I was lucky enough to catch bits of my hermano, Alberto Gonzales, during his confirmation hearings. Well I first caught some Senator going on and on about OPEC and then I heard it. A voice that sounded like mine. Ok, not me, me...but me, latina/o me. I could have been listening to the hubby, his uncle, the guy down the street talk. He's an example of what we like to say, "You can take the Latino out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Latino." He didn't have an accent persay, but you can tell a Latino is speaking.

The hubby said that he'd be happy if Gonzales was confirmed because we'd have a Latino up there. I'm not so hure I want to see a Latino in charge of torture. Yeah, in a way I'm proud that us Latinos can rise to the level of US Atty General, but am I proud of him as a person? Don't think so. I do have to give him kudos for saying the one thing I wanted him to say today, "I will no longer represent only the White House. I will represent the United States of America and its people. I understand the difference between the two roles." Now to hold him to that standard.

As I was driving into work yesterday I heard that Essence Magazine is taking on the Hip-Hop industry for its misogyny! About time!

"'We started looking at the media's war on young girls, the hyper-sexualization that keeps pushing them in sexual directions at younger and younger ages" Editor Diane Weathers told Daily News.

The conversation on the radio morning show was all about whether some of us are just too old to get it. To understand the bitches and hoes talk of today's HipHop Generation. It got me thinking...

Two of my favorite bands growing up used women in a similar fashion that Hip Hop guys do today...Duran Duran and Van Halen. I say similar because in the 80s having a blonde in a bikini dance in a schoolroom is parallel to pole-dancing at a stripclub today. Wait...was there a stripper pole in "Hot for Teacher"?

So are we just too uptight? Or have we just gotten fed up with the gradual dumbing down of our men? Do we really want our men to be pimps? To think that they need to take style lessons from Snoop Dog? Did white America feel so white that they had to embrace the worst parts of hip hop? Seriously, most hip hop CDs are bought by white kids. How did we let disrespecting women be ok?

I shove my booty to a lot of questionable music as a youth. Heck, we use to play "Rumb Shaker" in AP Chemistry. I tell ya, I had my slut creds. Oh, yes...But back to the music.

Somehow we bought the idea that it's just music. That it doesn't matter. But it does. No one should ever be called a bitch or a hoe. It's not a nice thing to call a woman. There's got to be a difference between open sexuality and sexual degregation. Does the hip hop generation know that?

I'm rambling with questions because I really don't know. I had hoped that my fave bloggers would tackle this one, but I didn't see it blogged anywhere I usually hang. I did find one blog posting about it thou...by a dude. An enlightened dude thou. Yeah!

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