Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

[Women's Center <>]

Just wanted you all to be aware.

 

Chimi L. Boyd-Keyes, M.A.

Director, NCCU Women's Center

North Carolina Central University

1801 Fayetteville Street, Women's Center Building(former ROTC)

Durham, NC  27707

Office- 919-530-6811, fax- 919-530-7880

http://www.nccu.edu/womenscenter

 

If you would like to make a gift to the Women's Center please click here and specify the Women's Center under "other designations.

 

“I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.” --Alice Walker

 

 

 

 

 

Rick Ross Date Rape Lyrics In 'U.O.E.N.O.' Stirs Controversy

 

Rick Ross's rap about date rape on "U.O.N.E.O." is stirring controversy weeks after the release. Here, Ross performs at BET's Rip The Runway 2013 on Feb. 27, 2013, in New York City. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for BET's Rip The Runway)

Rick Ross might be liberal with his raps about "yayo," guns and Jesus pieces, but a recent lyrics about date rape stands out from the rest.

Ross collaborated with Atlanta rapper Rocko for the single, titled "U.O.E.N.O.," off Rocko's mixtape "Gift of Gab 2." Although the mix dropped in February, the track featuring Ross is just now gaining traction because of a lyric presumably about date rape.

The lyrics in question talk about drugging a woman and taking her home. "Put molly all in her champagne/ She ain't even know it/ I took her home and I enjoyed that/ She ain't even know it," raps Ross.

Molly is the powder or crystal form of "pure" MDMA, a substance commonly found in Ecstasy, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). MDMA can be an energizer, distorter and/or enhancer. It is used to "reduce inhibitions and to promote: euphoria, feelings of closeness, empathy, and sexuality," the DEA has said of the substance.

Kanye West, 2 Chainz, Childish Gambino and Danny Brown are just some of the hip-hop artists who have dropped the term "molly" in a song, CNN's Marina Csomor noted.

But Ross's use of molly was different.

"This lyric is obviously promoting rape," says journalist and hip-hop activist Rosa Clemente in a YouTube response to the song. "Not just date rape, but rape and rape culture and violence against women. We live in a society by the time that African American women and Latina women are 18, almost half of them -- 44 percent -- have been sexually abused."

Others associated the controversial lines with the Steubenville rape case, in which two Ohio teens were found guilty of sexually assaulting an underage girl who was severely intoxicated and incapable of giving consent.

Via Clutch Mag Online's Britni Danielle:

While many agreed that Ross’ lyrics were irresponsible at best, and downright heinous at worse, predictably someone tried to tell me to relax. Why? “It’s just music.” The “it’s just music” line has been trotted out for every depraved verse ever laid over a dope beat. And while I may have been able to separate the two when I was a teen, these days, I can’t pretend that music does not matter.

Danielle goes on to discuss Steubenville and alleges that lyrics such as Ross' can foster "a culture of dysfunction," in which young men think it is acceptable to have relations with an intoxicated or unconscious woman who isn't able to say "no."

"If she didn’t know she didn’t give consent," Jerry L. Barrow of The Urban Daily writes about Ross's date rape lyrics. "And if she didn’t give consent she was raped. You’re out here telling your fans that it’s cool to rape women and YOU don’t even know it."

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