"Bitch."

Last night, T., A. and I got into a very, very long and complicated discussion about the word "bitch", hip-hop, African-American culture, and racism.

It started when I heard a song playing - rap, or hip-hop, something - and said something off-handedly after hearing the word "bitch" (or maybe just being reminded of it), something general and controversial, like "This is what bothers me about black culture."

Having had experience at a public school in St. Louis, A. is highly sensitized to stereotyping and segregation. Hearing my blanket statement was understandably not OK to her. She looked at me, concerned, and asked why I would say that.

"When I hear the music that's mainstream and popular, it's almost always about how money is great, and women are 'bitches', and all of these things I just don't agree with. I feel like the values are really strange," I said (sounding like somebody's grandma.)

"Yeah, but 'white' pop music doesn't exactly represent white people," T. joined in.

"Right, and tons of white suburban kids listen to rap music. But the thing is, that's what's being consumed. So that's what's being allowed to represent black music, and African-Americans in general. It's what's being chosen," I said.

A. pointed out that she felt this was mainly a low socio-economic thing, which led us into a discussion of the problem of poverty in the black community. It got really charged really quickly. A. said she was just concerned that I was approaching black culture with a negative attitude, which is destructive because equality still hasn't been achieved. She said it was easy to see something I dislike and apply it to the whole group of people. That it's easy just to turn off.

This is true, I said, but how can I approach something I find negative with a positive attitude? I don't like the word "bitch", and I don't think it improves things to use it more broadly, so why support it?

A. and T. argued that I shouldn't support use of the word, but I shouldn't tune out the musician either. Then it became a more linguistic conversation, about how the word "bitch" is different when I hear it from my white small-town background than it sounds from the perspective of someone in the black community.. that in the latter situation, it is less stigmatized. I can have my opinion, but I should understand the difference and approach it with respect.

Basically, T. said, it can be something I dislike but not disrespect. Respect implies a kind of openness--not turning one's back. This was, I think, his main point. A. wanted to emphasize that one should approach an entire group of people positively, even with negative associations. I wanted to stress that I don't think racism should be destroyed at the cost of sexism being allowed--that to be accepting of people shouldn't mean being accepting of things you don't respect.

I think we all got somewhere, although it was sort of loud and passionate toward the end. When you start talking about sexism in a multi-gender context, or racism within the American context, automatically everything requires great care. And we were doing both.