Collisions Ahead

Another fine piece by my freind Alexander Billet


If there's one word that can sum up what happened last Tuesday, it would have to be "catharsis." The election of Barack Obama set off a mass of spontaneous celebrations; dancing in the street from Harlem to the Castro. It's not hard to see why. After eight years of Bush, to see the Republican agenda roundly routed and replaced with the first Black president in the nation's history is truly a thing to behold. And though an Obama administration is going to be significantly limited by his corporate backers and Clinton-oid cabinet, right now people--especially young people--feel empowered.

If the vast majority of youth were energized by the prospect of an Obama victory, then it's no wonder why the same was true for some of music's most dynamic acts. There were, of course, the perennials like Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys. But what stood out were the artists whose acclaim has only arrived in recent years.

Artists as disparate as the Arcade Fire, Common, Vampire Weekend and Santogold threw a considerable amount of weight behind the Obama camp. Looking back it seems impossible to even list all the artists who took the opportunity to lend their voices. Compare this to the fact that John McCain couldn't even get Abba on his side, and you start to get the picture of how much things have swung.

Of course, musicians endorsing candidates is nothing new. Readers may remember the failed "Vote For Change" tour of 2004, where musicians rallied around the simple and rather uninspiring mantra of Anybody But Bush.

What is striking to this writer, however, is how many of the artists backing Obama this time around want a lot more than just a new face in the White House. A recent issue of the indie-music magazine Under the Radar produced especially for the election carried a photo-spread of of artists holding up self-made placards with demands like "End This War Now!" (Sharon Jones) or "Subsidize Wind and Solar Energy," (the Decembrists), outrageous facts like "96% of musicians lack healthcare" (the Dresden Dolls), or simple sentiments like "I Want to Live in Woodrow Guthrie's America" (Akron/Family).

It's this kind of--dare I say--hope that stands in glaring contrast to 2004. The excitement for palpable change, and the feeling that we can play a role in it, are palpable. This election has seen even the most apolitical artists raise insightful ideas about the shape of politics itself. "It might be that this just isn't a good system anymore," says Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, "The one president might not be the answer to the whole thing. We might need to redraw this... We're voting for the fucking class president, but we're not actually voting for the principal."

Hip-hop in particular found itself a lodestone in these elections. When one thinks of the slings and arrows that the genre has endured over the past several years then it's easy to get an idea of how big of a deal this really is. Industry big-wigs like Jay-Z and Russell Simmons were predictably over the moon about the candidate, but the truly impressive voices came from the likes of Outkast, the Roots, Joe Budden, Nas, T.I., Akon and countless other MCs and artists.

Given the treacherous waters that MCs have had to navigate in recent years--from Imus to Sean Bell--it's no wonder that the Obama campaign became a rallying point for the anger and fears, hopes and dreams that hip-hop has always conveyed. This kind of fervor was so tangible that Obama can claim what no other presidential candidate (let alone president) can: his own mixtape. Courtesy of Russell Simmons and DJ Green Lantern, the "Yes We Can" compilation was released in October with the specific intention of rallying heads around an Obama victory.

Featuring artists like David Banner, Wyclef, Joell Ortiz among many others, the release also features snippits from Obama's primary campaign, which were notably more populist and left-wing than anything the president elect has said since his nomination was sealed. But these soundclips say more about the motivations of the artists than the politician. As blogger Pham Binh points out:


"The clips are a fresh reminder of how quickly Obama jettisoned references to the Civil Rights movement, the Abolitionists, and the Suffragettes once he locked up the Democratic nomination... Judging by the lyrics, it seems that most of the artists on the mixtape fell in love with the Obama that won the primaries using anti-war, anti-free trade, pro-movement rhetoric."


They weren't the only ones from the look of it. This election saw the biggest bloc of 18-to-22-year-olds voting since the 1950s. These are young people who have grown up in a multiracial version of America, the first ones to be sent to Iraq, and who have known nothing but the same neoliberal raw deal that offers them nothing now past the promise of flipping burgers and crumbling schools. Whether Obama can deliver anything different has yet to be seen. But expectations run high, and if they aren't met it would be cynical to say these same young people wouldn't hold him accountable.

