Toward A Post Feminist/Post Crack Definition of Bitch

Toward A Post-feminist/Post Crack Definition of Bitch

Rashidah Mwongozi Defines Bitch

Every woman should be a bitch because a bitch is only a woman who has come into her own power. You are not a bitch until you take a stand for yourself. Once you take a stand and refuse to take any and all bullshit tossed your way, you are a bitch. A bitch is a woman of power.

What I meant is this: There are those women among us who do not experience being called a bitch until we do the unexpected in order to change a static situation, like changing the locks, putting offending person's belongings out in the elements, refusing to continue to be misused and abused.

As soon as a female takes a stand for her Self that is when any and all offending parties can't get "Bitch" out of their no good mouths fast enough! A female dog, a bitch, does not allow every male to get at her...she will turn her hind quarters to a wall and fight when certain males do not come correct.

So when BS comes at us, we have to guard our treasures and fight like a bitch against any and all abuse/misuse regardless of the source, male, female, children, friends, whoever dare be so bold!--Rashidah Mwongozi

Deedrah Smallwood on Bitch

I'm not into the word "Bitch" However, the way it was presented to me by Rashidah, I truly can relate.. We all know the word exists, but I never looked at the word "Bitch" from this perspective. Uncle Marvin, please don't get me wrong: I will NEVER allow another person to call me a BITCH.. If by chance they merely whispered it under their breath, I would refer to this dialog on being a BITCH! Lol--Deedrah

Marvin X replies to Deedrah

Well, Deedrah, the party done got started up in here. Rashidah may need more sisters to support her definition, otherwise she is going to issue a disclaimer. "You know Marvin X is crazy--he put those words in my mouth. My friends know I don't talk like that."

Rasheedah Sabreen Mwongozi
Marvin X is crazy--he put words in my mouth. My friends know I don't talk like that." LOL!

Adaoma Defines Bitch

A Bitch is a dog of the female gender. Nothing human. What others may call you or may call Rashidah is not who you are! They don't define you! You don't define me. I define me. So, when the Black inhabitants of Soweto were being called Kafirs, the Tutsi were being called cockroaches and sassy, uppity working class Black women like me are being called "Bitch" and "Akata" by "Africans" (like Val Ojo) worshipped by "Niggas" on the net like Ali and Erving....they were not defining us. Please note, that you, Gerald Ali and Craig Erving condone the use of the word "Nigga"...poetic license or something. I have not called them "Niggas", they have approved the us of it. So, no...women are not Bitches...to answer your question.
Adaoma

Tarika Lewis Replies
...wow Marvin.. this dialog sets the standards at an all time low servin up, no down this heap of trash...I'm counting by blessings everyday that I grew up in a household whereupon this word was never used...my father never called my mother out of her name, ...my brother never called a women out of her name...Now that I think about it even Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale whom i was around alot...never referred to any woman using that term at least not in our presence....leave the slave mentality and crude language on the plantation...just because certain words are liberally used doesn't make it right or appropriate...it translates into how our children view themselves and how society views us, where dollars are spent and in general who lives and who dies...and who gets locked up and who gets educated... send me some e-mails on how a Million Mo Black Men can march on Oakland and build ten schools and 1,000 homes for struggling single mothers...what a waste of time and beautiful black mind...peace

Marvin X Replies to Tarika

The culture police on the right and left would have the people in lock-jaw to make them bow down at the god of political correctness. Don't say black, negro, African, nigguh, bitch, motherfucker.

Shall we speak the "kings english" and who and what was the king? A murderer, pervert, rapist, motherfucker, fatherfucker, childfucker. And yet some of the people who want to silence speech are guilty of the actual crimes of being a bitch, a nigguh, a mother, father and child fucker.

The left is dead now because, among other things, it has lost its sense of humor--as Kathleen Cleaver said, only the truth can be funny. The people are realizing we will get rid of the white man and then be subjects of fascists on the left who would institute their form of slavery, left wing slavery. Either there is freedom of speech or their isn't. Either we have the right to determine the definitions of any and all words or we don't. And who has the right to define words that should or should not be spoken? How can any writer be told he can't say certain words, no matter what? Will you not play certain sounds even if you were told the sound is obscene? Would Miles, Coltrane, Monk, listen to someone telling them what notes they can or cannot play?

