Throughout the course of this class, gender, feminism, equality, race, and sexuality have all been prominent themes that have individually expressed and described specific components of WGSS. The story my quote collection tells is one of how women, men, trans, colored, etc., individuals of society are/have been oppressed within this shared space that we call America; “Home of the Free” (although injustices pertaining to the topic persist especially in other countries as well), and the quotes provided describe the injustices and perspective of what not only hip-hop truly is in its pure form/where it is rooted from, but what it means to those are indigenous to hip hop culture.
The class has challenged us to consider these themes through the readings and class discussion where we explored how these components are all connected and how they each affect one another. Women are minorities as is; add a color/race/ethnicity and circumstances either become tolerable, worse, or even worse. With this being said, one of the main focuses of the 10-quote collection is the injustices that particularly a black girl may face in society and other factors related to such inequality such as hip-hop being that “Hip hop is itself of pan-African origin, emerging amid the African/Latin American diasporas as they responded to an imperial-imposed coalescence in New York City” (McFarland, Ball, p. 45). The class has reinforced this theme as we see growth in these (minority) groups through hip-hop. In the past, men were the one sexualizing women (as per the patriarchy society is and always has been), today, black/Afro-Latina artists such as Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, etc., take pride in freely expressing themselves through their craft in the rap and hip-hop game (“Girls are TOUGH BITCHES that can do whatever men can do”). This is re-indigenization and an act of free form and expression of the Black and Latinex community through the popular genre birthed by ancestors of previous black and minority groups in the past.
Furthermore, it is no secret that homophobia and gender disrespect is always present; though now it is increasingly becoming more frowned upon, this was one aspect of people’s lives that they probably had to keep on the down low to avoid exposing themselves to further inequality and injustices; society has been trained to consider this behavior “normal”, when in reality, it plays drastically in part of oppressed groups. Being black, gay, AND a woman is a terrible combination in terms of how other perceive and treat you as a person. This goes for anything being black/Latino(a) in society. We will never be equal until we practice acceptance for everyone’s differences no matter what it is that makes them “different”. With this being said, the quotes pertaining to space are in place to express the idea that our “space” that we “share” is not really our space although, “… space does not possess an inherent capacity to dominate, although spaces may be invested with power and thus become part of an apparatus of domination” (Forman, p. 5), and this is the bigger picture. We divide society which is a space meant for all; a space not meant for domination, yet it is.
