I don't know about the 'ho' part...
;-)
Posted on 04/12/2007 4:07:07 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
It isn't the Don Imus "hos" insult that has a lot of black people calling for his head. It is his use of "nappy-headed."
After all, no one's saying that Bernard McGuirk, Imus' executive director, should be fired, even though it was McGuirk who started the on-air insult by referring to the Rutgers team as "hard-core hos."
Frankly, not even the most popular rap artist could get away with calling black women "nappy-headed hos."
Those are fighting words.
Despite the fact that sisters of the '60s thought they had stomped out the nappy phobia, another generation ran back to the straightening comb and relaxers --adding Korean weaves and synthetic extensions.
So you can best believe that before the Rutgers basketball players showed up for a news conference Tuesday, they groomed their braids and spent time with a flatiron.
Lance Williams, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University's Jacob H. Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies and an expert in youth culture, observed that some of the women in his class were more outraged by the "nappy-headed" part of Imus' comments than they were with the "ho."
"That was really what offended them," Williams said. "Why is it that nappy-headed offends us so much, when being nappy-headed or having a tight curl pattern is natural to us?" he said. "Why do we still perceive nappy as being something negative?"
I can walk around all day with my hair in twists or an Afro, and no one gives a second look. But don't let me put on my No. 33 curly, honey-colored wig -- the compliments flow.
There wasn't a nappy-head among the Rutgers players even after they sweated through a championship loss.
"You look at the sisters, and they were all straight [hair] and permed," Williams pointed out. "These were highly educated, successful student athletes with perms. Still, after all of that, they are called a nappy-headed ho. At some point, we have to please ourselves and not other people," he said.
"Can you imagine what they probably have to go through every day to keep their hair straight, the torture so they are not called a nappy-headed ho? It should be a wake-up call for us. We need to take the same energy of protest and use it to proclaim our natural beauty and talk about the beauty of black women."
To add insult to injury, Imus put down the black female players to entertain his predominantly white audience. That's why Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the NAACP should keep the pressure on CBS to fire Imus. That's the only way to get the message across that racial insults are out of bounds -- even for highly paid shock jocks.
But the Imus fallout also puts the spotlight on the black community's failure to control its own images.
"I'm willing to bet that Imus got that comment from somebody black," Williams said. "There is no way you can tell me a white man came up with that word on his own. I bet he got that from a black person and he repeated it, not understanding how inflammatory the slur was."
The Imus controversy also exposes the same dilemma that African Americans face when they complain about the use of the n-word. How are blacks to hold Imus accountable when black women are denigrated in their own communities?
"They are regularly calling women chicken heads, bustdowns and tricks and so forth. What [can] we say when people outside our community make the same comments?" Williams noted.
Still, Imus did black people a favor.
Often, it is hard to confront shortcomings in one's own family as aggressively as one addresses an outsider's faults. Black people can't deal with Imus without confronting the denigrating rap lyrics because the same corporate greed that spawned Imus fed the misogynist rap genre.
"If you look at MSNBC, it is ultimately responsible for the comments of Imus. It is the vehicle in which this information was delivered," Williams said. "This same kind of organization is responsible for the gangsta rap. At some point, we have to talk about how these images of dehumanization impact people, and how the general public perceives black people and how we perceive ourselves."
If you hate what Imus said about the Rutgers team, you should stop supporting music that denigrates black women.
Imus was the mimic. Rappers were the muse.
mailto:marym@suntimes.com
McGuirk? I dunno.
I do know that McGuirk was the first to mention them as “Hard core ho’s”
But, I never listen to the program.
“When your hair is short and nappy,
Dixie Peach will make it happy.”
This was an advertisement for years in Ebony and other “negro” periodicals of the era. (40’s, 50’s and 60’s)
Otherwise he's a worthless bottom feeder isn't he.
We've gone back to the days of Lenny Bruce. Beware the thought police.
It's what some of these people seriously need one of.
OMG!!! Too funny! LMAO!
Since when did black women own exclusive rights to nappy hair, and proclaim it to be a “racist” term? Nappy, mousey, wooly, curly all all hair terms that can apply to any color of woman who has it.
Once again, the race baiter and MSM have made a mountain out of a mole hair... er... hill, and no doubt planned this to overshadow more important issues the nation is facing, like traitors in the democrat party committing acts of treason against the nation in a time of war.
BS. Blacks don't own the word 'nappy'. 'Nap' is a common textile term. Nap is the 'fuzzy fibers on the surface of a fabric; produced by a finishing process called raising'.
I used to have “nappy” hair when I was kid and it grew straighter as I grew older - and I am white. I want my “nappy” hair back!!!! It is the best hair. It is strong and tough.
Many decades ago in my first grade class there was a very talented girl who was black. She could play the guitar quite well in the first grade. She was the nicest kid in the class. But she was about the only black student in our school and this seemed to have an effect on her. I still remember her saying: “I have sick hair.”
I don't know about the 'ho' part...
;-)
While I wouldn't bet on it, it does occur to me that a card-carrying liberal losing everything because of an off-hand (albeit ill-advised) comment for which he profusely apologized might get both the elites and the masses to think about whether they may be next.
Again, I'm not holding my breath...but this kind of purge usually only happens to conservatives.
We may be into new territory here.
I found Imus' comments about Harold Ford Jr. to be more than interesting.
Does that mean that the phrase "kinky haired ho's" is acceptable.
Can we get a ruling from the PCP (Politically Correct Police) on this?
“That was really what offended them,” Williams said. “Why is it that nappy-headed offends us so much, when being nappy-headed or having a tight curl pattern is natural to us?” he said. “Why do we still perceive nappy as being something negative?”
I’m as mystified as you are. What is wrong black women’s normal, unstraightened or unbraided hair? I had no idea it was considered any kind of negative or lesser style.
Nap is a common textile term that refers to the fuzzy surface texture of fabrics like corduroy, flannel, suedecloth, polar fleece, carpeting.... Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of fabrics is aware of the term.
Sharpton and Jesse are a couple of nappy headed hoes!
Yep, he was. In some news stories they said that the Imus guy said that. I have no use for the "N" word but in my mind "jigaboo" is even more insulting because it implies a stupid shuffling type of dirty black person.
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