It's been over forty years since music, youth culture and popular resistance collided into what we know now as "the Sixties." That kind of defiant hope has been gone from both our music and politics for far too long. But if so many of today's best artists can become excited about real substantial change, it may be a sign that cobwebs are clearing. And if a victorious Obama campaign can become a lightening rod for the long-brewing discontent and longing among today's youth, then it may provide a glimpse of collisions to come.



Alexander Billet is a music journalist living in Chicago. He is a regular contributor to SleptOn.com, Dissident Voice and ZNet. His article on censorship in hip-hop is included in the recently published 'At Issue: Should Music Lyrics Be Censored for Violence and Exploitation?' from Greenhaven Press. His blog, Rebel Frequencies, can be viewed at http://rebelfrequencies.blogspot.com, and he can be reached at rebelfrequencies@gmail.com.

Here's some sappy-ass poetry for y'all......

Sleep Sweetly

By Fabulously Feminist

limbs entwined
mimic the ampersand
that joins
you & me

Sleep Sweetly

the cosmic forces
held reverent
in our violent admiration
the fatalism of
our love

Sleep Sweetly

midst the victimization
muffle words of affect
co-mingle with addiction
cognitive dysfunction

Sleep Sweetly

enraptured by the
complicated simplicity
of a boy who loves a girl
and a girl who loves a boy

SAVE THE DATE! National Young Women's Leadership Conference March 21-22, 2009!‏

Mark your calendars now! The Feminist Majority Foundation is pleased to announce the 3rd annual National Young Women's Leadership Conference will be held March 21st & 22nd, 2009 in Washington, DC!

Save the Date!

Who: Young feminists, national leaders, and elected officials from across the country!

What: An opportunity to share in open dialogue about the world's feminist issues, including:

• reproductive rights
• elections and civic engagement
• the environment
• violence against women
• war
• and much more!

When: March 21 & 22, 2009

Where: Washington, DC

More information will be on the way soon - keep checking www.feministcampus.org for updates and registration information!

The Flu....I has it....

I've been down with the flue the last couple of days.....will post again when I can sit upright for

more than 30 minutes....

Fabulously Feminist News

Milwaukee Voters Approve Paid Sick Leave Law

11/11/2008 - Milwaukee voters approved a ballot referendum last week that will require paid sick leave for workers. The referendum, which passed with 68 percent voter approval, will require employers to provide workers with nine paid sick days. Businesses with less than 10 employees will be required to provide five paid sick days.

According to the , employees accumulate the maximum nine paid sick days per year by gaining an hour of paid sick-leave for every 30 hours worked. Only two other US cities have paid-sick leave measures. San Francisco passed a similar law in 2006 with 61 percent voter approval and Washington, DC is in the process of implementing a similar law, which was approved by the City Council earlier this year.

The Milwaukee law was strongly supported by 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women. According to Women's eNews, 9 to 5 Director Amy Stear said of the groups' success: "we knew this was an issue that resonated with people in the city who understand it's so important for families to have the ability to work and care for their families."

Media Resources: Chicago Tribune 11/6/2008, Women's eNews 11/8/08

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Pay Gap Persists Between Male and Female CEOs

11/11/2008 - A recent CEO Pay Survey finds that a wage gap exists between male and female CEOs. The latest findings from The Corporate Library's CEO Pay Survey: CEO Pay 2008, found that not only are female CEO pay packages (including bonuses, stock options, etc.) only about 85% of male CEOs' total pay packages, but female CEOs of the largest companies in the survey make less than two thirds of what is paid to their male counterparts.

