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[tiredofit]

Imus is an a**hole.  He made a horrible comment, and he got fired for it.  Good.  Long-time activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton advocated for his firing.  Good.

But . . .  a simple Google search will show dozens if not hundreds of examples of African-American artists describing African-American women as "hos."  Why should they not receive the same level of scrutiny as Imus?  Shouldn't the record labels be boycotted?  Shouldn't the cable TV companies that carry the videos be boycotted?  Shouldn't Sharpton and Jackson take these artists, and the white executives making money from their work, to task?

Before we get started, none of the old, "When it's said inside the culture it's different than when it's said outside the culture nonsense."  That might work if women were calling each other hos (though I really don't see why), but not when men are referring to women by such a degrading terms.

Why do we allow African-American men a greater freedom of misogyny than white men?  Why does African-American women's dignity only count when it's being attacked by a white man? 

Discuss.

[anxiousdee1]

I posted this in the Don Imus is an a-hole thread.  Just copying it here.

What Imus said was in poor taste, but I hardly think it qualifies as "hate speech."  He is famous for off-color jokes, some of them much worse than what he said April 4th.  For my part (and as a Rutgers fan), I was pretty irritated, and felt that it was mean to compare the Rutgers players to the "cuter" Tennessee players (whatever that means), but Imus employed a phrase, "nappy headed hos" which, obviously, he didn't come up with.  The language he chose is generated by a disgusting segment of entertainment culture which glorifies drug use, gang warfare, baby daddyin', and prostitution.  Snoop Dog bristled at the comparison of what he does to what Imus does, saying essentially that when he talks about hos, he's referring to the heap of sh*t at the bottom of the community.  Okay, so it's Okay to call desperate and disadvantaged women "hos"?

What Imus said was a bad joke.  It missed the mark.  What has followed is a perfect picture of the hypocrisy of folks like Sharpton and Jackson--their refusal to go after the seat of production of this kind of language is all too telling.  No $$$ in that.

What also made me furious was Rutgers decision to parade those girls out in order to essentially "prove" that they weren't hos.  Yeah, no kidding.  I don't know about the rest of the world, but I didn't need a press conference and a resume of their accomplishments to figure out that Rutgers student athletes weren't hos.  What if they weren't accomplished?  I guess then we can call them hos.

[anxiousdee1]

Wow, people don't want to touch the Imus issue now that it's grown to a fever pitch in the media?

Come on, what do people think?

[dark_globe]

The first time I saw Rush Limbaugh was maybe 12 years ago, when he was attempting to get a TV show going. I had never heard of him and watched bits and pieces of the show for the first few weeks. He made bigoted comments against minorities and gays on a regular basis.

Why is he still on the air? Because he generates far too much money to touch. Imus was sacrificed after CBS and NBC ran the numbers and realized they would lose more money by keeping him than by firing him.

What's particularly pathetic is the righteousness CBS now proclaims after airing this pig for decades. Chief exec Leslie Moonves said, "In taking him off the air, I believe we take an important and necessary step not just in solving a unique problem, but in changing that culture, which extends far beyond the walls of our company." Give me a barf bag. If economic pressure hadn't been brought on them CBS would have let Imus call for genocide if he wanted.

[picklestix]

No comparison should be made to Imus' comments and to popular gansta/ghetto culture.  Rap songs use the word "ho." So what?  Rap songs do not often refer to specific people.  This man used a sexual term and a racist term to describe a specific group of very talented and accomplished young people.  The exact wording doesn't matter, what matters is that he insulted the players.  This is not a political correctness issue.  He called those young women ugly prostitutes.

[oldchair]

No comparison should be made to Imus' comments and to popular gansta/ghetto culture.  Rap songs use the word "ho." So what?  Rap songs do not often refer to specific people.  This man used a sexual term and a racist term to describe a specific group of very talented and accomplished young people.  The exact wording doesn't matter, what matters is that he insulted the players.  This is not a political correctness issue.  He called those young women ugly prostitutes.

So racial and gender slurs only count if they have an identifiable target?  This is a very problematic argument.

[dark_globe]

No comparison should be made to Imus' comments and to popular gansta/ghetto culture.  Rap songs use the word "ho." So what?  Rap songs do not often refer to specific people. 

