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SPINOFF: Hip-Hop Artists vs C. Dolores Tucker

Sallie Blair

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A spin-off from the Tupac thread, since the late Ms. Tucker was mentioned a few times

c-tucker.jpg


From Wikipedia

Cynthia Delores Tucker (née Nottage) (October 4, 1927 – October 12, 2005) was an American politician and civil rights activist best known for her participation in the Civil Rights Movement and her stance against gangsta rap music.

Born in Philadelphia to a minister from the Bahamas and a "Christian feminist mother" on October 4, 1927, she was the tenth of thirteen children. Tucker attended Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. She was later the recipient of two honorary doctoral degrees from Morris College in Sumter, South Carolina and Villa Maria College in Pennsylvania, and for this reason, she is sometimes referred to as "Dr. Tucker".

In 1951, she married William "Bill" Tucker, a successful Philadelphia real estate agent and she herself worked in real estate and insurance sales early in her career.

Tucker had a long history in the Civil Rights Movement. Early on, her civil activities included participating in the 1965 march in Selma, Alabama alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and raising funds for the NAACP.

In 1990, Tucker, along with 15 other African American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom.[2] She was the convening founder and national chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. (NCBW), having succeeded the Hon. Shirley Chisholm in 1992.

Tucker also was responsible for the Governor’s appointment of more women judges and more women and African Americans to boards and commissions than ever before. She also led the effort to make Pennsylvania one of the first states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. As Chief of Elections of Pennsylvania, she was a leader in instituting a voter registration by mail and reducing the voting age from 21 to 18 years of age.

Tucker dedicated much of the last few years of her life to condemning xesually explicit lyrics in rap and hip-hop tracks, citing a concern that the lyrics were misogynistic and threatened the moral foundation of the African American community.

Called "narrow-minded" by some rappers who often mentioned her in their lyrics, Tucker picketed stores that sold rap music and bought stock in Sony, Time Warner, and other companies in order to protest hip-hop at their shareholders' meetings. She also fought against the NAACP's decision to nominate late rapper Tupac Shakur for one of its Image Awards and filed a $10 million lawsuit against his estate for comments that the rapper made in his song "How Do U Want It?" on the album All Eyez on Me, in which Shakur rapped "C. Delores Tucker you's a motherfµcker / Instead of trying to help a !!!!! you destroy a brother". In her lawsuit, Tucker claimed that comments in this song, and on the track "Wonda Why They Call U b!tch" from the same album, inflicted emotional distress, were slanderous and invaded her privacy. This case was eventually dismissed.

Other rappers have taken similar stances. In his song "Church for Thugs", The Game raps "I've got more hatred in my soul than Pac had for De'ores Tucker." Jay-Z chimes in as well, with the lines "I don't care if you're C. Dolores Tucker or you're Bill O'Reilly, you only riling me up," from The Black Album's "Threat." Lil' Kim also referenced her in a leftover track, entitled "Rockin' It", from her second studio album. Kim raps "C. Delores T., Screw her, I never knew her", after Tucker dubbed her music as "gangsta porno rap" and "filth". Much of KRS-ONE and Channel Live's "Free Mumia" is a direct criticism of what the MCs see as Tucker's misplaced energy. Lil Wayne also referenced her in his leftover song "Million Dollar Baby" rapping "Can't be banned I'm sorry Miss Delores." Rapper Eminem also mentioned Tucker in the D-12 song "Rap Game", in which he rapped the line "Tell that C. Delores Tucker slut to suck a dick." Tucker later went on to serve on the Advisory Board of the Parents Television Council until her death in 2005.

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[h=1]Was C. DeLores Tucker Right?[/h] April 17, 2007


by Shilpa Banerji

More than a decade after civil rights activist Dr. C. DeLores Tucker took up a national campaign against obscenities in rap music lyrics, some scholars believe she was right in the light of the comments made by Don Imus towards the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.


The late Tucker, who was the Secretary of State for Pennsylvania and a delegate to the White House Conference on Civil Rights, believed that rap music was unhealthy for children. She said it was a crime to promote messages from the rap music industry that are drug-driven, race-driven, and greed-driven. However, her attacks instigated rappers such as Tupac Shakur and later, Eminem, to ridicule her in their lyrics.


Dr. Tukufu Zuberi, professor of sociology and the Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, agrees with Tucker.


“If a group of people want others to respect them, they have to respect themselves,” says Zuberi, who is also the director of Penn’s Center for Africana Studies. “You are still responsible for the history of your people. If there has been a derogatory phrase used against you, you’re not open to repeat it.


“The people who are part of this music and who sponsor this music should reconsider what they say… it’s not a question of what happens on the street, but showing respect on the street because that is where women are still disrespected,” he adds.


But Dr. Leith Mullings, professor of anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center, says Imus’ remarks aren’t at all related to hip-hop music, although critics say he used the same language that rappers routinely use in some of their music.


“Imus involves racism and sexism in people of power. In hip-hop, it’s a different kind of situation. That creates a diversion,” says Mullings.


She says that racism and sexism has been fundamental to the building of the country and slavery gave rise to certain rationalizations – not stereotypes – that absolved the slave owner.


“It continues around the notion that Black women are whores. It is also implemented around discussion of poor women and how xesually promiscuous they are as opposed to not [working legitimate] jobs,” says Mullings. “Imus is a crude example but similar examples [of sexist and racist commentary] exist in the congressional records.”


Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, and rapper industry pioneer Russell Simmons issued a joint statement saying the comparison between Don Imus and hip-hop artists was unreasonable.
“Comparing Don Imus’ language with hip-hop artists’ poetic expression is misguided and inaccurate and feeds into a mindset that can be a catalyst for unwarranted, rampant censorship,” said Simmons.


Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, the associate professor of politics and African American Studies at Princeton University, provides a historical context to the phrase “nappy-headed hos.” Comparing Black women to the biblical character of Jezebel, she writes on blackprof.com that Black women have been victims of a racist, patriarchal society.
“During slavery Jezebel excused the profit-driven xesual exploitation of Black women… The point here is that Jezebel is more than a demeaning and false stereotype of Black women… Inaccurate portrayals of women’s lives and characters are intentional, not accidental. Myth advances specific economic, social and political motives.”

http://diverseeducation.com/article/7239/
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[h=2]C. Delores Tucker, You Were Right. What You Predicted Has Come to Pass.[/h]
Published On: Wed, Jun 6th, 2012
Sharon Toomer | By Sharon Toomer



(BBN Editor’s Note: If you share this commentary with your students or young people, please note the quoted graphic language and provide context for them.)

In the mid-1990s, C. Delores Tucker was lambasted and harassed for her voice against Gangsta Rap music. Beneficiaries and fans of the insidious music genre attacked her in song and called her “narrow-minded,” an old thinker, as she stood alone in her campaign against lyrics that degraded the Black community and its people.

Today, we are living the outcome of what Ms. Tucker used her voice to speak out about and fight fiercely against.

C. Delores Tucker sounded the alarm on the impact of Gangsta Rap on the Black community.

At the height of her campaign against Gangsta Rap, C. Delores Tucker was in her sixties. She was an unapologetic, fearless elder of our community with a lifetime of experience in her view. She stood tall, literally and figuratively, and dared to say what no one else would when it was unpopular and uncomfortable to do so.

But Ms. Tucker knew something grotesque and ominous was forming right before us. She knew that nothing good and everything bad would happen as a result of the constant messaging of degradation delivered through Gangsta Rap lyrics to a community, its people and the greater world of listeners.

It is time to remember C. Delores Tucker and revisit her battle for the Black community and against those who were not friends and who effectively contributed to the conditions we are in today.

Ms. Tucker died in October 2005 at the age of 78.