According to BusinessWeek, the study's authors explained that their findings were affected by the higher number of male CEOs in the survey (only 3% of those surveyed were women) and the trend that men often have longer tenures than women. Also, the survey's authors noted successful leadership skills are often ascribed more to male leaders than to female leaders. Study author, Clara Kulich, told BusinessWeek that "a lot of research shows [men receive] a lot of internal attributions – people think that he must be responsible for increasing or decreasing" company performance. She added, "with a female manager, [boards are] more prone to use external situations, economic situations" to evaluate a CEO and company's performance.

Media Resources: BusinessWeek 11/6/2008, Corporate Library’s CEO

Pay Survey: CEO Pay 2008

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2008 Election Analysis: Gender Gap Delivers

11/10/2008 - Women's votes delivered the electoral votes of New Hampshire, North Carolina, Colorado, and Indiana to Barack Obama and elected several Democratic U.S. Senators. Overall 56% of women and only 49% of men voted for Barack Obama – a solid 7% gender gap. But because of Obama's widespread appeal a majority of men as well as women voted for Obama in 23 states with enough electoral votes to win.

In the Senate Races, women's votes elected Jean Shaheen (D-NH) over anti-choice Republican incumbent John Sununu; 60% of women and only 45% of men voted for Shaheen – for a whopping 15% gender gap. Victor Kay Hagan (D-NC) enjoyed a solid 8% gender gap (55%-47%) which produced her win over incumbent anti-choice Senator Elizabeth Dole.

"Women's votes produced decisive results in several US Senate races this election cycle. If only men would have voted Senators Sununu (R-NH) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) would have won," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority and first observer to identify the gender gap in voting in 1980.

See a full analysis of the gender gap and election results here.

Feminist Majority Foundation; Interview with Eleanor Smeal 11/10/08
Media Resources: Feminist Majority Foundation; Interview with Eleanor Smeal 11/10/08

Men Can Stop Rape

By Fabulously Feminist


For years I have been on my soap box telling anyone that would listen that rape is not just women’s problem. Therefore, one can imagine my relief upon reading Jessica Valenti’s assertion in Full Frontal Feminism that as “long as men are being brought up to think violence and sexual assault are okay, this [rape] isn’t just women’s problem” (Valenti 63). This is why it’s imperative that there are groups such as Men Can Stop Rape. In what follows, I would like to present what the organization of Men Can Stop Rape is all about. However, before I begin I will give a brief overview of rape statistics that I feel demonstrates why groups like this are so necessary.

“Researchers have found that rape is the crime most women fear” (Renzetti and Curran 280) and for good reason. A 2004 National Crime Victimization Survey showed that in the United States every 2½ minutes there is a sexual assault and 1 in 6 women has been a victim of a rape or of an attempted rape. However, when looking at this statistic we have to keep in mind that rape is the most underreported violent crime and these figures are probably too low (Valenti 64). Sadly, when rape is reported some police departments “dump” the claim into another case category where little investigation actually occurs. Little investigation negates the chance of an arrest or a conviction (Renzetti and Curran 280).

Headquartered in the District of Columbia, the organization of Men Can Stop Rape can be broadly defined as “an organization that provides training for younger men and boys on violence and gender equality” (Valenti 80). More specifically, the mission of Men Can Stop Rape revolves around three key components. The first focus of their mission is to do outreach and mobilize young males as vital players in preventing men's violence against women. Secondly, Men Can Stop Rape strives to encourage male youth to challenge the negative and harmful aspects found in traditional masculinity. Instead of traditional masculinity, Men Can Stop Rape wants their members to embrace “alternative visions of male strength” (Men Can Stop Rape). The third key component that Men Can Stop Rape employs is encouraging solidarity and alliance between young men and women to promote gender equality and work to create healthy platonic and romantic relationships (Men Can Stop Rape).

Structurally, Men Can Stop Rape employs a comprehensive two prong approach to outreach and education through 1) youth development programming and leadership training, and 2) public education messaging.

The first prong is the organization’s youth development program and leadership training which was established in 2000. This year-long program’s focus is on high school male youth and strives to create “a structured and supportive space to learn about healthy masculinity and redefine male strength” (Men Can Stop Rape). Additionally, this program also seeks to break down the myths surrounding whose “problem” rape is. The ultimate goal of this program is community leadership. Men Can Stop Rape want participants to take what they have learned in the program and apply it within their communities by functioning as leaders for other young men (Men Can Stop Rape).

Strength Mediaworks is the title of Men Can Stop Rape second approach which focuses on public education. Men Can Stop Rape has created an ad campaign that reaches “hundreds of thousands of men with their compelling visuals and positive messages” (Men Can Stop Rape). These positive messages can be found geographically from California to South Africa through mediums such as billboards, posters in bus shelters, public health clinics, and in movie theaters. Men Can Stop Rape also utilizes technology to educate the male (and female) public. Not only do they post videos on YouTube, they also maintain a blog on www.blogspot.com; two hugely popular sites for today’s youth—and the not so youthful as well (Men Can Stop Rape).

I would like the close with a brief sampling of Men Can Stop Rape’s clients. The sheer number of organizations and groups who use Man Can Stop Rape demonstrates how prolific the ideas that they promote are. If more activists groups like Men Can Stop Rape were created and employed similar techniques, a dynamic transformation of violence against woman could result. Some of the organization’s diverse clientele are: Center for Disease Control, Sexual Violence Prevention; Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault; D.C. Rape Crisis Center; Family Violence Prevention Fund's; “Coaching Boys into Men” initiative; Bolling Air Force Base; YWCA at High Point, NC; Montana State Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence; University of Pennsylvania; Yale University….the list goes on and on…..

Myth of the Black-gay Divide

By Sherry Wolf, author of the forthcoming Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of Gay Liberation, looks at the debate about why Proposition 8 passed in California.

IN THE wake of Barack Obama's historic victory, a false and reactionary narrative has emerged that blames Black voters for the gay marriage ban that passed by a 52 to 48 percent margin in California.

While Florida and Arizona also passed same-sex marriage bans, the vote for Prop 8 in the politically progressive state of California is widely attributed to the enormous surge of Black voters, 70 percent of whom approved the ban reversing the state's May 2008 Supreme Court decision allowing lesbians and gays to marry. The exit polls showed that 53 percent of Latinos voted for the ban, as well as around 49 percent of white voters.

The state's Black population is 6.2 percent, and it accounted for 10 percent of the overall vote. In other words, blaming African Americans for the referendum's passage ignores 90 percent of the vote.

It also ignores recent history. To judge from social research, had there been an unapologetically pro-civil rights campaign, there was the prospect of a different outcome.

The most comprehensive study of Black attitudes toward homosexuality, which combines 31 national surveys from 1973 to 2000, came to a fascinating conclusion. Georgia State University researchers found that "Blacks appear to be more likely than whites both to see homosexuality as wrong and to favor gay-rights laws."

African Americans' religiosity leads many to believe that homosexuality is a sin, while their own experience of oppression leads them to oppose discrimination. This was borne out in the 2004 elections, where, in the six states with substantial Black populations that had same-sex marriage bans on their ballots, Blacks were slightly less likely than whites to vote for them.

Nationally, 58 percent now oppose gay marriage bans, a dramatic shift from just a few years ago. If an explicit case in favor of gay marriage were made by activists, a multiracial majority could be won over in coming years.

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THE EXIT poll statistics from California don't explain the more important story of why so many of California's Black, Brown and white citizens--who voted overwhelmingly for the first African American president by a 56 to 37 percent margin--also supported striking down civil rights for lesbians and gays.

The most critical reason was the ineffective strategy used by pro-gay marriage forces that adhered closely to the Democratic Party--and Barack Obama's--equivocal position on the issue.

While formally opposing Prop 8, both Obama and his running mate Joe Biden were vocal throughout the campaign about their personal discomfort with and opposition to same-sex marriage.

