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
Where’s a picture of Cynthia McKinney?
I fear we have not yet begun to approach the boiling point where MSM absurdity meets public stupidity. The public is far more gullible than we realize, and the media far more opportunistic.
I made this point 2 days ago here on FR. I do honestly think it’s the “Nappy’ word that got Imus in such trouble.
And Randi Rhodes can say twice on her Err-Ameirca show that someone should Shoot Bush. Nothing is done. I can’t stand it anymore....
Where'd you get that idea?
I thought "the down low" was when black guys stepped out on their women to have homo sex.
All this ebonic term talk is getting me all confused...
The media has no intentions of discussing Pelosi's mis-adventures in Syria. They would fill their time reporting on the mating habits of slugs before they would bother to mention her crimes.
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.
Riiiiight...that'll happen.
You know why it won't? Because this is really a power thing. Blacks like having the power to call each other "nappy-headed hos" and "bitches" and "niggas", and the power to bring down any cracker like Imus that thinks he can use the same words.
I’m very frustrated. I still don’t understand where the word nappy came from? I thought that was the Englishman’s way of saying diaper. What does it mean and why is it derogatory?
Funny Imus is fired over something half the world doesn’t understand. A pity the Americans don’t speak English.
Well, let me amend that. In Imus' mind, "nappy headed hoes" translated to mensch. The point of the article is that his mistranslation wasn't "hoes" but "nappy-headed".
Gotcha. That makes more sense.
which end’s up?
"Nappy" has been so thoroughly suppressed you just don't hear it, or see it. It's the "Other N Word".
Comment #X removed by moderator
BUMP
I think that's a sexual reference, and NOT TO THE HAIR ON THE HEAD.
He's sliding on thin ice here with that one, but if he does it again, he's in some real trouble (for Nappy).
“Jigaboo”
Now THAT was racist. Haven’t heard that in a looooonnnnng time.
Good post! Agree completely.
Her hair is OK by me.
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