Here is a video of Prodigy from Mobb Deep teaching his son how to fire a “shotty” on his 7th birthday.
As social engineers and policy makers ban kickball from schools because it fosters competitiveness, and as the Homosexual Lobby reads Gay Fairy Tales to second graders, Hip Hop has become the last refuge for masculinity in America.
Exodus Mentality said...
Thanks to submariner for saving me the trouble of beating DV all about the head and shoulders for that chuckle-headed description of masculinity. DV logic: Man with Gun equals masculinity. Anything to glorify hip hop and make a point, eh DV. "last refuge for masculinity"? Are you out of your ever loving mind!?!?!?
Question for you DV, while you persist in ascibing near sainthood to the current crop of hip hop pretenders to the culture. Is it true that very few of these masculine monoliths you worship, have said anything about protecting Black folks from white folks in a hip hop track. Please don't go find something obscure from a group like Dead Prez, or old school hip hop, because those aren't the type of hip hop 
artist you tend to idolize. I hear rappers all the time talking about busting caps on other brothers, but very rarely if ever do I hear any of these new school, wanna-be gansters direct all that "masculinity" and bravado at the one group that can actually be said to be actively working to hold them back. No they would rather shoot another brother in the club for disrespecting their pimping. This is your idea of masculinity?
My daughter will not be looking for that fake pimp, fake bravado shit and thinking that's anything close to resembling a real man. I won't presume to instruct you because you have no desire to be instructed, but let me propose just one alternative characteristic of a real man for your consideration.
A real man is consistent. He doesn't talk a good game today, then go out tomorrow and glorify the destructive behaviors that are too common in our neighborhoods.
Apply that one to your hip hop heroes and see who passes the test.
Brooklyn Bedouin said...
made me think about my father teaching me and my brother how to break apart and put together a glock 9, how to shoot it, and the same with his shotgun and 22 rifle, where they were stashed and where the keys were. It was important for HIM to teach us that stuff, and he did it so that
no one else would
and so we did not think that guns were toys
So we understood the responsibility that comes with them.
if need be we could locate them and protect the house if he was not present
19 comments:
DV
has Hip Hop become the last refuge for the masculine ethos in America?
And how does this help little girls?
It gives a little girl a better chance to one day find a man who has been taught to defend his family and not to become completely dependent upon the government to provide him basic protection.
Little girls will grow up to become young women who will benefit from relationships with young men who are not Plantation Negros content to depend upon Massa.
This is a necessary, unfortunate reality.
I believe in a citizen's right to own guns, but what I saw was irrelevant to manhood. Gay men can and do shoot guns just as effectively as straight men, and I rather disagree with the notion that Hip Hop is a redoubt for masculinity. In fact, the celebration of prison culture undermines manhood. Does being locked away for an extended period reinforce male responsibility? Does gun toting and promiscuity while free but engaging in homosexual activities while in prison enhance virility? Does a readiness to shoot an opponent constitute manliness? If so, then you must be a Spartan.
I can't recall the exact site but I read this brother's critique about Hip Hop's effeminization of men. He dissected everything from styles of dress, jewelry, and hair. He showed a picture of Beenie Seegal with his tongue in another man's ear and a video with Seegal groping another dude. It was an outrageous display that I wouldn't have believed unless I saw it with my own eyes.
Now, if you showed me a clip with Prodigy taking his son around the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, DC or on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange then I would say that was an enduring form of manhood.
Prodigy is who? (meaning his contribution has been low)
I've seen worse.
But in reality, we all (well most of us) know that this is a clear indication of some forms of imbalance in his life. Masculinity is balance and wise decision making…at least in King Jamesville.
-KINGJAMES
Thanks to submariner for saving me the trouble of beating DV all about the head and shoulders for that chuckle-headed description of masculinity. DV logic: Man with Gun equals masculinity. Anything to glorify hip hop and make a point, eh DV. "last refuge for masculinity"? Are you out of your ever loving mind!?!?!?
Question for you DV, while you persist in ascibing near sainthood to the current crop of hip hop pretenders to the culture. Is it true that very few of these masculine monoliths you worship, have said anything about protecting Black folks from white folks in a hip hop track. Please don't go find something obscure from a group like Dead Prez, or old school hip hop, because those aren't the type of hip hop artist you tend to idolize. I hear rappers all the time talking about busting caps on other brothers, but very rarely if ever do I hear any of these new school, wanna-be gansters direct all that "masculinity" and bravado at the one group that can actually be said to be actively working to hold them back. No they would rather shoot another brother in the club for disrespecting their pimping. This is your idea of masculinity?
