so i saw ozomatli in welle's park last night for $5. ummmm.... WOW! money well-spent, kids. this weekend, $5 entry into the park allowed us to see not just ozomatli, but a lot of other great bands and acts, including tinariwen. props to the chicago folk and roots festival for making $5 go such a long way towards cultural education, local community building, and fabulous entertainment. :) i have a picture up on my moblog (to the right), though you can't exactly tell it's ozomatli. you'll just have to take my word for it... and then go see them yourselves, because it was amazing!
moving on to a less glowing review... have y'all heard the new destiny's child song on the radio, "cater 2U?" something about this one is really bothering me. it's not just run-of-the-mill irritating like the new gwen stefani songs. it's deeper than that-- i feel like the whole song is internalized misogyny, and it really hurts me to hear it. it doesn't just sound like this woman is "catering" to her man--it sounds more like she's enslaving herself...
women have been oppressed, subjugated, raped, abused, and subjected to domestic slavery for millenia. why, in this day and age, when Bahá’u’lláh has proclaimed the equality of men and women, and when the majority of the thinking world is quickly discovering the truth of this equality and at least attempting to take measures to realize it in practice, do we still have such regressive, sexist, disempowerment of self?
there's nothing wrong with serving each other--we as human beings were all created by God to serve one another and thus to serve Him. and husband and wife should serve each other, too--ideally, in an equal fashion. if there is to be any inequality in the services rendered in a marriage or in a romantic relationship, however, i feel like the men should be the ones doing more--if nothing else, just to overcompensate for the thousands of years of oppression and for the current state of still-existing societal inequality.
but no, it sounds like the women of destiny's child are determined to make themselves slaves--domestic and sexual--and to completely devalue their own worth as spiritual beings. i'm going to excerpt a few verses just to illustrate the degree of absurdity here...
"...My life would be purposeless without you...
Let me help you
Take off your shoes
Untie your shoe strings
Take off your cuff links
What you wanna eat boo?
Let me feed you
Let me run your bath water
Whatever you desire
I'll supply ya
Sing you a song
Turn the game on
I’ll brush your hair
Help you put your do-rag on
Want a foot rub
Want a manicure
Baby I’m yours
I wanna cater 2 u boy"
wait a second... her life would be purposeless without a man? i'm pretty sure God created each of us noble and that we all can do amazing things. putting that aside for a second though, untie his shoe strings? is he 5 years old? sing him a song? is she a paid perfomer? it gets worse...
"I know whatever I’m not fulfillin’
another woman is willing..."
ok, so she's just an instrument for his gratification? and he auditions women one by one until one of them fulfills him? and she's aware of being just one of the many in line for his attention, and she's still willing to try to fulfill him, lest he leave her and render her life purposeless (see above)?
"I'll keep it tight
I'll keep my figure right
I’ll keep my hair fixed
be rockin the hottest outfits
When you come home late
Tap me on my shoulder, I’ll roll over...
All I wanna do is cater to you boy"
right... sexual object, required to be constantly vigilant with respect to her appearance and his titillation, and always willing to pleasure him. i think this verse is particularly heinous...
i just really can't abide it. i'm so hurt by this. maybe i'm just sensitive, but as a woman, i routinely feel betrayed by other women. i feel like so many women out there are doing things that not only fail to contribute to our much-needed and long-overdue advancement, but are actually counterproductive to this process. among them are playboy models, female teen pop stars who prance around naked and sing about animalistic sex to stadiums full of 13-year old girls, and brainwashed fundamentalist women who believe and profess their spiritual and intellectual inferiority to men, and then teach these values to their children.
this song is just another example of how the pervasive media of this country can be used to proliferate warped, base, and foul ideals of human existence. hearing these vile words saturate the radiowaves, i can't help but wonder... do we really need more girls to believe their only worth is to be found in their physical attractiveness or in their ability to "cater" to men in demoralizing ways? do we really need more boys to believe that they can grow up to sexually objectify and domestically confine women?
hearing women sing such things and promote such ideas is so much more offensive and heartbreaking to me than to hear men do the same. when men do it (a la vapid, misogynistic, materialistic gangsta rap), i feel like they don't know what they're doing or saying, they haven't been properly educated, and haven't experienced the negative impact that their words and their image can cause.
but women... we should all know better! we are daughters, sister, wives, mothers, grandmothers, and friends. we know the pain of sexism, of patriarchy, of not having a voice. we are emotional and spiritual beings and we have so much to offer to an ailing humanity. we can't do this to ourselves any longer.
instead of "let me cater 2 U," let's work on saying, "i am a noble being and i have much to contribute to our shared existence. i respect you and i thank you for respecting me. let us recognize each other's uniqueness, talents, and faculties, let us treat each other with love, and let us work together to achieve the true equality that our Creator intended for us."
