If only Don Imus had told those Hoes to Get Low
Don Imus is all over the news. CNN, the radio, newspapers. Everywhere you turn you see Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton denouncing him, protesting him, making demands that he be fired.
It's because he called some basketball players "nappy-headed hoes." He's apologized, and now he's lost his radio show, but I don't blame Jackson and Sharpton for continuing to call for marches, punishment, and penalties. Imus has been around for a while and he should know by now that you don't go on the radio and call black women "nappy-headed hoes."
You call them bitches. And also hoes. And then you threaten them, and tell them to Get Low:
To the window, to the wall, (to dat wall) To the sweat drop down my balls (MY BALLS) To all these bitches crawl (crawl) To all skeet skeet motherfucker (motherfucker!) all skeet skeet got dam (Got dam)This is the appropriate way to refer to young black women on the radio. Lil Jon brought this to our attention (all the way from the dirty south) in his 2003 hit single, Get Low. This was the number 2 song in America. It was all over the airwaves then and if you turn on the radio now, you have a fair chance of hearing it today. If it's not on, just listen to the lyrics of whatever is hitting the top ten today. You'll get the same lesson. Okay, enough with the heavy-handed attempts at irony. The point is, this maelstrom of media coverage, the constant earnest pleas for justice, the 24-hour Al Sharpton news marathon - all of this is a huge load of crap. It is a waste of time. I don't care about Don Imus. I never really listened to him, so I don't really care if he has a show or not. I'm not really a Lil Jon fan, but I'm not calling any apologies from him either. My point is that if you are worried about racism, and you are worried about misogyny, then you should turn your attention to actual racism and misogyny. Imus calling some basketball players "nappy-headed hoes" is neither. It's a stupid joke- it's an old white guy trying to be funny by clumsily using outdated black phrases. It's the same stupid thing as the rapping granny: Listen, I've met real white racists. They don't say things like "nappy headed hoes." They say things like "If I see you with that guy again I will cut you off and kick you out of my goddamn house!" Real racists complain about the "animals" that tore out the copper wires from the housing project and then laugh about over-charging the city for rewiring. To a real racist it isn't stealing unless a brown person did it. To hear Sharpton and the various other spotlight-seeking pundits tell it, Don Imus personally insulted an entire race, and entire gender, as well as each individual black woman in the country. Sharpton even trotted out his daughter. No, she doesn't play for Rutgers. Listen, he made fun of some people on a basketball team. These are people who were on national television for their ability to put a rubber ball in a hoop. Now for all I know each and every one of them is a bio chem major who will some day find the cure for cancer. But that isn't what got them on TV. Being tall and strong and fast gets you on TV. Being attractive gets you on TV. Being rich gets you on TV. And once you're on TV, you should pretty much take it as a given that people will say mean things about you. If you really need something to protest, at least most rap lyrics are genuinely misogynistic. The different between Don Imus and Lil Jon is that Don made a lame joke and Lil Jon is honestly instructing men to treat women like objects. Do you know what skeet-skeet-skeet means? It's not like Sharpton is unaware of the problem. Sharpton will protest rappers who slap kids. He'll call for a ban on airplay for rappers who have recently shot people. And he will join a hip hop summit, and encourage rappers to be more positive:
You cannot turn on a television or watch a movie and not see the influence of hip-hop. Even suburban America has been bitten by the hip-hop bug. Unfortunately, much of what they're selling is a fraud. They spew hedonism, misogyny, and self-hate. They glorify the prison culture, the pimp culture, and drug culture. They tell the young that they're not worthy unless they're "rocking" Chanel, Gucci, or wearing platinum and diamonds. Not only is this message immoral, but it is also flawed. It's a lie. ... Despite my differences with them, I will continue to support the hip-hop community because I have faith that they will eventually reach their potential.I don't care about Don Imus, CBS can fire him or give him a gold medal for all I care. This isn't some lame "if black people can say it why can't white people say it" whine and it's not "political correctness out of control." Its superfluous distraction out of control. I just wish that the stupid crap like this, and Anna Nicole Smith's death, and Janet Jackson's boob, wasn't the stuff getting all the attention all the time. [youtube]sSh_Oc78A4o[/youtube]
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Yes there are harsh words in rap music but….Don Imus REACHED the masses (millions of liseners). ONLY 16% of this country is African American …just a penny in the bucket. One racial slur by a white man can break such a small group of people. Especially knowing the history behind the words that he used. White guys use that language all the time behind closed doors and with their good ‘ol boy friends..and this time Don thought, being that he was one of Time Mags top influencial people, that he could speak for many other white men who think that black chicks are born hos ..no matter what they have acheived and that they need to keep on getting perms and wearing weaves b/c their hair is NAPPY and not pretty like the white girls (who born delicate and virtuatious ..i guess…anna nicole and pam anderson are from another planet).
Its kinda like bullying in my opinion. There are so many of us so we can say whatever and do whatever we want to them. If they want to degrade themselves with music and welfare let it be by there own mistakes. We dont have to add to the fire and push them over the edge do we?
Its just people fighting for their rights. No one asked you to get involved. Ever heard of white guilt? That whole Michael Richards thing was because of the media outlets letting Jessie Jackson and everyone vent…who owns these outlets ..rich white men! And from what many say leaching black people who dont work and live in the ghetto..I assume none of them are powerful enough to really make a difference…dont blame the blacks for white guilt ..they cant help it if others are advocating for them and blowing stories out of proportion..hate the big businesses that are afraid of losing white business..not that any blacks work enough to make a dent in the market..right? Sorry but race is an issue and it wont disappear especially with people like you that pen the blame on everyone else and dont realize who is really behind the mess to begin with.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:34 am
Anna, thanks for your comment, but… this is exactly what I’m talking about. One racial slur by a white man can NOT “break such a small group of people.” But it can get a hell of a lot of news coverage. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of black people living in Washington DC still don’t have a vote in the Senate. That’s racism, the kind that actually effects people. They have even been tossing a bill about it back and forth in Congress recently. But it gets virtually no news coverage, compared to trivial crap like this.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:46 am
How many of those Rutgers players have actually heard of Don Imus before this incident? And now your telling me he has broken their spirits with his comments, give me a break. This is just that stupid liberal white guilt saying oh no those poor black people they can’t stand up for themselves I have to ride in on my white horse and save them. Black people can take care of themselvs they certainly don’t need a bunch of rich white poeple who don’t know any black people except for their ceufffer to save them. And Don Imus has a national form and he was bullying minorities what about when Jesse JAckson refered to New York as Hymietown. I don’t remember him being crucified and not being forgiven.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Dave, don’t make me destroy you with that White Guilt bullshit.
April 14th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Whats White Gulit?
>> fixed it
April 14th, 2007 at 1:01 am
[...] There you have it. Anna Nicole Smith, notable for going from being poor and attractive to being rich and less attractive, then rich and somewhat attractive again, is almost 8 times more important than Kurt Vonnegut. Don Imus, who hasn’t even died yet, is about 7 times more important than Vonnegut for calling some basketball players “nappy headed hos.” [...]
November 4th, 2007 at 11:32 pm