A brief history of C. Delores Tucker’s Campaign against Gangsta Rap:

As Tucker explained to Chicago Tribune writer Monica Fountain, “these images of black young kids acting like gangstas go all around the world.” She objected to such lyrics being sold to minors and asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch an inquiry. Both the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus lent support to Tucker’s cause. Congressional hearings were held on the subject in 1994, and soon afterward Tucker set her sights on an even larger target, the Time Warner media empire. The company distributed Interscope, whose rap subsidiary, Death Row Records, put out the recordings of some of the most popular gangsta artists. Tucker purchased stock in Time Warner, which allowed her the privilege of attending shareholders’ meetings and speaking out. At a May 1995 shareholders’ meeting, she stood and asked the executives to read aloud the very lyrics through which their company reaped such profits. They refused. “How long will Time Warner continue to put profit before principle?” she asked at the meeting, according to Fountain’s Chicago Tribune article. “How long will it continue to turn its back on the thousands of young people who are dying spiritually and physically due to the violence perpetuated in these recordings?”

Tucker also focused her ire at Time Warner chair Gerald Levin.

Gerald M. Levin, then head of Time Warner

“I told him about the black males-25 percent are either in jail or under some judicial regulation, ” she declared in another Chicago Tribune profile by Sonya Ross. “I said, ‘Mr. Levin, how are we going to raise a race of people with no men?“‘ Tucker has also noted that she has served as surrogate parent to many nieces and nephews, not all of whom went down the right path, and over the years came to realize that cultural forces and images play a large role in shaping self-esteem.

Not long after the incident, Time Warner sold its interest in Interscope.

Tucker considered it a victory, but Death Row head Marion “Suge” Knight hired investigators and then filed suit against Tucker on behalf of his roster of artists. She was accused of conspiracy and extortion as a result of a meeting with Knight at which two recording artists (who were also National Political Caucus of Black Women members), Melba Moore and Dionne Warwick, were also present. Supposedly the women offered Knight a deal to leave Interscope and sign with a black-owned record company they planned, but Tucker retorted that they had simply asked him to try for more positive messages in his artists’ music. He said he would need “distribution” to engineer such a situation, and Moore and Knight agreed then to look into financing for such a possible black-owned enterprise.

Source: This information was pulled from various news organization by answers.com

50 Cent, Jimmy Lovine of Interscope Records

Gangsta Rap artists joined in the campaign to ridicule and humiliate C. Delores Tucker.

In his hit song, “How Do You Want It,” Tupac Shakur pounced on Ms. Tucker. He blasted her with these lyrics, “Delores Tucker, youse a motherfµcker.” Then in the Eminem, 50 Cent hit “D-12,” the White rapper took his turn assaulting her when he belted out, “Tell that C. Delores Tucker slut to suck a dick Mother fµck ducked, what the fµck?”

Rapper Eminem

This is the vile and venom C. Delores Tucker was hit with. Not because she was doing harm to her community, but because she was doing great and loved her community enough to take the hits. For me, this assault from skilled, talented artists and the corporations that back them was an especially low moment for the Black community and an indication of the direction we – Black people – were headed. We had arrived at a point of no return.

In a social network discussion with my friend, Eugene Holley, about actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s recent tweet, “!!!!!z in Paris for real,” at the JayZ and Kanye Paris concert, he reminded me of these lyrics in the Funkadelic composition Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts, “You descend to the level of your lowest concept of your self,” (read the full lyrics). Gangsta Rap rose to that lowest level of expectations in its degrading treatment of our community and an elder of our community; and, in the implicit permission it effectively has given the greater community to participate in our ruin. Another friend, Sherry Ormond of Brooklyn who is a mother of three said about C. Delores Tucker, and that time she fought for us even when we shunned her, “Sometimes, we have to take a step back and humble ourselves to the elders when they speak about the future.”

C. Delores Tucker, you were right. You knew what was to come. Here we are today, bearing witness to what you predicted as recent as two decades ago. It has come to pass.


http://blackandbrownnews.com/opinio...re-right-what-you-predicted-has-come-to-pass/
 

Atl quickweave

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Great write up! In the end defending men's rights to belittle black women has benefited bw how exactly? 20 yrs later are things better or worse?
 

