Great article by Jason Whitlock (no relation . . . I don’t think, anyway) on the Don Imus “nappy hoes” hubbub.
An excerpt:
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
Yeah . . . yeah, pretty much, Mr. Whitlock. You are a credit to our race, and to our last name. I salute you.
5 comments ↓
Thank you for sharing that article, Rae. I hadn’t heard anything but outrage about the Imus thing, and while I think that what he said was truly atrocious, his views bigoted, and his (constant) slip(s)-o-the-tongue disgusting, the facts remains that (a) black society as a general rule refers to their own women as “hos” and “bitches” and whatever, and (b) we live in America, where free speech is allowed to occur. Do I think he should have been allowed to say what he did? Yes. Do I think he ought to have been fired for it? Perhaps (it was totally a PR move, anyway - did they stand to make more money by keeping him on or firing him?). Do I think he should have said what he did? Probably not. (But hey, I bet it earned a whole bunch of ratings, and despite what people are saying, I bet it won’t be that difficult for him to find a new job.)
I’ve never understood why black people (and this is, of course, very general, and does not apply to ALL black people) seem to want to embrace a cultural identity that is defined by drugs and murder. “Respect” is such an important part of this “black” identity, and yet it’s demanded by use of fear, through gangs and guns. You see it in the movies (and likely real life, too) all the time - that studious black kid from the ghetto who comes from a poor family but aspires to go to an Ivy League school, studying hard, ignoring his friends and his “heritage,” all the while being ridiculed by his peers giving up on his culture, “giving into the white man,” or whatever. And it’s ridiculous to me - what is so wrong with speaking proper English, being educated, and demanding respect for being an intelligent, hard-working, contributing member of society? Your color shouldn’t matter. And yet, in these scenarios, it’s not the “white people” holding a black person back - it’s other black people.
Jason Whitlock will appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show today.
Jason Whitlock is dead on. That whole article is very poignant, made me think more about this whole thing more than I have from watching the news and all that other press coverage combined.
Here is a couple Jason Whitlock clips…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qpaM5bA7Z0
(Whitlock and Sharpton)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ZQXaXmCW4
(MSNBC)
Good quote. I totally agree.
Congress was taking a vote yesterday on whether it would formally “apologize” to the african american community for slavery. Do you have any thoughts on the subject?
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