Radio Chumps
Pittsburgh's Digital Lifestyle Magazine

 Rabid, foaming at the mouth and ready for its next meal – enter at your own risk because these words will bite…Imagine the woman you love most; maybe your mother, sister, grandmother or best friend.  Now imagine everywhere she went people yelled the word “b!tch” at her.  Infuriating – isn’t it?  Maybe that is what Jay-Z thought when his daughter was born.

You would be hard pressed to listen to 5 random unedited singles from various rappers and NOT hear the word “b!tch”.  In fact, I think it may be pretty much next to impossible.  What’s that mantra that women say when they get mad at a guy or guys who did them wrong:  “Men are dogs”.  Ohhh so is that why you let them refer to YOU as a female dog?  Let’s think about this…a man is supposed to be faithful, respectful and loving to you – but you’re a b!tch right?  Words have power Jay-Z said…and imagine all of the men who perceive women as just b!tches.  “Companions” for them to play with and then rotate when they want another that is better or “badder.”.  Hear me out – I’m not saying that the word b!tch is responsible for cheaters or guys who are just downright disrespectful – but it plays a part in perception.  It’s so much easier to think of a b!tch as an object to use in whatever fashion suits the guy at the time.  Kanye called Kim Kardashian his “Perfect B!tch” on an u0pcoming song , and then later on Twitter felt conflicted about if the word should be used at all.  While we wait for Kanye to mull over if he is going to make the word extinct, let’s change that to “Perfect Female Dog.”  Doesn’t have the same je ne se quois – does it?  Think about it fella’s do you want a female dog as a partner?  A dog is someone you have to walk, feed, look after…dogs slobber, go to the bathroom sometimes wherever they want, bark too loud and won’t let you get a full night of sleep…  Dogs may be clever – but you are much smarter than a dog (or at least most of us are).  Wouldn’t you rather have an equal?  Wouldn’t you want another human being; a woman more specifically that can compete with you when it comes to intellect and humor and interests?  If you would rather a pet – I suggest you just get some fish and call it a day – they are a lot less expensive and you don’t have to put much into the “relationship”…It’s harder to disrespect a “lady”.  It’s very difficult to demand respect from a man when you’ve allowed him to disrespect you from the moment you meet – so don’t let him refer to you as a “b!tch”. 

Ladies, I want to talk to you for a minute.  I want to talk to the ladies that call your girlfriends a b!tch (whether it be jokingly or just a “nice” nickname you have coined for each other), you refer to yourself as a “bad b!tch” or a “rude b!tch” or a “rich b!tch” (I can keep going, but you get the point). Why?  Can you not think of any other word to refer to yourself or your friends?  If the answer is no, get a dictionary.  All the ladies that are rolling their eyes and saying that they will keep “owning” the word, I want to pose this:  what if on your wedding day when you marry the guy you wanted to spend the rest of your life with the reverend or pastor or judge looked at your soon-to-be husband and said “do you take this b!tch to be your lawfully wedded wife?”  Not very romantic at all…the problem with using this term to describe yourself is that most women dislike when a man calls them a b!tch.  Sure, maybe you think it’s cute when you start dating and he tells all his friends “that’s my b!tch,” but picture him saying that when you are seventy – not a good look.  In my opinion a word that has restrictions on one party or that can incite different emotions when said in the wrong tone or by the wrong person, should be eradicated from your vernacular as an adjective for oneself.  I know so many women who have low self esteem – who think they aren’t worthy of Mr. Right, or that they just aren’t good enough to compete with other women out there.  The first step to improving yourself worth is to STOP putting yourself down, maybe you don’t think that’s what is happening when you refer to yourself as a “b”, but the mind is a funny thing. 

Some ladies would argue that they feel they have to be a “b” to get the corner office, or earn respect, or that when you are strong and opinionated you’re just being a “b”.  Sorry, you are incorrect – when you are strong and opinionated you are being just that – strong and opinionated.  Women that embrace the term are imploring the negative connotation to continue.  Be warriors, or fighters, or bosses or queens – I mean you can be the king of your castle if you want to…but just don’t be a “bad b!tch”.  Hey don’t just take my word for it – Lupe Fiasco says the same and he’s a celebrity!

Summarizing Lupe’s song goes a little something like this:  a boy and a girl (isn’t that always how movies start? – I digress).  The boy is riding in the car with his mom listening to her refer to herself as a “bad b!tch” while singing to a song.  Then a little farther down the road we have a group of young girls watching a music video where the rapper is referring to the model as a “b!tch”, and we know how those video models are – beautiful, almost inhumanely built in all the right places, hair flowing, make-up perfect and they have the undivided attention of a “baller”.  So the little girl thinks that men like women that are “bad b!tches like the video models”.  A few years later the young boy and girl are grown up and they meet.  The young lady is conducting herself in a way that isn’t “ladylike” she’s a “bad b!tch” now.  The boy?  He’s just all confused because he is associating the woman who raised him – a strong, powerful, graceful woman as a “b!tch” and that isn’t what he sees before him with this girl.  Mass confusion-as Lupe says: Just like that, you see the fruit of the confusion/He caught in a reality, she caught in an illusion/Bad mean good to her, she really nice and smart/But bad mean bad to him, bitch don’t play your part.   What I really love about Lupe Fiasco is that he is an intelligent rapper.  Those who say he “talks on the track” obviously don’t understand what rapping is – remember it’s a form of poetry, spoken word but over music.  He is trying – in a world of trash at our feet and a vile, decaying cloud above us – to show some clarity of our ways through his songs.  He is shining the spotlight on the confusion we inflict on ourselves…in this life we want to have great relationships – whether it be with our maker, our loved one or ourselves.  So how can we have a good relationship with the former two when the relationship with oneself is so defiled from all of the junk we take in?  How can you really love yourself if you look in the mirror and say “b!tch”?  I have read some comments elicited from this song that argue Lupe is placing the blame on the mother for steering her son wrong.  He isn’t placing the blame on her – the blame is on all of us. As the chorus goes “b!tch bad, women good, lady better…”