If we are prisoners of the english language, we can at the very least redefine words, give them our meanings, to hell with Webster and the ship he rode in on. This psycholinguistic crisis is part of the reason the American educational system has one million dropouts. The children obviously reject English in favor of their mother tongue, and yes, their mother tongue contains a variety of words unacceptable in polite culture. And what part of their lives is polite?

But how long shall we persist in functioning with archaic definitions of words. Our children view themselves because of adult behavior, more than language. Although, I agree if ones language is limited to bitch, ho and motherfucker, there is a problem. Words work in context. We should address the white man as motherfucker in lieu of slapping him (Charles Barron) or killing him (Nat Turner).


Marvin X Defines Bitch

Not long ago, I heard rappers discussing their tour of Italy. Upon arriving at the airport, the first thing they heard Italian youth discussing was how many "Bitches" they had, obviously influenced by hip hop culture or shall we say specifically gansta rap--yeah, ganstas who when caught are ignorant of a preliminary hearing. But let us deconstruct the controversial term BITCH.

Besides Nigger or Nigguh, no other term has caused more controversy of late, no other term has created a crisis situation among North American Africans, prompting the Million Man Marchers to vow never to use the term again. They claimed it demeaned the black woman, the mother of civilization.

My personal view is that crack culture demeaned the black man and women to the extent that the term "bitch" has taken on new meaning and now refers to both male and female, and a discussion of the term cannot be limited to the feminine gender. Youth in the dope culture will quickly address atweeking, fumbing OG as "punk bitch." For example, to a male they will say, "Punk-bitch, you better take this dope and get the fuck up outta here wit da quickness."

This sentence is most indicative of the psycholinguistic crisis because it reveals the utter destruction of filial piety (respect or duty of children to elders) in the North American African community. When adults began buying crack from children, children saw the utter weakness in the older generation and lost total respect which was expressed in verbal denunciations such as "punk bitch."

In my recovery drama ONE DAY IN THE LIFE, a youth confronts the late Huey Newton and myself with the following words as we sat in a West Oakland crack house: "Yeah, you nigguhs is dope fiends, you ain't no revolutionaries, so don't say shit to me bout no program. How you gon buy dope from me and my podnas--I mean, I'm in recovery now but when I was a dealer, you couldn't come to me and tell me you some revolutionaries--you some punk-bitch nigguhs.

When you get your shit together we'll have some respect fa ya, but until then, don't talk to us bout no revolution, O.G., cause if I saw ya comin on my turf, I'd make a movie out that ass, podna. Don't be no walkin contradiction ma nigguhs."

My associate, J.B. Saunders, asked me to include a word-picture of male "bitch behavior" as expressed in the crack ritual. An example of this comes from the observation of monkeys when the female is ready to present herself to the male.

She will go to a corner of a cage or by a tree and expose her rear end to the male, letting him know he can come and get her or know her as the Bible says. In the crack house, the male bitch will expose his posterior in his ritual of crawling on all fours around the room, supposedly looking for crack, but mainly picking up lint and other particles, even chips of dry wall.

The ultimate expression of male bitch behavior is the so-called straight guy who under desperation, i,e., when the tweeking ritual is exhausted, will present his posterior to the dope dealer--accompanied with the words "I'll do anything for another hit," and perform homosexual acts to obtain more crack, but in his psycho-linguistic crisis he adamantly denies he is gay, all the while swallowing the dope dealer's penis and cum.

The worse bitch in the world is the bitch in denial! And even that bitch will--in a moment of scandalous activity declare, "I know I'm a bitch." I have a friend for whom to call her a bitch is a fight, but I have heard her call her children bitches in a moment of passion or anger.

But why bitch? My views on the matter are prejudiced by the fact that I grew up in a house with six sisters who referred to themselves as bitches--and I must say, many times acted like bitches, if we mean behavior unbecoming a woman--such behavior being acceptable only during PMS or pregnancy!

Among males is it demeaning to say, "That's a fine bitch!" But again, after the Crack era, males are now bitches more than ever. We know words only have the power we give them, i.e., we define words.

Bourgeoisie culture cannot define mass culture or the culture of the grass roots. A rich man cannot tell a poor man what to say. If a rich man comes to the poor man's community, he better talk like a poor man or he may be a dead man! --Marvin X

From the Psycholinguistic Crisis of the North American African, In the Crazy House Called America, essays by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2002.