Dear Sir/Madam:
I am writing to you once again regarding the language used in today’s society when referring to black people. Recently, Don Imus called the members of the Rutgers womens’ basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” As was richly deserved, he was roundly pummeled by anyone who could find a microphone and television camera, and eventually fired by both MSNBC and CBS. It is more than obvious that what he said was, at the very least, horribly inappropriate and at most, downright racist, and he should have been fired. This letter is not, in any way, shape, or form, an attempt to justify or defend what he said.
What this letter is attempting to do is to find out when the hypocrisy with regard to the language used to refer to black people is going to end.
Rapper Snoop Dog, aka Calvin Broadus, Jr. had this to say:
“It’s a completely different scenario,” said Snoop, barking over the phone from a hotel room in L.A. “[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about ho’s that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing sh–, that’s trying to get a n—a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC [the cable network home to Imus] going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha—–as say we in the same league as him.”
As pointed out by Newsbusters and Michelle Malkin, apparently its alright for black people to call other black people these names because it “comes from their soul.” However, if a white person calls a black person one of these names, its evil and racist and that white person must be severly punished. Can you see the double-standard here?
If you read the Malkin post linked to above, you’ll see just a small sample of the language used to refer to women by chart-topping black hip-hop artists. Most of it is even more disgusting than what Imus said. Yet, these artists are celebrated throughout the black community. They sell millions and millions of CDs just filled with this language, yet no one in the black community (with the exception of Bill Cosby) speaks out against it. No one gets upset when Snoop Dog or any other rapper calls black women “hos.”
Next, consider that these hip-hop artists’ music has been crossing over to a large, white audience for the past several years. These whites blast that stuff out of their radios in their cars and in their homes. They play this stuff at their parties and at their clubs and on their iPods. So, for the past several years these whites have been hearing black artists refer to black women as “hos” and not hearing one bad word about it from the black community. Is it really so surprising that these whites would then start to refer to black women, or women in general, in the same fashion?
Recently, in answering the statements made by Imus, coach C. Vivian Stringer said this:
“It’s not about them (players) as black or nappy headed. It’s about us as a people,” Stringer said. “When there is not equality for all, or when there has been denied equality for one, there has been denied equality for all.”
Equality? Equality?
How can there be equality if the same words spoken by two people have a different meaning just because of the color of their skin? Equality would be this group of women getting just as disgusted and upset about these remarks if they had been spoken by Snoop Dog. Equality would be the black community getting outraged each and every time some black rapper drops yet another “N-Bomb” in their lyrics.
There is no equality between the races with regards to language. Apparently, blacks can say whatever they want without fear of reprisal, while whites must now consider each and every syllable spoken for any hint of racial content.
So, now comes the request I want to make. You can’t have it both ways; either calling black women “hos” is ugly and disgusting or it isn’t. It doesn’t matter what color the speaker is, it means the same thing. So, I want the black community to make a choice:
- Declare that the use of this type of language is hurtful, disgusting, and unacceptable regardless of who is using it; or
- Declare that the black community is, in fact, not equal to the white community because the black community is not willing to be accountable for the racial stereotypes they themselves perpetrate through hip-hop music.
Pretty simple, isn’t it? Equality means more than getting the same jobs and getting paid the same money; it means handling the same responsibilities. In society you are held accountable for your actions, and if you are asking to not be held accountable then you must admit that you are not equal. If you are willing to be accountable for your actions and words, then you are truly equal and you belong with the rest of us.
Nick
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