Posted by naseem at July 11, 2005 10:16 AMYeah...I don't listen to the radio much anymore. Can't stand the stuff.
While I fully agree with you that women need to stop allowing ourselves to fall into the trap of becoming objects...I don't think that guys should have to do MORE to make up for oppression in the past. I do feel like they need to be our equal partners in the endeavor, because if women are the only ones fighting for equality, it is never going to work. I can't blame guys now for the stuff that went down in the past...but I CAN expect them to do their part (especially if they've been educated to understand the importance of equality).
Posted by: Sholeh at July 11, 2005 01:09 PMOh man, that song just hurts to read. What a shameful thing to do with your fame, sing a song like that and put it on an album.
Hmm..I'm NOT an expert by any means, but I've gained some experience in the area of relationships over time, and I have learned a few things about "equality." In a truly equal relationship, you serve each other (not one person serving the other endlessly). That means, you learn what the other person needs from you (via communication) and you decide how to serve them. While there are no blanket rules for this kind of thing, men really need to show us they are not the mysoginistic, easy, flighty creatures that they stereotypically are. Women are usually looking for someone they can depend on, while men are usually looking for some way to feel good about themselves. This varies greatly, but I can say that most of the relationship issues that people I know have stem from these two things. Unless these things are communicated properly, you end up with a miserable relationship where no one understands each other and it will end badly and someone will get hurt. There are endless examples to use to buttress this argument.
True equality is everything you say, Sholeh, and it's everyone's fight, men and women alike. But fundamentally, there is so much that goes unsaid that really should be said, and once an honest, open, uncompromised pattern of communication is developed between partners, it's like working for equality at the grassroots, and it's amazing. Instead of thinking of equality as a concept to work towards, you see it as a reality you are a participant in. It's so cool.
So anyways, sorry to go on forever, but I really feel you on this, Nas, it kills me whenever I hear a song like this or worse, when I spend money on an album with a song like this on it. I usually immediately lose respect for the vocalist, I can't help it.
Posted by: Lacey at July 11, 2005 02:02 PMI just did a google search to make sure I'm not the only one that shares these feelings, and I am so relieved to know that others see this.
The first time I heard this song I thought it was a joke.. like I was listening, waiting for Beyoncé to say, "just kidding! I am a woman.. not a slave."
I am so upset and disgusted that something with a message like this could become so popular. I can't believe it.
That almost inherent male-superiority concept that is popular in most popular music has always bothered me. I mean, I find it troubling that a talented female R&B artist will be cut off every few seconds by a male rapper.. or that the female singer only has a very small part in a popular song, when she is definately the most vocally talented of the song's performers.
But never before have I heard something as bad as this becoming so widely accepted. Censors are worried about a few mild cusswords.. but they don't give a second look at a song like this.
I hope that as I continue my internet search that I will find that organizations are looking into this.. I mean, I would really like to write to Destiny's Child myself. I don't have the objective to ban their music or something.. but I want them to know that this song is disgraceful. Maybe people like us or who have noticed this should be writing to our local radio stations?
Nathan
P.S. I commend you for getting your word out there. Thank you.
Posted by: Nathan at July 30, 2005 11:32 PMwell i think that they did great on the song all there trying 2 do is make that money even if they don't like each other just cause they made that song does't mean that their a slave or stuff like that but i like the song they did a great jodb onthat c.d. great job destiny child but i relly think the group should stay together!
Posted by: sharice at July 31, 2005 07:35 PMthanks for your comments, nate. i love to hear that kind of support from a male. truly, men should be championing the equality of men and women.
the bahai writings say "as long as women are prevented from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable to achieve the greatness which might be theirs." so really, everyone--men and women alike--stands to gain from the advancement of women.
anyway, i tried to check out your live journal, but the link didn't work. lemme know if you have a working link, or if you want me to drop you a line by e-mail. thanks for coming by the blog. you're always welcome back. :)
Posted by: nas at August 1, 2005 03:07 PM