Gayle King, Snoop Dogg, and the Legacy of Disrespect: Ava DuVernay’s message to Gayle King on her birthday reminds us all to embrace Black Womanhood
December 28, 2020 came and went without much fanfare as the world hoped to soon exhale a collective sigh of relief at the passing of 2020 and braced itself for what will hopefully be a new year of healing. As celebrities across the globe wished Gayle King, CBS news journalist famous for being best friend to Oprah Winfrey, a happy birthday, one message stood out. Ava DuVernay, acclaimed filmmaker and one of the foremost voices in Black American culture, wrote a brief but poignant birthday note to King that she published via Instagram:
I learned so much from you this year, @gayleking. How to stand tall when others are small. How to be the epitome of grace under fire. How to stay still and beautiful in spirit when the ugliness rears its head. Thank you for modeling these gorgeous aspects of Black womanhood so powerfully. I’m proud to call you friend. Happy birthday, Queen.
King faced bitter backlash after leading a high-profile interview with Lisa Leslie, a former WBNA star, after the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, who were both killed along with seven others in a helicopter crash in January 2020.
King asked Leslie, who knew Bryant well, her thoughts about Bryant’s previous rape accusations and legal case (which was ultimately dismissed). The recoil was swift and fierce. Fans felt that there was no space for criticism of a man deified as an American hero and world-class athlete on the eve of his death. King felt that the clip was “out of context” and “salacious” and blamed the network for allowing it to air in the way that it did. The public began the persecution, but one voice stood out.
Snoop Dogg filmed an emotional (and now famous) video statement in response to King replete with crude personal insults, a misplaced inquiry into Jeffery Epstein, generalizations about her perceived targeting and mistreatment of Black men, and a not so thinly veiled threat. King received death threats and began traveling with a security detail. Days later, Snoop Dogg filmed another video statement in which he apologized and, sheepishly, admits that his mother told him to do so. Many in the black community were split, while some openly agreed with his passionate response even in its raw ugliness others pointed out his blatant disrespect of this older, black woman is unacceptable in any situation.
A product of hip hop, Snoop Dogg is undoubtedly a legend. He is one of the most successful individual rappers in the history of the genre, and whose success may be attributed to the sublime timing of his discovery as an artist that coincided with the dawn of hip hop’s glory days: the nineties. He is also legendary for the mispronunciation of the b-word by adding and subtracting vowel sounds and syllables. As such, the b-word and its mispronunciation are now a part of his legacy.
In the nineties, hip hop grew from adolescence to teen to young adulthood, and with this growth we shrugged off the voiced disdain of our elders in the community who condemned this emerging music. As the music flourished, the elders of the black community were not the only ones opposed. The shortcomings of hip hop were many and very well documented. Language advisories were met with legal challenges that led to parental guidance rules. The glorification of drug culture, gang culture, and the contemptuous regard for women, pushed mainly through the veneration of pimp/hoe culture, was feebly balanced by conscious hip hop artists who aimed to [1]educate and uplift. Middle America continuously condemned the art — although continued to be fascinated with organized crime, a fact many in hip hop culture tried to point out — even as hip hop solidified itself as popular music.
As for our elders, we ensured them that the music was just an art, a vision where we could live out the voice of our dreams despite that the dream was to live a life of crime, wealth, and excess. As young women we ensured them that those lyrics disparaging women were not directed at us or at them, but at those that chose to live that lifestyle. We pointed to the beauty in the music. We begged them to support to the craft, to help us keep it alive even if they didn’t accept or approve of its material. We were teenagers and young adults, there not only to witness it all but participate in its creation. Our ownership in the birth and early evolution of hip hop became a great legacy, one which we continue to staunchly defend even today, as the new generation reappropriates all its beauty as well as its shortcomings.
Thirty years later, as many were quick to agree with Snoop Dogg and laugh at his crude insults, we assured ourselves that the underlying message was fueled by the love and the pain of the loss of his friend, therefore negating the public display of disrespect. Many felt no sense of shock when he hurled the b-word at King, a word forever etched in his legacy. Many did not see King as an elder, a well-respected national figure, or simply a woman carrying out her duties as a professional. Some only saw a black woman forsaking black manhood by bringing into question a stain long forgotten for the world to see. Some still only see that and will never forgive Gayle King.
We once asked that misogyny and obscenity be forgiven for the sake of the art as we built a new culture in hip hop. We continued to embrace a culture that further delineated women as prostitutes and disposable pawns in a society already gripped in patriarchy. We lent a hand in our own legacy of disrespect. We celebrated our own objectification and as a result must now rely on our mothers to reprimand our wrongs, and our elders to remind us of who we are.