So these lyrics by Guns and Roses are OK? There's no specific target here either.

[ . . . ]

Police and n*****s
That's right
Get out of my way
Don't need to buy none of your
Goldchains today
I don't need no bracelets
Clamped in front of my back
Just need my ticket till then
Won't you cut me some slack

[ . . . ]

Immigrants and ***gots
They make no sense to me
They come to our country
And think they'll do as they please
Like start some mini Iran
Or spread some f***ing disease
They talk so many goddamn ways
It's all greek to me [ . . . ]

[picklestix]

The two issues should not be confused.  Imus should not be allowed to hide behind the excuse "It's ok to say it, as long as the black folks do."  He should be judged on the stupidity of his own actions, not on agreement with song lyrics that do not pertain to him in any way.  How can it be a consistency issue when the subjects are totally unrelated?
Perhaps I am just annoyed about a different side of the issue.  The consistency issue is currently being used more to condone his actions more than anything, and I would rather he be held responsible for a personal character attack than for improper use of whatever terms he thinks he can be down with, since he's such a dope-fly old-school homie, yo.

[prytania3]

It's not about consistency, and the only judges that count are corporate sponsors, and they were pulling out. They don't have to be consistent--they can advertise where they want. The decision to can Imus was about economics and nothing more.

[dark_globe]

The two issues should not be confused.  Imus should not be allowed to hide behind the excuse "It's ok to say it, as long as the black folks do."  He should be judged on the stupidity of his own actions, not on agreement with song lyrics that do not pertain to him in any way.  How can it be a consistency issue when the subjects are totally unrelated?
Perhaps I am just annoyed about a different side of the issue.  The consistency issue is currently being used more to condone his actions more than anything, and I would rather he be held responsible for a personal character attack than for improper use of whatever terms he thinks he can be down with, since he's such a dope-fly old-school homie, yo.

You see, now you've changed your objection. You initially said "songs use the word "ho." So what?  Rap songs do not often refer to specific people.  This man used a sexual term and a racist term to describe a specific group of very talented and accomplished young people." Now you're saying they're two unrelated issues (which, coincidentally, is my position). I was just curious if you believed that Guns and Roses' lyrics are equally acceptable because they do not have a specific target, as with rap lyrics. If you had said no, then your initial argument would have been shown to be duplicitous. However, since you've clarified your position concerning Imus and are in complete agreement with me, everything is hip and cool.

[dark_globe]

It's not about consistency, and the only judges that count are corporate sponsors, and they were pulling out. They don't have to be consistent--they can advertise where they want. The decision to can Imus was about economics and nothing more.

Yes. Isn't that what did in "Politically Incorrect?" (I was on that show, btw :-)).

[picklestix]

You said "hip" and "cool".  Are you like an albino dinosaur or something?

[Sorry, the Friday afternoon loopiness is creeping in]

[draco]

Before we get started, none of the old, "When it's said inside the culture it's different than when it's said outside the culture nonsense."  That might work if women were calling each other hos (though I really don't see why), but not when men are referring to women by such a degrading terms.

Why do we allow African-American men a greater freedom of misogyny than white men?  Why does African-American women's dignity only count when it's being attacked by a white man? 

I think that to understand where "ho" came from you have to look at the use of "n_____".  In some parts of the African-American community, the n-word was adopted as a form of resistance to its negative cultural connotations.  By using it to refer to one's own people/culture, an individual would be asserting control over language that is offensive and a slur under other contexts.  You could say that it was sort of like decolonializing the n-word.

Unfortunately society acquiesced to this transformation in language and so other words, like "ho" and "b*tches", came along for the ride.  Society gave some African-American men a pass on using the n-word and that pass was taken as carte blanc to use any language they cared to...

Now that rap music is such a part of mainstream culture and there has still not been sufficient self-policing of language use within the Black community, we end up with a situation ripe for lots of groups to be offended. 

[john_proctor]

You said "hip" and "cool".  Are you like an albino dinosaur or something?

[Sorry, the Friday afternoon loopiness is creeping in]

I had the same thought (and wondered if the words "catch u wit my peeps on the down side" were coming next).

[dark_globe]

You said "hip" and "cool".  Are you like an albino dinosaur or something?

[Sorry, the Friday afternoon loopiness is creeping in]

Basically.