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“All Hip Hop did was start reporting the news and the news just happened to be bad.”

There has been debate within the African-American community to figure out exactly what happened in the relations between Black men and Black women and why  females are depicted and treated so negatively.

The finger of blame has been pointed directly at Hip Hop as the culprit of the images displayed on  television and the lyrics rapped on records. This only feeds into the minds of the consumer and force feeds them into believing that this is how women are meant to be treated.

That is, however, only one side of the coin and only one perception being displayed.

Blame is placed on other outlets in order to relieve the strain from the image that are reflected in the mirror.  Men didn’t just start degrading women in Hip Hop, it started way before then and just happened to transition to it.

Releasing the book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, Steve Harvey caught up with Rollingout.com to speak on how Black men haven’t taken charge to mold the minds of the younger generation and make them realize the error of their ways.

“We forgot to teach the generation under us the business of just being cool.  We messed around and let cool go out of style.  Now they replaced cool with hard.  Now ain’t nobody cool no more, everybody wanna be hard now.  Once you take cool out the business, cool affects a lot of stuff.”

The ripple effect has promoted negativity and as young Black men have continued to embrace this aspect, they believe that it’s acceptable and bring it with them to rap and usher in a negative misconception of how women should be regarded.

“We are the only race of people, Black men, that degrade our women in our music.  We are the only race of people, how did we manage to do that?”

Citing that being a gangster is locally accepted now, Harvey adds that men feel that emotions are irrelevant and only stand behind what makes them feel as though they are “hard.”

“It has resulted in how we talk to our women.  We don’t talk to our women smooth no more cause we ain’t cool no more.  Now we talk to our women hard.”

No matter how much people look at the television and debate and say, ‘Look at the music, this is what kids feed into,’ let’s take a better look at the history that had pimps and gangsters.  Every perception conceived is originated from real life situations.

“It ain’t Hip Hop’s fault, we caused all of this to happen.  If we would get in the business and teach our young men the business of how to be men, we could stop some of this, but we steady pointing our finger at them saying, ‘Hip Hop did this and Hip Hop did that.’

So to end the debate, Hip Hop was not and is not the reason behind the “hatred of women” that exists in the African-American community and makes men treat them like trash.  History and a lack of growth within men and women has created a rift where it is considered routine, which is utter ignorance.  Older generations point at the youth, but why blame when you can teach?  Why allow ignorance to continue and even engage in it instead of providing the younger generation a clear view of how things should be?

Hopefully, there will be a mass enlightenment, but that’s very doubtful.  In the end, the world will blame Black people as Black people blame each other.  It is time to take charge and find a way to educate instead of continuing to let stupidity flood the culture.

Peep the video below: