Homophobia in Hip Hop

This is a clip from Byron Hurt's document called, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.  I've seen this documentary before and really enjoyed it. It's a documentary that explores issues of masculinity, violence, sexism, and homophobia in the hip hop industry.

This clip does a great job of exposes the hyper-masculinalized attitudes within the hip hop and therefore the black community. For instance, Byron Hurt only mentions homophobia as an issue within the hip hop industry and Busta Rhymes already wants to dismiss the conversation by saying he won't get involved in this discussion. And although he doesn't mean to disrespect anyone, he says his culture doesn't condone it.  What culture is he talking about? The black culture? I find it so interesting that people will be homophobic simply because they feel others in their community don't agree with it. Its like they can't think for themselves but will rather agree with how everyone else feels.

I especially liked when Kevin Powell addresses these issues of homophobia. He explains that it comes down to how we define manhood. This part reminded me of our reading on Heterosexual Masculinity by Herek. In this article, he explains that men are only allowed to have "social relationships with men and primarily sexual relationships with women". Therefore "males homophobia is based primarily on anxieties associated with the male role". I believe that this clip about homophobia in hip hop accurately demonstrates his theory.  In hip hop, the way to disrespect other men is to demasculinize men and basically call each other gay because being gay isn't conforming to the typical gender roles.

His entire documentary tackles these issues of gender roles within the black community and its very interesting and very well done. I suggest you check it out when you have the time.