And here is the clip of the 1972 performance of the song Kelis is citing.
I don't want to comment too much until you see it, except that the whole scene seems like synecdoche for the way the debate around oppression is working this election season, or perhaps this millennium. I'm struck by how successfully this culture suppresses the language we would need to explain how oppression and exploitation actually work--so, to explain how gender, racial, and other kinds of oppression work together differently at different times and places, whether we're thinking about liberating Iraqi women or the current primary season or pimping as our exalted national pastime. And as I was saying in my first post about this, the constant comparisons between racial and gender oppression actually foreclose the entire line of thinking that would enable us to understand anything about them. (Of course, as Amiri Baraka, Jameson, Patricia Williams, and probably lots of other people explain, this is the genius of neoliberal capitalism: how can you fight the marketplace of ideas?) So Nas and Kelis don't even theorize oppression as well as John and Yoko did (which is to be expected, given the times we're living in; and also, who knows how Kelis would've explained the reference if she'd actually been given a chance), but still, Brooke Anderson completely ignores even the connections they do attempt to make.
The other amazing thing is how Nas and Kelis both try to interpellate Brooke Anderson (kind of a bizarre choice in and of itself), and she totally resists.
Also, speaking of Kelis, is anyone else disturbed by all the milkshake symbolism circulating through the culture these days? Why now?
An example of good analysis by 2nd-wave feminists
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