My daughter will not be looking for that fake pimp, fake bravado shit and thinking that's anything close to resembling a real man. I won't presume to instruct you because you have no desire to be instructed, but let me propose just one alternative characteristic of a real man for your consideration.
A real man is consistent. He doesn't talk a good game today, then go out tomorrow and glorify the destructive behaviors that are too common in our neighborhoods.
Apply that one to your hip hop heroes and see who passes the test.
Exodus, if i gave pounds i'd give you two.
Consistency. being about what you talk about......
imagine that.
-jasai
Mainstream RaP's (Rhyming and Posing, to borrow from Craig Nulan) aggressive posture is the most trivial form of masculinity. It is the Evel Knievel school of manhood where the risks incurred greatly outweigh the potential benefits.
I much prefer the Odysseus model. The lesson of Homer's Odyssey is that a man's greatest achievement is to be happy and secure at home. How does he do this? By being intellectually and financially resourceful. You will recall that when our hero's estate was overrun by his enemies he didn't simply charge after them. He quite deliberately and effectively gathered allies and arranged the conditions for the destruction of his foes. Force of arms was not decisive in the outcome.
In my perusals of this fine blog I have seen you exhilarating in your manhood by lounging comfortably on the beachfront of your home. I have seen depictions of you walking shoulder to shoulder with a head of state. This is true manliness. Now if violence is unavoidable, I expect that you and all responsible men would react in kind. But you have combined prestige, which Dean Acheson called the shadow cast by power, and superior intelligence into an exemplary model of what it means to be a man.
Hmmm...
No need to get into all the hoo ha about this lyric vs. that one.
If hip hop doesn't represent the last bastion of masculinity in music, what does?
Please explain what alternatives you would want your son listening to? Elton John? Marilyn Manson? R. Kelly?
My 8 year old watches and listens intently to the guitar gods and has elected to make his best efforts at trying to become one himself.
If hip hop doesn't represent the last bastion of masculinity in music, what does?
When did rappers ever represented masculinity?
II
If hip hop doesn't represent the last bastion of masculinity
So you are married to a masculine man I assume ... Does he where baggy jeans displying his boxers, walk around holding his dic, speak to you using curse words, and rhyme to you right before love making? If not then I guess he is soft ;)
Oh thank God Casper that I am married to one of the last masculine men on earth.
You know what makes him masculine?
He doesn't sit around crying like a biyatch about what this or that artist is or isn't saying or should be saying, yada, yada, yawn. He's handling his business and not player hatin' on those handling theirs.
lol@dina, "crying like a biyatch "
whew......,
Insurgent, I am hardly a rap hater. My roots are in Jamaica, Queens and my wife is from Brooklyn. I reject cultural critics who claim that rap is responsible for fractured families, crime, and poverty. This is patently false and the historical record bears me out.
I also reject any appeal, as the accompanying photographs seem to suggest, that looks to whites for a desired or objective standard of practice. In The Price of Privilege Madeline Levine has detailed that affluent white youths are more likely than their black, low income peers to suffer from psychopathology and engage in risky sexual behaviors and drug and alcohol abuse.
Rather, in this case I take after my single mother who told me time and again that she didn't care what my friends or neighbors did but she had a self-imposed standard that I had to follow. In my view letting a seven year old fire a gun was not the issue. Instead, it is to confront an archaic model of manhood that even our friend Denmark seems to defy.
ya'll floss too much.
and when i say "ya'll", Ya'll know who i'm talkin' about.
don't believe the hype people.
-jasai
Actually Jasai,
I have no idea what you mean.
Please shed light.
Brother Mariner,
As usual, you make a thoughtful point.
made me think about my father teaching me and my brother how to break apart and put together a glock 9, how to shoot it, and the same with his shotgun and 22 rifle, where they were stashed and where the keys were. It was important for HIM to teach us that stuff, and he did it so that
no one else would
and so we did not think that guns were toys
So we understood the responsibility that comes with them.
if need be we could locate them and protect the house if he was not present
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