By Moya Z. Bailey,
Comparative Women’s Studies/Pre-Med
Major, Spelman Class of 2005
Reprinted from WireTap. O ver Christmas break I was up
late one night on the phone. As
I passed the den I glanced at the TV and
what I saw made me stop. Nelly and the St.
Lunatics were throwing money at nearly
naked women. Women were simulating sex
with other women as Nelly and company
looked on. Then I saw Murphy Lee sliding
a credit card between a woman’s butt
cheeks. I was too disgusted to even speak
and got off the phone quickly.
When I came back to school,
along with the usual “How was break?” and
“What’d you do?” came the soon equally
familiar, “Have you seen ‘Tip Drill?'” My
Spelman sisters and Morehouse brothers
alike were shocked by this recent low in
depictions of African-American women on
the small screen. Our critique of the video
was not isolated. Fellow Historically Black
College/University (HBCU) students at
Howard had protested in front of Viacom to
show their outrage towards the video in
mid-December. It became apparent to me,
as Spelman’s Feminist Majority Leadership
Alliance (FMLA) President that this was
something that we, too, needed to address.
The FMLA had its first showing
and discussion of the “Tip Drill” video at
the beginning of February. A significant
number of students came, including men
from Morehouse. Many differing viewpoints
were brought up. One student
asked if women could ever be in these
videos and be sexual without being
viewed in a negative manner. The comment
was eloquently addressed by FMLA
member Bettina Judd, who replied that
the kind of sexuality they were displaying
was not about pleasure; it was about
women performing for a male audience. I
mean what kind of pleasure is received
when a credit card is swiped through your
backside? It is impossible to display
healthy sexuality when you are being
degraded. The men in the audience noticed
that watching the video in a room
full of women made them feel differently
about the video. It helped them see the
misogyny they had overlooked before.
A week later I saw Asha Jennings,
the Spelman Student Government Association
(SGA) President, carrying a big box.
She called me over for what I assumed
would be help carrying the load, but ended
up being help in what has been titled, “The
Nelly Controversy.” Asha explained that in
the box were flyers for the Jes Us 4 Jackie
bone marrow drive that was set to take
place on April 2. Spelman SGA had been
working with Nelly’s foundation to bring a
bone marrow registration drive to campus.
The problem was readily apparent.
How could Spelman, a historically
black women’s institution, have
Nelly on campus after his heinous depiction
of black women in his lyrics and videos?
Asha had been previously unaware
of the video and had just seen it. She now
stood at the crossroads of what to do.
Should she cancel the drive, knowing that
the issue of minority bone marrow registration
would go unaddressed? Should she
uninvite Nelly from campus and allow the
foundation to come? Should students remain
silent altogether and not bring up the
issue of ” Tip Drill?”
Asha presented her dilemma to
our Feminist Theory class, citing that her
other classes were in favor of participating
in the drive, and then writing Nelly a
letter which would uninvite him from the
campus.
Our professor, Dr. Guy-Sheftall, was the
voice of reason and pointed out that writing
a letter does not carry the same
weight that protesting or canceling a
drive might have. If we were upset about
his portrayal of African-American
women in the video, our actions had to be
equally powerful. Additionally, sending a
letter does not ensure that Nelly will read
it. He has people who read his mail for
him and he might never know our concern.
Finally, you cannot separate the
man from his foundation. It belongs to
him and should he decide to come on
campus, he could do so with his foundation.
It was then that debate broke down
into the point-counterpoint formula that is
all too familiar in heated discussion. We
discussed and discussed until Asha broke
down in tears. Dr. Guy-Sheftall told her she
needed to stop beating herself up over this
and make a decision to cancel the drive or
to allow students to protest it. The class
voted and the protest won out.
The FMLA took on the task of organizing
and planning the action. We decided that
the next week’s FMLA meeting would be
the strategizing session for the protest. We
were excited and eager to begin our work.
In the days that followed, we did
research. We made signs with Nelly’s lyrics
on them and invited people to the
meeting on Tuesday. We also found the
definitions of a tip drill (which included a
woman who has a nice figure but an ugly
face, a woman who may have an STD and
therefore only the tip of the penis can be
used to have sex with her, or a stripper
who prompts men to keep throwing money
at her).
[I have to admit that I, too, did not know what a tip drill was, either. I thought it was some type of college/university band dance step, involving tipping and swaying the body while carrying and playing band instruments. Shows what I knew. Ann]
These were added to the flyer inviting
people to come to the FMLA meeting.
Those planning to protest also planned
to join the bone marrow registry,
ensuring that the goal of the drive was
accomplished and that bone marrow recipients
did not suffer.
Fliers were up all over campus
and the Nelly “Tip Drill” controversy was
heating up. However, it was not until the
Tuesday night FMLA meeting that everything
came to a head. Asha informed the
group that the foundation had pulled out
of the drive. Apparently, the foundation
had been to campus earlier that week and
seen the signs that the FMLA put up all
over campus. They scheduled an emergency
meeting with SGA and requested
that no protestors be at the drive. SGA
could not meet the ridiculous demand of
assuring their request.
The foundation left the room so
that SGA could vote on whether or not the
drive could continue if, at the foundation’s
request, Nelly agreed to participate in a
forum to address student concerns. Despite
a unanimous vote to continue with
the drive under the new stipulations, when
the foundation came back they had already
decided to cancel the drive.
The foundation was apparently
so upset about this issue that they went to
the press, saying that Spelman canceled
the drive because of the video “Tip Drill.”
