Group wants 'Pimp Juice' off local supermaket shelves

FORT WAYNE?Linda Diane Wade is on a mission to clean up the community. No, Wade isn't out on the streets picking up bottles, scraps of paper and other physical refuse. Nevertheless, she said she's doing her part to get rid of a very dangerous variety of trash? pornography aimed particularly at our youth. Now, she wants to help clean up the shelves of one local supermarket chain, which she said is trafficking in such filth.

For about 15 years, Wade and a group of like-minded, determined individuals through their organization Nature-Nurture Urban Consultants? a "strategy and advocacy group"?have been following advertising trends, particular those aimed at children. What they've found is disturbing. Wade said the rise of rap and hip hip which is dominated by explicit descriptions and sex and violence is being used by many corporations to lure youth?particularly African American and other urban youth?to their products. The group recently discovered a product being sold locally that symbolizes the problem.

Wade and her group are upset that at least two of Scott's local supermarkets were stocking an energy drink called Pimp Juice?the creation of rapper Nelly. That, said Wade, is sending the wrong message to the community, particularly young people.

"We discovered the Pimp Juice (in Scott's) about a month ago," she said.

Nature-Nurture members say the concept of pimping is degrading to women and the community in general. To illustrate the point, Nature- Nurture recently produced a poster they have been circulating showing Pimp Juice alongside celluloid versions of pimps including Superfly and the Mack along with examples of dialogue and lingo from the pimp life that negative language and image. The poster graphically explains that pimp mentality considers women "b?-s," "hos" and other less-than-human objects. Wade said it was wrong for a major supermarket to sell an item that promoted that.

"We wrote to Scott's two locations? the one in Georgetown was where the Pimp Juice was at, although they also had it in Waynedale," said Wade.

She said she also wrote Scott's corporate headquarters and sent them a packet explaining just what was in the lyrics of hip hop and rapartists whose products are being marketed to young people. The goal, she said, was to educate Scott's corporate officials to be vigilant about marketing the products of people who's work undermines the moral fiber of the community?and to get Pimp Juice taken off the shelves.

She said she also did a follow up visit after getting no response and was told that no one at any of the locations had received her packet. She said Scott's officials said she "could resubmit a package."

One person at Scott's corporate office did confirm that one of their vendors does bring in Pimp Juice for sale, but she was not able to comment on company policy regarding the potential controversy around the product. The official in charge of handling such issues was out on an emergency at press time.

Getting such products removed from shelves is a daunting task, said Wade, because it's proven profitable to market such negative images. She cited market experts who estimate that at least one quarter of discretionary spending in the U.S. is influenced by hip hop. Given that, she said, corporations weren't willing to give up those profits?even at the cost of the moral, spiritual and economic well being of the black community.

"Even with (rapper) Snoop (Dogg) going to jail," he's still being used for marketing by major corporations, said Wade.

Nature-Nurture Urban Consultants' primary mission is to stop the systematic devaluing of the black family unit has become a difficult fight given the ubiquitous nature of the problem.

"Look at how misogyny, pornography and pimping is being mainstreamed into our community. It's not just the media, they're using grocery stores, clubs, radio, TV."

Wade also talked about the recent controversy surrounding a Verizon commercial broadcast during this year's NFL playoffs.

She said, in the commercial, actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. from HBO's The Wire discusses what he got his children for Christmas.

"He asks, 'What did dad get?' and his daughter answers 'cologne' and the dad goes, 'Dad got hosed,'" said Wade describing the commercial.

The problem, she explained, is that it sounds like the actor?a black man?is saying "Dad got hos." She and others who posted comments on the Internet complaining about the commercial said Verizon made a deliberate attempt to make a play on negative socalled urban and black cultural stereotypes. In response, she wrote Verizon's corporate headquarters chastising them for what she perceives as a deliberate attempt to market their cell phone service using questionable taste.

"Professional use of ambiguities, vagueness and semantics will not disguise how propaganda is used to devalue 'the biggest spending blocks' of these goods," she wrote, also intimating that black consumer, while big spenders, are disrespected as people.

She said promoting such gangsterish and pornographic images is destroying the fiber of the community and programming them for failure.

"The community is paying the cost already with families in crises and continued low earnings. It's preventing people from being productive," said Wade.

While artists producing this music might think they're utilizing their freedom of speech and putting their own message across, Wade said they are being used by major corporations.

"This is corporate hip hop straight out the closet. These pornographic shout outs to Gucci, Versace and Prada are systematically growing (big business). And, now, pornographic shout outs to Laffy Taffy?" asked Wade, talking about an ad that uses rap to sell candy.

She pulled out a printout of the lyrics that used at least two words that related to sexual acts?a slang term for ejaculation and another for the customer of a prostitute?in the rhyme used to promote the product.

"How young is it going to get?" she asked.

Getting young people to buy into these negative stereotypes of themselves helps perpetuate what Oscar Lewis calls "a culture of poverty," which is damaging economically, spiritually and socially. Wade is determined to get the message out and to get people thinking in a different way.

"I want individuals to evaluate their own personal situations and the community and which way the want to go. Do they want to get out of this mess and stop letting others make millions and millions off our problems and deprivation or do the want to strive for excellence and improve their own lives and own community?" she asked.

For more information, contact Linda Diane Wade at Nature-Nurture Urban Consultants at P.O. Box 10873, Fort Wayne, IN 46854- 0873. All serious queries will be answered and Wade will send them an e-mail address to contact the group. "People who don't want to hear it, do write me about it."

This is part of the February 28, 2007 online edition of Frost Illustrated.

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