Despite the unprecedented and astonishing sums of money raised to fight the referendum--the pro-equality side took in $43.6 million, compared with $29.8 million for the anti-gay marriage forces--the No on 8 side lost.
The statewide No on 8 Coalition didn't use the money for a grassroots organizing campaign. It didn't put out a call for activists to hit the phones, knock on doors and hold rallies and actions to publicly denounce the bigotry of the measure--though in a few cases, activists took the initiative to do so on their own.

Adhering to the false notion that the Democrats lost the 2004 presidential election due to the assertiveness of gay marriage activists, the heads of the No on 8 campaign avoided even using words like "gay" or "bigoted." Instead, one TV ad opposing the measure featured a straight white couple, and only obliquely referenced gays at all when the camera panned over a bookshelf with a photo of two women and their children.

In the final days before the election, No on 8 ran an ad with a voiceover by Black actor Samuel L. Jackson denouncing past civil rights abuses like Japanese internment and anti-miscegenation laws, with a slideshow of gay and lesbian couples on the screen.

Some members of the California Teachers Association, to their credit, turned over the final week of pre-election phone banking to No on Prop 8 calls. Kathryn Lybarger, who married her partner a few weeks before the election, describes this and other efforts as "tragically last-minute stuff."

Blogger Rick Jacobs rightly challenged the campaign's tepid approach: "[C]an there be outrage when a movement becomes a corporation? When the largest LGBT organizations look like, are staffed by former executives of, and are funded by huge corporations and huge donors, where is the movement?"

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BY COMPARISON, the anti-gay Yes on 8 campaign was aggressive, vocal and visible. They cynically used Obama's own words and image in TV ads to persuade Democratic voters to oppose gay marriage by voting for the ban.

Largely financed by right-wing institutions like the Mormon Church and the Blackwater mercenary security company, Yes on 8 sent anti-gay marriage activists to Black and white churches to drum up support. Their so-called robocalls, automatic telephone calls with mechanized messages, played Joe Biden's words from the vice presidential debate agreeing on opposition to gay marriage with vacuous bigot Sarah Palin.

Another element was exposed in a Los Angeles Times op-ed article titled "No-on-8's white bias," by Black lesbian Jasmyne A. Cannick. Cannick said she knocked on doors in working-class and poor Black neighborhoods of LA to register voters without ever raising the gay marriage issue.

"[T]he right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both Black gays and Black straights," Cannick wrote. "Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no health care, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?"

The answer is: Yes, indirectly, they do.

Thus, for example, the fight for HIV drugs and funding that erupted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when white gay men were the dominant group dying of AIDS, could have averted the catastrophe of AIDS in the Black community today if a multiracial, gay and straight alliance had formed from both sides of the racial divide.
As African American civil rights leader Julian Bond put it, "Our inability to talk about sex, and more specifically homosexuality, is the single greatest barrier to the prevention of HIV transmission in our community."

An injury to one truly is an injury to all. As a group that has endured the injustices of separate but equal amounting to second-class status, Blacks can certainly comprehend the stakes in this fight for equality--especially Black gays and lesbians who would directly benefit.

Besides, pitting one group of oppressed against another can only aid those in positions of wealth and power who benefit from divide-and-conquer tactics. For this reason, many prominent African American leaders, from Coretta Scott King to Al Sharpton, have taken an unequivocal stand in defense of gay marriage.

It is true that some Black churches and leaders are homophobic, and they should be challenged. But the enormous wealth of the white-dominated Catholic and Mormon churches, in stark contrast to the poverty of most Black churches, renders their culpability that much worse.

In challenging white LGBT people who justify not working alongside African Americans due to their supposed higher rates of homophobia, Black lesbian Barbara Smith argues:


Institutionalized homophobia in this society is definitely a white monopoly. And when we do see examples of homophobia in people-of-color contexts, what that should motivate people to do is to increase the level of solidarity with gay men and lesbians of color so that we can challenge homophobia wherever it appears.


The massive outpouring of protesters on the streets of California's cities since the ban shows the potential to organize a repeal of Prop 8 in coming months. But they will need to devise a strategy independent of the Democrats' equivocation and corporate-funded organizations wary of rocking the boat. LGBT activists in this budding movement should go directly to Black and Latino allies and develop a multiracial and collaborative challenge to the bigotry of anti-gay marriage forces of every race.

Included in the strategy should be a demand on the new Obama administration and Democratic-controlled Congress to carry forward with their party platform that opposes the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act. It's time to repeal that law and end federally sanctioned bigotry against gay marriage.

Brought to you by the folks at Socialist Worker

The Underrated Saga of Jean Grae

By Alexander Billet

Of all the insults slung at hip-hop nowadays, none seems to be so prevalent as the accusation of mysoginy and sexism. Critics who otherwise couldn't care less about women's position in music are eager like Opie to point to videos on MTV and BET, the scantily-clad women and gyrating buttocks, as proof that hip-hop is a music of depravity and exploitation. It's a thinly veiled code for saying that blacks are a few steps closer to the jungle than "respectable" white America.

Which is what makes the case of Jean Grae so doubly frustrating. It's unfair to call Jean a great woman MC. She's simply a great MC! On the long awaited The Evil Jeanius, her collaboration with Blue Sky Black Death released last month, she proves to be a master of everything from pants-wetting battle rap to deep introspection and vulnerability. Though she has undoubtedly become a well-known fixture in the underground and has won respect in most hip-hop circles, her insane ability on the mic makes even the most cynical of listeners ask why she hasn't torn up the mainstream yet.

The reasoning behind that is at once complex and quite simple. The industry that is content giving us a minstrel's view of hip-hop also suffers from, as Pitchfork's Neal Patrin puts it, an "inability to properly market a female artist who operates more as a superhuman MC than as a sex symbol."

It's unsurprising that the same industry that presents hip-hop as minstrelsy gives short shrift to female artists. Women in general are prohibited from any real position of artistic power, and the pedestals of "popularity" are mostly reserved for the frail nightingales who can easily fit into a bikini.

Jean doesn't squeeze into that mold so snugly. The rhymes on Evil Jeanius are her par for the course: fully formed, multi-dimensional, unapologetically human. Like all great MCs, Jean is absolutely uncompromising in her confidence, unafraid to openly deal with the slings and arrows of life.

In the album's highlight "Strikes," BSBD create an intense atmosphere of foreboding as Jean hides in a diner from the cops after killing a man in self-defense. Her imagery is vivid, the kind of unflinching portrait of desperation that buys into not one cliche or over-embellishment. Jean's greatest talent is taking you with her, putting you right in the middle of the most frightening aspects of daily reality (which is why "Taco Day," her nine-minute portrait of a school-shooting, has become one of the few tracks I've resolved to never listen to again).

Being such a fierce artist in an industry as mealy-mouthed as this one is bound to take its toll, especially on women. Jean Grae's own career has been something of an erratic enigma at times. Rumors have swirled more than once that she is hanging it up. Her previous Jeanius, released this past July, was expected to be released four years ago, yet for one reason after another, it's taken until this past summer for it to drop. One can only wonder about the relationship between this and the industry's clueless handling of good female artists, but it's easy to speculate.

The Evil Jeanius is close to a flawless album. It's unfortunate that its long, touch-and-go background sullies its content. Nonetheless, Jean Grae is the kind of artist who has never been afraid to announce hip-hop's future. Given the right circumstances, she is an MC that could easily break-through the inertia of the biz and play a role in changing the face of rap forever. Word is she's working on another upcoming with 9th Wonder. If the cards fall right, this could be the realease we've all been waiting for; the release that both she and the heads out there deserve.

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Alexander Billet is a music journalist, writer and activist living in Chicago. Regular contributor to Znet, Dissident Voice and SleptOn.com. Appears in the recently published "At Issue: Should Music Lyrics Be Censored For Violence and Exploitation," from Greenhaven Press.

Check out his blog Rebel Frequencies