cathedral-style defense of the indefensible....,

theroot |  Zaheer, I'm glad you made note that the image is being misread, that she's placing herself in the position of Malcolm. And I thought your points on stamps were compelling. But there's a point I think that's being missed. I'm going to mirror a post I had commented in another facebook group discussing this issue:

She's holding Malcolm's rifle, and pointing the master's weapon against her oppressor. She's trying to aim at the thing that has threatened the lives of Black women, paralleling threats to Malcolm's life. (Rape culture, misogyny, etc.) She's going in and starting a conversation, and she's appropriating the weapons used against us to do it. She's pissed off. She's using a similar platform that Malcolm did, riling people up with words. I think she's asking, what's it like to feel humiliated by listening to a song? To have you reduced to parts and cast you in a role where you are there for her own carnal pleasures and ego boosting? To make you feel less than if you don't have what it takes to please someone like her?

Like you stated, the stamp didn't get as much heat as Minaj gets, precisely because she's a Black woman employing the tools that have been used against her. I personally don't think it's the right approach, but it sure got brothas' attention, because talking, caring, writing, and saying no did not, for the most part. I think this is the conversation we should be having here - why is it that we resort to the master's tools to get our perpetrators to feel? I sure felt hurt for the lookin' ass nigga she was talking to in the video, and then remembered that the hurt is the same kind I feel when I listen to most hip-hop lyrics performed by men.