THE NEW MILLINIUM MINSTREL SHOW

by Malik Isasis


















I visited one of my favorite weblogs, Racialicious, to get my weekly fix of the “intersection of race and pop culture.” The editor, Carmen Van Kerckhove discussed a website she came across called, Hot Ghetto Mess to which she writes:

There’s a web site called Hot Ghetto Mess (contains some NSFW pics). I’m not sure how to describe the site - it’s basically a collection of photos of ridiculous-looking (almost all black) people. People with bad hairdos, questionable fashion, etc.

It’s just a web site - harmless enough, right? Well, it turns out that BET is planning to turn the site into a TV show and is currently soliciting videos from consumers.

I visited Hot Ghetto Mess, and it was indeed, a hot mess. The website is an extension of a cultural 20-car pile up, that begun with the daytime tabloid television talk show pioneered by Phil Donahue but reformatted for exploitation of the poor by Jerry Springer.

Although Hip-hop represents a very small part of African-American culture; It has come to represent 100% of African-American culture, and a large percentage of mainstream pop culture, but it is the corporate gangsta-rap—the misogynistic, machismo, hypervigilant, and conspicuous consumption side of hip hop that is driving the corporate music industry.

This corporate hip-hop is The New Millennium Minstrel Show, where instead of white men wearing black face, African-Americans’ black faces are adorned with gold, or diamond encrusted grillz, false fronts on their teeth, have a look.

In this corporate world of hip-hop, the culture of pimping has been sanctioned. The genre has created a false sense of empowerment for urban youth who see images of scantly-clad women with stacks of money in their hands, while the rap artists pours some sort of alcoholic beverage over her face and body. Every rap video must contain this particular scene; there is also the obligatory scene with the nice car with big shiny rims.

This is empowerment for urban youth in the new millennium, a black face that is so insidious, it has set back a generation of youth.

I love hip-hop, however, it’s like being in an abusive relationship.

Hot Ghetto Mess

Before entering the site of Hot Ghetto Mess there is a caption that reads: “If you are not completely appalled, then you haven’t been paying attention.” The editor, Jam Donaldson, goes on to state: My mission with this site is to usher in a new era of self-examination. And because I am proud member of the black community, they are my priority.

I’m not quite so sure that the black community is priority number one here--maybe priority four or five, priority one appears to be a high-tech pimping scheme using exploitation to make money. Donaldson is selling “ghetto gear”—tee-shirts that read, “we got to do better,” she’s selling a Hot Ghetto Mess DVD, and has a link to My Space promoting the new television show on the television station BET.

The Raunch Culture

The African American women on the website posing—more accurately, parroting what they see in the rap music videos is definitely distasteful. This black raunchiness is no different than say “Girls Gone Wild”—white raunchiness if you will.

The Raunch Culture, simply put, is the objectification of women and their sexuality; turning women into sexual caricatures—usually portraying women as hypersexual—like in those rap music videos and in those “Girl Gone Wild” videos.

Appropriating vs. Culture

Ms Van Kerckhove over at Racialicious, called the people on the Hot Ghetto Mess “ridiculous-looking” with “bad hairdos and questionable fashion.” Ms Van Kerckhove’s statement is conjecture, by whose standard is she using to judge? The ghetto culture is a subculture with its own cultural standards of beauty and social engagement. Just like the Punk subculture, Goth subculture or the Japanese Anime style known as Ganguro in Japan; Ghetto subculture is legitimate and emanates out of the life experience of poverty.

What is at issue is the exploitation. Folks like Jam Donaldson, the editor at Hot Ghetto Mess, makes money by creating minstrel shows out of people’s willingness to make fools of themselves, under the guise of saving her people.

She’s a snake oil salesman.

The fact that Black Entertainment Television, a Viacom subsidiary, is developing a show for mass appeal is where the corporate appropriation of culture deepens stereotypes, the damage is that it limits the imagination of the children who consumes the programming, continuing the endless cycle of misogyny and distorted hypersexuality. These blackface images, which are a subculture, are then beamed around the world, and are often taken as a 100% representation of African American culture.

Ms Donaldson, is contributing to a generation worth of intellectual damage, with her traveling New Millinium Minstrel Show.




More on Raunch Culture.

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