Do you remember singing along with I'm a little tea pot as a child? Did the song define you? Did you really believe you were a little teapot? No, you didn't. It was just a silly song with a catchy melody. This goes for hip hop music as well. Most of us don't take the explicit sexism in Hip Hop personally because we know it doesn't define us. Jennifer McLune on the other hand disagrees with this nonchalant attitude completely. .
In "Celie's Revenge: Hip-Hop's Betrayal of Black Women," published in Said it magazine, Jennifer McLune responds to an article written by Kevin Powell which addresses the sexism in Hip-Hop. McLune feels that Powell's argument insufficiently addresses the topic of sexism in Hip Hop. Moreover, MeLune insists that Powell only offers pathetic excuses for the inexcusable treatment of black women by the Hip-Hop culture. Specifically, McLune points out that "His argument completely ignores the fact that women, too, are raised in this environment of poverty and violence, but have yet to produce the same negative and hateful representation of black men that male rappers are capable of making against women" (McLune 1). McLune declares in her thesis statement, "Hip-hop owes its success to the ideology of women hating. It creates, perpetuates and reaps the rewards of objectification" (1-2). .
McLune immediately takes a strongly opposing stance by saying that the presence of women changes nothing. She ends her response to Powell by presenting a solution for eliminating the sexism in Hip Hop. McLune suggest that if our community as a whole starts to view woman hating as a common enemy then hip hop would start to change. McLune attempts to present a convincing argument on how hip hop owes its success to the ideology of women hating but she should not be considered for the top prize for persuasive essays. McLune's argument fails to convince the reader because she relies too heavily on pathos and she does not establish credibility.
