Jenice Armstrong | Clean it up, Snoop

EXCUSE ME,

Snoop Dogg

, but your turn at the mike is just about up, too.

Yours, as well as all the other purveyors of Don Imus-style degradation of women. Yes, there are plenty of big-time record executives and music-industry officials who are every bit as guilty. But in this column, I choose to single out Snoop ("Can U Control Yo Ho" is one of his songs) in light of his particularly ignorant defense last week of the use of derogatory language in rap. He said, "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports.

"We're talking about hos that's in the 'hood that ain't doing s--t, that's trying to get a n---a for his money. These are two separate things." If Snoop's comments weren't so disgustingly sad, they'd be laughable. Remember, this is the same guy who came onstage at an awards show with two women wearing dog collars.

Spurred by the nationwide discourse about race and gender by Imus' calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania has organized a talk at 6 tonight at 3463 Locust Walk to sensitize undergraduates to the problem. "This thing is really getting out of hand," said the professor, Chad Dion Lassiter, adding that "50 Cent is not someone we should look up to in the black community. Obviously, something is wrong when you're disrespecting black women. Can you imagine the 'Tip Drill' video [by Nelly]? That's porn on multiple levels." His forum, to feature such notables as Philly's Fatimah Ali, will hopefully be one of many more gatherings that will address the issue of misogyny in hip-hop. Meanwhile, here's what some readers have to say on the topic.

After reading your column, I wanted to mention a rap song in regular rotation on MTV (digital cable), Power 99, Philly 100.3, The Beat, and other hip hop stations by Rich Boy "Throw Some D's on That B----.'' There's a line in that song that goes " . . . a lot of ho's give me their number . . . but I never call." How can we convince these outlets to stop playing this type of music? I realize that everyone has a right to earn a living but, at some point, decency has to prevail in what is presented to the public. If these outlets didn't play this mess, the artists wouldn't make it, knowing it wouldn't get airplay.

- Terri Fuller-Barone, Norristown

I'm really amazed at the outrage directed towards [Don Imus] when you have a constant stream of vile, degrading filth directed at black women by their "black brothers" every day in movies, music and videos. Are these blacks "racists" also? These things are a lot worse than what that idiot Imus said. Where's the marches and protests with Al Sharpton and his gang leading the way while this is going on?

- Dan Nace, Fox Chase

Everyone has a lot to say and protest about when someone says how [some] white people feel out loud. Let them have their say. I have to worry about my own who look like me, whether they'll try to rob, shoot, even kill me, than worry about shock- jock commentary. Where is Al [Sharpton], Jesse [Jackson] and whomever else, when we're killed by each other?

- Tamar R. DeVine, Nicetown-Tioga

Why are people accepting this language in the music our children listen to every day? I would like to go one step further than applying the pressure to the music industry. Imagine what would happen if people stood together like this and took a stand against the violence and drugs that have pervaded our society. I would like to see this kind of outrage when young innocent children are gunned down each week in our city. I would like to see the neighbors who KNOW who commits the horrible crimes we see each day in our city to tell the police who the criminals are, come together and refuse to be killed by a bunch of self-pronounced "THUGS."

- Mary Schleigh, Southwest Philly *