Rapper’s Revenge
Posted on August 25, 2009
Filed Under Entertainment, Feminisim, Music, Women | Leave a Comment
Twenty-five years after the first queen of hip-hop was stiffed on her royalty checks, Dr. Roxanne Shante boasts an Ivy League Ph.D. – financed by a forgotten clause in her first record deal. “This is a story that needs to be told,” Shante said. “I’m an example that you can be a teenage mom, come from the projects, and be raised by a single parent, and you can still come out of it a doctor.”
Her prognosis wasn’t as bright in the years after the ’80s icon scored a smash hit at age 14: “Roxanne’s Revenge,” a razor-tongued response to rap group UTFO’s mega-hit “Roxanne, Roxanne.”
The 1984 single sold 250,000 copies in New York City alone, making Shante (born Lolita Gooden) hip hop’s first female celebrity.
She blazed a trail followed by Lil’ Kim, Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah – although Shante didn’t share their success.
After two albums, Shante said, she was disillusioned by the sleazy music industry and swindled by her record company. The teen mother, living in the Queensbridge Houses, recalled how her life was shattered.
“Everybody was cheating with the contracts, stealing and telling lies,” she said. “And to find out that I was just a commodity was heartbreaking.”
But Shante, then 19, remembered a clause in her Warner Music recording contract: The company would fund her education for life.
She eventually cashed in, earning a Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell to the tune of $217,000 – all covered by the label. But getting Warner Music to cough up the dough was a battle.
“They kept stumbling over their words, and they didn’t have an exact reason why they were telling me no,” Shante said.
She figured Warner considered the clause a throwaway, never believing a teen mom in public housing would attend college. The company declined to comment for this story.
Shante found an arm-twisting ally in Marguerita Grecco, the dean at Marymount Manhattan College. Shante showed her the contract, and the dean let her attend classes for free while pursuing the money.
“I told Dean Grecco that either I’m going to go here or go to the streets, so I need your help,” Shante recalls. “She said, ‘We’re going to make them pay for this.’”
Grecco submitted and resubmitted the bills to the label, which finally agreed to honor the contract when Shante threatened to go public with the story.
Shante earned her doctorate in 2001, and launched an unconventional therapy practice focusing on urban African-Americans – a group traditionally reluctant to seek mental health help.
“People put such a taboo on therapy, they feel it means they’re going crazy,” she explained. “No, it doesn’t. It just means you need someone else to talk to.”
Shante often incorporates hip-hop music into her sessions, encouraging her clients to unleash their inner MC and shout out exactly what’s on their mind.
“They can’t really let loose and enjoy life,” she said. “So I just let them unlock those doors.”
Shante, 38, is also active in the community. She offers $5,000 college scholarships each semester to female rappers through the nonprofit Hip Hop Association.
She also dispenses advice to young women in the music business via a MySpace page.
“I call it a warning service, so their dreams don’t turn into nightmares,” she said.
Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons said Shante is a shining role model for the rap community. “Dr. Shante’s life is inspiring,” Simmons said. “She was a go-getter who rose from the struggle and went from hustling to teaching. She is a prime example that you can do anything, and everything is possible.”
Track Champion and Gender Controversy
Posted on August 25, 2009
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New world 800m champion Caster Semenya has shrugged off the gender controversy shrouding her victory at the World Championships in Berlin. The 18-year-old South African has been asked to take a gender test by athletics’ governing body the IAAF.
When a reporter asked Semenya about the rumours surrounding her gender following her victory on Wednesday, she said: “I have no idea about that.
“I don’t know who said that, I don’t give a damn about it.”
Spokesman Nick Davies said the IAAF had first asked the teenager to undergo a gender test after she posted a world leading time of 1 minute 56.72 seconds at the African junior championships in Bambous, Mauritius, at the end of July.
Davies said doctors in South Africa had already begun testing Semenya but because of the complexity of the process, it would be some time before the results were available. Until then, she was clear to run.
Controversy about the athlete then reached a head when she won Wednesday’s final in a time of 1:55.45, the best time in the world this year.
Semenya’s mother, Dorcus, told the BBC: “Caster is a girl, her birth certificate says she is a girl. This my girl, I give birth to that girl from my womb and I am not doubting.
“I know everything with Caster, no questions.”
John Wass, professor of endocrinology at Oxford University explained the basics of the gender verification test.
“There are three aspects to determine whether a person is a man or woman,” he told BBC Radio 5 live.
“The first thing is your chromosomal sex, you can scrape the inside of the mouth and get a few cells and that usually takes a fortnight or so – XX is a woman and XY is a man.
“The second is what you actually look like… you have a look to see what there is in terms of external genitalia.
“And the last aspect is what you feel you are.
“I think it is likely that the tests will be conclusive.”
The official IAAF policy document on gender verification states that one of the steps required for handling such cases is that “the athlete is referred to the investigating authority in confidence for further investigation and advice”.
The IAAF announced it had asked Semenya to take the gender test before she competed in Wednesday’s 800m final in Berlin.
Former Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis described the treatment of the South Africa as “absolutely dreadful”, adding: “It’s awful she had to compete with this hanging over her head.
“It should have been sorted out much, much sooner than this.”
Four-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Johnson agreed, saying: “The consensus is that it is highly unfair and embarrassing to the athlete.”
But the American added: “At the same time we’ve had so many athletes who have doped over the last decade in this sport, so we know people will cheat for success.
“I think what the IAAF is doing is the right thing in terms of dealing with the situation, but the way they’re dealing with it is all wrong.”
Great Britain’s Jenny Meadows could have her bronze medal elevated to silver if Semenya fails her test.
She said: “There’s nothing we can do as athletes and it’s a difficult situation for Caster herself to be in but we’ve got to leave to to the discretion of the IAAF.”
Treatment of Semenya has caused anger in her native South Africa.
The country’s ruling party, the ANC, called on South Africans to rally around “our golden girl”.
“Caster is not the only woman athlete with a masculine build and the International Association of Athletics Federation should know better,” an ANC statement read.
Gideon Sam, president of South Africa’s Olympic governing body, said: “We condemn the way she was linked with such media speculation and allegation, especially on a day she ran in the final of her first major world event.
“We have every faith in Athletics South Africa and the team they selected to attend the World Championships in Berlin.”
Straight Men and Their Lesbian Best Friends
Posted on August 19, 2009
Filed Under Gay/Lesbian, Women | Leave a Comment
It’s time to reconsider what we mean by friends with benefits. Hours after getting married, Evan Seplow, a 29-year-old mortgage broker from Long Island, hit a strip club with a close buddy. Seplow paid for several drinks and lap dances, and then the two retreated to the VIP room so his friend could get a private dance that was, Seplow says, “the whole nine.” The next day, when Seplow told his new bride about his escapades, she wasn’t angry or jealous, merely bemused. Seplow’s friend was Jen (not her real name), a woman who dates women—a fact that made all the difference to Seplow’s wife, as well as to Seplow. “That was pretty crazy—it might not be for the average person,” he says. “Then again, not many average guys have lesbian friends anyway.” click for more