SlowJamz

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the way countless rappers disrespected that woman in their songs was truly deplorable. in my teen years I was very pro-hip hop, fµck censorship but i've had to face some ugly truths about a lot of my "faves". misogynoir, homophobia, the glamorization of gang culture, etc. it was all detrimental and STILL is to the african american community. Mrs. Tucker is long gone but her words still ring true to this day.
 

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[h=1]C. Delores Tucker Dies at 78; Rights and Anti-Rap Activist[/h]By Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005

[FONT=&quot]
C. Delores Tucker, 78, a political and social activist who waged a fiery national campaign against obscenities in rap music, died Oct. 12 at Suburban Woods Health and Rehabilitation Center in Norristown, Pa. She had a heart ailment and lung condition.


Mrs. Tucker, who once was the highest-ranking African American woman in Pennsylvania state government, focused a spotlight on rap music in 1993, calling it "pornographic fifth" and saying it was demeaning and offensive to black women. "You can't listen to all that language and filth without it affecting you," she said.

She passed out leaflets with lyrics from gangsta rap and urged people to read them aloud. She picketed stores that sold the music, handed out petitions and demanded congressional hearings. She also bought stock in Sony, Time Warner and other companies so she could protest at shareholders meetings.
Crossing political lines, Mrs. Tucker, a Democrat, joined forces with former secretary of education William Bennett, a Republican, as well as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.). Bennett called her at the time a "daunting figure."
"Usually I'm the noisy one, but she's ferocious," he said.
In 1994, Mrs. Tucker protested when the NAACP, on whose board of trustees she sat, nominated rapper Tupac Shakur for one of its Image Awards.
Rappers called her "narrow-minded." Some ridiculed her in their lyrics. She was sued by two record companies.

The Silver Spring-based organization she co-founded in 1984, now called the National Congress of Black Women, became the vehicle through which she waged her battle. She succeeded the late congresswoman Shirley Chisholm as national chair in 1992.


Mrs. Tucker, an elegant woman who spoke with a stirring cadence, had a long history in the civil rights movement and politics. Early on, she raised funds for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in marches and demonstrations calling for equality and justice.

"I realized we always started at the church and marched to the political kingdom, whether the local or state or national," she told The Washington Post in 1995. "And I realized that's where we needed to go to make a difference. That's where the decisions are being made that affected our lives, but we weren't in those seats."
Cynthia Delores Nottage was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 4, 1927, the 10th of 11 children of a minister and a "Christian feminist mother." She played the organ and saxophone and directed the choir in church. She attended Temple University, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1951, she married William Tucker, a construction company owner who grew prosperous in Philadelphia real estate. She later sold real estate and insurance in Philadelphia.
In the 1960s, after her experiences in the early civil rights movement, she delved deeper into the political arena, working on behalf of black candidates and serving on the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee. She came to be known as a master fundraiser.

In 1971, she was named secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by then-Gov. Milton Shapp (D), making her the highest-ranking African American woman in state government. However, in 1977, the governor fired her for using state employees to write political speeches for which she was paid.

Political office eluded her. In 1978, she ran for lieutenant governor; in 1980, for the U.S. Senate; and in 1992, for the U.S. House. However, her political involvement continued. She was head of the minority caucus of the Democratic National Committee and a founding member of the National Women's Political Caucus. She chaired the Black Caucus of the Democratic National Committee for 11 years and spoke at five Democratic conventions.

Mrs. Tucker, the recipient of numerous awards, also founded the District-based Bethune-DuBois Institute to provide educational and training programs for black youths.

Survivors include her husband, of Philadelphia.
He once said that she was "one of the most fearless individuals I have ever known. She will take on anyone, anything, if that is what she thinks is right. . . . I tell her there are times you have to compromise, but she is not one who will readily entertain the idea of compromise about anything."

[/FONT]


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101300024.html
 

bravebird1

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C. Delores Tucker was unfairly targeted by rappers. I think our culture is worst now compared to what it was then.
 
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Truly sad how she didn't get the support she deserved. Everything she warned has come to pass and then some. God bless her.
 

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