So, culture makes it OK to joke about violence against women? Really?

I’d never heard of the song “Whoop That Trick” before they started chanting the hook at last night’s Warriors-Grizzlies NBA playoff game.

Not being familiar with the song by rapper Al Kapone, its signature phrase, or the movie that featured it (Hustle & Flow from 2005), I looked it up. Apparently, the movie was set in Memphis, where the Grizzlies are based, so adopting it as a chant made sense from that point of view. But I had no idea what the heck “Whoop that trick” was supposed to mean.

I looked it up and found this in the Urban Dictionary: “What you do when your girlfriend gets out of line. Basically giving her a pimp slap when she acts up.”

I did a double-take when I saw that.

I mean, seriously? This lyric seems to be saying you should 1) treat your girlfriend like a prostitute, and 2) assault her if she does something you don’t like.

As I’ve said, I’ve never seen the film, so I don’t know the context. But frankly, I don’t care. Whether the intention is to take the phrase seriously, ironically, humorously, or whatever, it’s just not OK to demean women (or anyone, for that matter), or to advocate domestic violence, even metaphorically speaking. From what I gather about the film, this is part of the culture depicted there: It deals with pimping, drug dealing, and prostitution.

I find it repugnant that our society backs people into the kind of corner where they feel they have to engage in activities like this just to survive. But that doesn’t mean we have to go around glorifying them. If you want to inspire your team to beat an opponent decisively in an NBA game, there are better ways to go about it than by celebrating pimps and violence.

Somehow the tomahawk chop is not OK, but this is? If the tomahawk chop is demeaning to Native Americans – and it is – then certainly shouting “whoop that trick” repeatedly is demeaning to women. If there’s any doubt about it, it’s enlightening to find out the song’s original title was the even more offensive “Beat That Bitch,” but an audio technician apparently thought people might find that too offensive, and it wouldn’t get played on the radio.

Does the euphemism make it all OK? (They even print it on T-shirts) And is calling a woman a “trick” (a prostitute whose identity is reduced to nothing more than the “service” she performs – a “trick”) really any better than calling her a female dog?

Yet nobody seems bothered by it, perhaps because it’s presented in the context of a certain culture, whether it be the culture of “the hood” or the culture of the NBA, where rich white folks throw down hundreds of dollars for the privilege of yelling “Whoop that trick” at teams composed primarily, though not exclusively of Black players.

The players, for their part, don’t seem to mind. Warriors star Stephen Curry even tried to turn the tables on the Grizzlies before the game by saying his team’s game plan was to “whoop that trick.” I like Curry. In fact, he’s my favorite player. I’m sure it was all said in good fun, but the origin of that phrase (like the similar “bitchslap”) is anything but fun.

You might say I’m taking this all too seriously. How is this different from saying you’re going to “kick someone’s ass” in a game? Everyone knows that’s metaphorical, and this is, too, isn’t it?

Maybe so, but couched underneath all that is the machismo bullshit that comparing your opponent to a woman is somehow an insult; that women should “know their place,” and that if they don’t, they should be put in their place by force if necessary. By criminal assault. You can kick someone’s ass in a boxing match or MMA bout, and it’s all perfectly legal. I don’t know of a case where it’s legal or moral to hit a woman or to use her body to make money for yourself – which is what pimps do.

To reiterate, none of this is OK. Not literally, and not metaphorically.

Words matter.

“Whoop that trick” is simply offensive. Being from a minority or disadvantaged culture doesn’t give you the right to joke about violence against another historically disadvantaged group. There are plenty of things to celebrate about culture, but violence and misogyny shouldn’t be among them.

Not at a basketball game. Not anywhere else.

Stephen H. Provost is a former journalist and the author of more than 40 books, all of which are available on Amazon.