When Don Imus and other racist jerks appropriate African-American terminology
by guest contributor Meera Bowman-Johnson, originally published at Our Kind of Parenting
In the best of times, being black is absolutely beautiful (let the choir say “Amen!”). In the worst of times, it feels something like this:
Three men went to hell.
The devil said to them “You have come to hell, and you must now choose whether to spend eternity in room 1, 2 or 3″
He then opened the doors to the three rooms.
Room 1 was filled with men standing on their heads, on a hard wooden floor.
Room 2 was filled with men standing on the heads, on a cement floor.
Finally, room 3 had just a few men, standing in human feces up to their knees and drinking coffee.
The men thought for a while, and decided to go with room 3, as it was less crowded and they could drink coffee.
They entered the door to room 3 and just as it was closing behind them, the devil said “OK men, coffee break’s over. Back on your heads.”
Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. Because just when it looks like everything’s cool, that no public figure has acted out in a while and offended black people, some modern-day Jimmy the Greek has to come out of their face with a racist insult. For no good reason at all (not that there ever is one). By now, just about everybody in the black blogosphere has weighed in on Don Imus’ ignorant and offensive remarks about the Rutgers’ Women’s Baskeball Team. The comment that referred to the impressive athletes as “nappy headed hos” (for those who’ve been under the mommy – or daddy – rock for the couple of weeks).
I’ve read countless, incredibly astute reactions to the “shock jock’s” remarks, but thought one of the most pointed came from Deborah Dickerson’s The Last Plantation: “You never see the racism coming. You’re minding your own business, say, playing basketball or buying groceries or eating at Krispy Kreme when an Imus comes along and forces you to be ‘black’ so he can be ‘white’.” As a woman who deeply despises misogynistic language and has has proudly worn just about every natural style known to 125th Street, all I could think was, (to quote The Millionaire’s Wife from Gilligan’s Island): “Well (snif). I’ve never!”
Oh, wait a minute. Yes I have.
Like my friend Field Negro so eloquently alluded to, this Imus business is par for the course for those of us LWB (Living While Black). I don’t like it, I don’t condone it, but do I expect it? Sadly, yes. Because, just in case anybody is late coming to the party, there are a lot of ignorant people in the house. To narrow the group even further, there are a lot of ignorant racists dancing poorly, to their own rhythm. And to whittle it down even one degree further, there are a lot of ignorant racists throwing their hands in the air like they just don’t care, ’cause they really don’t think they’re racists. I’m fairly certain Don Imus is one of those clueless types. The type that thinks that having a couple of black drinking buddies gives them free reign to say whatever and end up getting left at the bar (or in the studio) wondering “Hey…where did everybody go??”
Page 1 of 2 | Next page