at reconceptualizing the image of the African American woman.