Unfortunately for them, their plan backfired
and the media coverage blew up and
ended up depicting them negatively.
MTV broke the story, erroneously
reporting that Spelman was responsible for
the drive not happening because we had
planned a huge protest against one video.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s piece,
however, included interviews with Asha
and myself and set the record straight, explaining
that the foundation had canceled
the drive and that our issues were much
bigger than Nelly and “Tip Drill.” Fortunately,
it was sent out on the AP wire.
We cropped up in the Dayton
Daily News, an editorial in USA Today,
a segment of Essence Magazine, and
various websites, blogs and discussion
boards. We appeared on five local Atlanta
radio stations and I did an interview
with the new liberal radio station Air
America. All of this press was largely
affirming, letting us state our case and
explain once again that we were in support
of the drive the whole time — we
just didn’t want to support sexist images
in the media. The foundation attempted
to save face by trying to reschedule the
drive, but once again, was unwilling to
have Nell y address student concerns.
As the media ran with the story,
so many things surprised me. First of all,
with all the activism that goes on at Spelman,
of all the problems we see in the
Bush administration and in the world, a
handful of students willing to stand up
against problematic depictions of black
women in the media got national attention.
The public outpouring of both
support and opposition has also been surprising.
The old guard of the black feminist
movement has said they are reenergized
by our efforts. Spelman alumna
Pearl Cleage said that it was a welcome
sight to see young black women giving
voice to the issue of misogyny in the media.
Jill Nelson, author of Straight, NoChaser was equally impressed with what
we have done, saying that our action gave
her hope for the future.
But not all people have seen the
situation in a positive light. Some thought
we were angry emasculators who were too
concerned with images and not at all concerned
with bone marrow. It is so easy to
portray us as angry black women unwilling
to stand behind a black man, even though
he is doing something good. Our questions
for Nelly were recast as vociferous attacks
and have allowed people to feel sorry for
Nelly, a supposedly helpless bystander
caught in the misdirected rage of young
black women.
One of our most valid criticisms
came from a former civil rights leader
who spoke to the classism that seems to
be lurking in this issue. As middle class,
college educated black women, we can
very easily speak to the issue of video
images, but the issue of the financial barriers
that lock women into being in these
videos is not something that we seemed to
address.
I understand how it looks that
way; that those of us with privilege are
judging those less fortunate than us for the
economically driven decisions they make
to participate in this medium. But in every
interview we’ve had we stated that this is
systemic, a part of the larger racist, capitalist,
patriarchal society we call America.
But once you start talking about interlocking
systems of oppression, the press stops
recording.
I also do not wish to demonize the
women who participate in the videos and
who feel the tug of the capitalist puppet
strings and see this as an easy way to make
money. Our criticism was directed toward
Nelly, not the women in his videos, but I
do hope to help them see that while they
may feel autonomous in the choices they
make, the implications of their decisions
are global, impacting how African-
American women are viewed world-wide.
This whole Nelly controversy
sapped a significant amount of energy
from me and other obligations I had to
school, to other organizations, and projects.
Sometimes the situation seemed to
have a life of its own, especially when the
media picked up the story and ran with it.
At times I felt like I was along for the ride.
Although the Nelly controversy
was completely unexpected and caught me
off guard, I will not shrink from the challenge
of sustaining a movement around
images of black women in the media. I
want to make it clear that this is so much
bigger than Nelly, that he is not the scapegoat
but the spark that ignited the need for
a public critique of how we as women are
being portrayed. I see “Tip Drill” in the
broader context of a racist, capitalist, patriarchal
system that has a vested interest in
feeding stereotypes of both black men and
women as hypersexual in the quest for the
almighty dollar.
It is because I love hip hop that I
critique it and as part of the hip hop generation,
who better than I to bring the music
back to what I loved about it in the first
place? For me, that sentiment can be
summed up by one of the signs we had at
the demonstration. “We love hip hop, but
does hip hop love us?”
Love how many will defend the rappers rights to defame and posture but want to silence protest. got to love hypocrites
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yo look i kno this is an old thing but i cant get over how they say that rap videos depict black females. well if the ladies aint want to do the video then they shouldnt had went to the video shoot. they knew wut they was getting into way before they went to the shoot. most of the girls in the video are strippers. so wat is the difference between being a stripper and a rap video girl? nothing. just because he swip a card between her dnt degrade black women. at strip clubs they throw money at them. they give lap dances. some even leave the club wit people. so if you are going to get on nelly about his video then get on the people that own the strip clubs. if she had a problem with it then she would of said something. he could of told her that he was going to do that we dnt know that. so you cant just jump dwn his throat. sincerly 412 403 4358 is my number if you want to contact me about this
yo look i kno this is an old thing but i cant get over how they say that rap videos depict black females. well if the ladies aint want to do the video then they shouldnt had went to the video shoot. they knew wut they was getting into way before they went to the shoot. most of the girls in the video are strippers. so wat is the difference between being a stripper and a rap video girl? nothing. just because he swip a card between her dnt degrade black women. at strip clubs they throw money at them. they give lap dances. some even leave the club wit people. so if you are going to get on nelly about his video then get on the people that own the strip clubs. if she had a problem with it then she would of said something. he could of told her that he was going to do that we dnt know that. so you cant just jump dwn his throat. sincerly mckinley pace
hi,
i’m writing my undergraduate thesis around this incident, would you be available for an e-mail interview?