Al Sharpton and his National Action Network marched Thursday in protest of derogatory lyrics in hiphop and the major label’s ‘encouragement’ of said language. Marching past major NY HQs for Sony, Warner and Universal, Sharpton made an announcement.

“We started by walking by the four major record labels. We will next be dealing with them one by one. We will also be dealing with the media companies. HBO is owned by Time Warner. When we finish the record companies, we will go across the board.”

After Russell Simmons came out against the words, ‘bitch’, ‘ho’ and ‘nigger’ in rap lyrics, Sharpton has decided to reissue his 15 yr old argument, insisting certain words be banned while assuring us he is anti-censorship.

In 1995, Sharpton told The Oregonian, “Yes, I have a problem as a parent with some of these lyrics, but I have even more of a problem with the right wing using this concern as an excuse to usher in censorship. That is not right and it will infringe on our First Amendment rights.” He made the comments after a meeting with Time Warner executives, to protest the censorship of rap lyrics. - from Vibe’s Sharpton Marches Against Majors

“I told the Time Warner people that they should not in any way cave in to the pressure and protest,” he said then. “If they do, they will see protest from people like me, and we will have a lot of support from the black constituency. We will accuse them of playing presidential politics and using our children as political guinea pigs, and of creating a climate of regression and censorship.”

Twelve years later he’s still on the same point, however misleading.

“We’re not asking for censorship. But there’s a standard in this business. They had a standard that said Ice-T could not rap against police. They had a standard that said you couldn’t rap against gays, and you shouldn’t. They had a standard against Michael Jackson saying something they felt anti-Semitic. Where is the standard when it comes to ‘nigga,’ ‘ho,’ and ‘bitch!?’”

So just like Simmons, Sharpton is fighting the wrong battle. Ice-T’s label didn’t have a standard prohibiting raps against police. “When I started out I was signed to Warner Brothers and they never censored us,” Ice-T told The Roc just after leaving Warner and the Bodycount ‘Cop Killer’ controversy.

“Everything we did, we have full control over. But what happened was when the cops moved on Body Count they issued pressure on the corporate division of Warner Brothers, and that made the music division, they couldn’t out-fight ‘em in the battle. So even when you’re in a business with somebody who might not wanna censor you, economically people can put restraints on ‘em and cause ‘em to be afraid. I learned that lesson in there, that you’re never really safe as long as you’re connected to any big corporation’s money.”

What is this standard Sharpton is referring to?

I can’t recall an across-the-board accepted ’standard’ level of offensiveness artists could adhere to to ensure mainstream release. It was always a gray area where if you offend too many people, you probably won’t sell that many records.

Likewise, if a product is offensive to a particular group but accepted by another, i.e. hiphop, and sales to the latter justify the product’s existence, the offended group will probably be ignored.

If the vast majority of music buying public aren’t offended by the words, ‘bitch’, ‘ho’ and ‘nigger’, then why would the label’s censor them? It’s not their social responsibility to censor artists; although they might do so to benefit sales.

When can censoring artists not be censorship?

Sharpton and the National Action Network have long claimed that they do not advocate censorship, as stated by Sharpton above. However, how isn’t this censorship?

Banning anything because it offends is censorship. I don’t know how else to put this.

If the NAN would come out with a clear plan as to how exactly they want to improve the treatment of women, I’d accept that. However, this very flip-floppy stance against ‘bad words’ is stupid.

The words, ‘bitch’, ‘ho’ and ‘nigger’ are not responsible for the way people treat other people. I know this because there is absolutely no proof otherwise.

Why is Sharpton marching?

After more than 15 years idly making threats against rap’s lyrical content, why has Sharpton and the NAN started up again?

The first reason is in response to radio DJ Don Imus’ dismissal from MSNBC for saying ‘nappy-headed hos’ on air in the morning. Sharpton began rallying against Imus In The Morning almost immediately after the comments were made, resulting in it’s cancellation days after.

Imus has since called Sharpton out, claiming he has apologized to the girls he offended, whereas Sharpton is yet to apologize to the Duke University lacrosse players who Al quickly rallied against very publicly, before the three kids were found innocent of the rape charges.

Maybe to attract attention away from this, Sharpton took Don Imus’ advice to look at rap lyrics for the same words he was fired for using.

Under fire for his double standard of chastising the redneck shock DJ and not black comedians and rappers, Sharpton rounded the NAN to accuse record labels of racism.

Is this just a little whitewash to make himself look better or is Sharpton sincere?
After saying in 1994, “White folks was in caves while we was building empires … We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it,” Sharpton came out against homophobia in the Black Church.

“The black church must not be refuge for those who want to scapegoat and use violence on any community, including the gay and lesbian community.”

What is this about again?

Al Sharpton, like Russell Simmons, wants to censor ‘bad words’ in music and is claiming that attempting to ban certain words from the rapper lexicon isn’t censorship. Giving no thought to the actual causes of people’s actions or attitudes, Sharpton is quick to blame language.

The NAN is barking up the same tree Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center has been for the last 30 years. Where in the 80s she was able to take artists like Ice-T and Jello Biafra to court for lyrical content, in 2007 it’s just not going to fly.

Photo Credit: Amit Gupta 1