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The Source gets hit with huge sexual harassment judgment

From Feministing: The Source gets hit with multi-million dollar judgment in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former editor.

Kimberly Osorio, 32, was the first woman to be named editor in chief of the hip-hop magazine. She was fired in 2005 for “poor performance” after she complained of sexual harassment, including executives watching porn, smoking pot and calling female employees bitches.

During the trial, Kenneth Thompson played a tape of a phone conversation between former Source owner Raymond Scott and a music journalist, in which he called the journalist an “ugly butch pig” and a “slut monkey.” There were also allegations of a rumor mill which suggested Osorio was bed-hopping with artists and threats of physical violence.

Last week, a jury awarded Osorio more than $15 million dollars, finding that she was fired in retaliation for complaining of sexual harassment.

I can’t make up my mind whether I want to start a post about the existance of misogyny in hip-hop. (I’m woefully underqualified to make such assessments, although I think the answer is “it exists, just like it does in every other musical genre, from nasty rock lyrics to discrimination in orchestra auditions.

My other thought is that I worry about judgments like this reinforcing stereotypes. There is no doubt in my mind that what was going on at Source was appalling, but will that be seen as proof of “misygynistic assholes can be anywhere” or something more racist about black men?


12 thoughts on The Source gets hit with huge sexual harassment judgment

  1. My other thought is that I worry about judgments like this reinforcing stereotypes. There is no doubt in my mind that what was going on at Source was appalling, but will that be seen as proof of “misygynistic assholes can be anywhere” or something more racist about black men?

    That thought came to my mind as well, but I would say that it’s incumbent upon us to think about this particular incident in the context of misogyny in popular culture generally and have conversations about that wider context. It’s a legitimate concern to worry about reinforcing negative sterotypes, but that doesn’t lessen the seriousness of what was happening at The Source, nor does it relieve our justice system of the responsibility to act when these things happen, in any setting.

    (mind you, I don’t think you were arguing otherwise.)

  2. There’s more to be said here about poverty and cultural powerlessness than about black culture. From time out of mind, any culture wherein the men have felt subordinate to another dominant male culture, they tend to take that aggression out on women. It’s a way for men to feel that they have power over something, if they don’t feel like they have power over their own lives. When one grows up steeped in such a culture, merely becoming powerful and monied–like rappers and rap journalists, or Italian or Irish gangsters, or Southern white rock stars, etc.–doesn’t break the baked-in feeling of powerlessness.

    It’s probably the converse of the reaction that has politicians and businessmen paying dominatrices to punish them.

  3. I think and the watching of the porn and the calling “bitch”/”ugly butch pig”/”slut monkey” comments might be related.
    What does Osario’s “bed-hopping” have to do with performance in the work place?

  4. I would say that it’s incumbent upon us to think about this particular incident in the context of misogyny in popular culture generally and have conversations about that wider context.

    I would agree, but then I wonder if that means shunting the issue of race to the side. As someone who has white privilege coming out of my ears most days, I have no wish to stick my nose into the conversations that are going on in the black community about this, although I am curious.

    I have the potential to stick my foot in my mouth in so many acrobatic ways regarding this subject that I left the post short. I want to listen to what people who actually know what they’re talking about without demanding that they keep me informed, but that’s harder than it seems.

  5. What does Osario’s “bed-hopping” have to do with performance in the work place?

    I think it was alleged that she was sleeping with the artists the magazine was featuring.

  6. I think sometimes misogyny/macho shitheadedness gets exacerbated among MOC because there’s already 1) a stigma about the feminine 2) a really old tradition of making -any- Other feminized (as well as animalized; related, perhaps, if not synonymous). So it becomes even more important to be a Man, as a fuck you-I’m surviving to, well…the Man.

    ‘course still doesn’t help the actual women all that much, not to mention the men who can’t or won’t measure up to the macho shithead standard

  7. I can’t make up my mind whether I want to start a post about the existance of misogyny in hip-hop. (I’m woefully underqualified to make such assessments…

    If you are woefully underqualified then no, don’t start that post.

  8. If you are woefully underqualified then no, don’t start that post.

    And hence, I didn’t. But it is something I’d like to know more about without reading the typical hand-waving about “Have you seen the new 50 Cent video?!”

  9. i remember going to punk shows in high school and hearing oh-so pure middle-class straight-edge white boys basically calling girls “slut monkey”. but they didn’t have the power of the national media.

  10. If the Source has been profiting for so many years promoting artists who deal in those kind of stereotypes, and taking that kind of behaviour into their office politics they deserve everything they get, regardless of colour. After all, not every rapper is sexist. Still, where this kind of thing does show up in music there do seem to be different, often distinct types of misogyny depending on the genre (hip hop, pop, metal, emo, etc.), and the hip hop strain seems to glamourise it as a way of life more than the others. Like the trend of holding up pimps and hos as hip hop archetypes and role models.

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