Programmed to Deprogram: Byron Hurt Visits UIC

Byron Hurt is the award-winning documentary filmmaker of 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes', and on Wednesday, February 3rd he visited UIC to speak about his work's message as part of UIC's Black History Month.

Hurt describes his upbringing as a typical American, one in which he played organized sports, earning an athletic scholarship for college.

"I didn't have an understanding or an analysis of gender. I understood race, but not necessarily gender," said Hurt about his early twenties.

Growing up in a family where the men had been abusive towards the women in their lives, Hurt knew "that men had the capacity to be abusive toward women and girls, but I never thought that me - as a man - had the responsibility to take on these issues from a leadership perspective. Like most guys, I thought that violence against women, in all forms of sexual violence, were women's issues, and I think that's what a lot of men - across race and class - consider these issues to be".

After college, Hurt was approached to participate in a program for men against violence towards women. In addition to being a filmmaker, Hurt travels around to other universities across the country, speaking to students with the intention of educating young men, and to encourage young men to speak up about issues they don't normally talk about. In this effort, Hurt hopes to enlighten men about what they can do to prevent violence against women.

The film, 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes' addresses race, class, and gender from a critical standpoint, and in regards to women portrayed in hip hop music videos, Hurt says the film "Deconstructed the representation of black masculinity".

Hurt's goal with the film was to couple filmmaking with activism by "help[ing] people transform after what they've seen, for them to look through life with a different lens," commented the filmmaker before playing the clip titled 'Sisters and Bitches'.

Among the clips shown were parts from hip hop artist Nelly's music video 'Tip Drill' in which a handful of black men are surrounded by several bikini-clad, black women whose only identity in the music is that of a sexual 'thing', and nothing beyond. One question Hurt posed to the audience to think about before showing the video was the concept of 'black love', as he put it: "How do black men and black women relate to each other and how does the media play into this?"

The 'Tip Drill' music video was featured in Hurt's 'Shutup and Give Me Your Bone Marrow' section of the film. This portion highlights the reaction some students at Spelman College - a women's college in Atlanta - had towards Nelly coming to their campus for a bone marrow drive. Some Spelman students believed that if Nelly were to come, he should also take and answer questions regarding the demeaning portrayal of women in 'Tip Drill'. Nelly refused and failed to show up for his slated appearance at Spelman.

Dr. Beverly Guy Scheftall of Spelman College said of the black community's priorities on social issues: "We still think that racism and police brutality are the issues we should be concerned about - not misogyny and violence on women".

To elaborate on Dr. Scheftall's words, Hurt brought up the time when Don Iman referred to WNBA players as 'nappy headed hoes'. He recalled that public response primarily focused first on the racial aspect of Iman's comment - not the comment about women and gender, with women being hoes.

The issue at Spelman was taken not only to the music artists, but to the shareholders and stockholders at record companies who, in effect, dispense the images seen in music videos of women.

"When you go to a club, there is an expectation that you will perform a certain kind of femininity that signals to men you are free and sexually available. It's not that they just show women in glorious and glamourous videos... You can look at your average billboard and see women being advertised as loose and sexually available," said Hurt about the links between images we see on tv and ads to real life cases of violence on women.

The transition between what we find in music videos and what we see happening in real life was made with Hurt posing the question: "What do these images mean and what do these tell young boys - what does it mean to be a man in relationship to women?"

Daytona Beach was the site of BET's Spring Bling Event where Hurt observed men groping and harassing women they didn't know by calling out names, grabbing their bodies as they passed by them on the street, and putting cameras between their legs.

Hurt interviewed a number of people, including women who answered: "They're not talking about me," in response to men referring to women as 'bitches and ho's'.

"When we allow these images of women as sexual objects to exist without question or protest, we squash our own ability to see women as fully human. We fail to connect with the girls and women in our lives, and fail to have compassion for the cruelty women experience at the hands of men. We reinforce a social system where men are in charge of women's bodies and lives. We must reject the idea that 'boys will be boys'," said Hurt towards the end of the program.

To learn more about Byron Hurt's work,visit: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/. UIC's Black History Month Events continue throughout the month, with upcoming events including the Chi Town All Stars Improv Troop, a discussion with Rae Lewis Thornton on sexual health, and a Heritage Ball hosted by the Black Student Union.