More on Imus (sort of)
By kenya on Apr 17, 2007 in Rants
The argument in defense of Imus’ comments is that rappers say the same things and no one complains. This argument is full of fallacy. Try telling the police officer that pulls you over for speeding that everyone else was speeding too. While it might be true that doesn’t change the fact that you were speeding and that speeding is wrong. It’s just that you were caught. And no one accepts “Everyone else is doing it” a justification from their teenage children, so why should we accept it in this case? If you are doing something wrong, you are doing something wrong no matter who else is doing it. At any rate, Imus intended to be malicious as evidenced by his previous remarks and there is no excuse for that.
It is sad that you can accomplish much in life and still be a target of such derision by Imus (or whoever else) as evidenced by Imus calling the phenomenal Gwen Ifill a “cleaning lady” and William Rhoden of The New York Times “a quota hire.” America has a short memory. It wasn’t too long ago when a radio host in Wisconsin called Condoleezza Rice an “Aunt Jemina” and Colin Powell an “Uncle Tom.” Whether you agree with their politics or not, these are great people who have accomplished more than most of us could dream of. Yet they resort to racial slurs to disparage them. Still, Rush Limbaugh called Barack Obama and Halle Berry “Halfrican Americans.” These aren’t the kinds of comments that the “rappers” would use in referring to these people. So they can’t use that as an excuse.
The other problem with “everyone is doing it” argument is that it is assumed that everyone is fine with what the rappers are putting out there. This is simply not true. People need to realize that the media does not cover everything that happens; or rather they don’t provide the same level of coverage for all stories. No one has mentioned that C. Deloris Tucker spent significant time and energy on her grassroots campaign against the explicit lyrics in rap music. Many rappers responded by directing some of that vulgarity toward her. Last year I read an article that 50-Cent complained that Oprah wouldn’t book him or other rappers on her show. Ludacris did go on (as an actor) promoting “Crash” and was upset that Oprah “gave [him] a hard time as a rapper, when [he] came on there as an actor.” Now people are criticizing Rev. Al Sharpton as an opportunist jumping on this issue for personal gain. While I admit that his rise to the public spotlight was dubious, he has done a lot in recent years to build his credibility (i.e. going to jail in Puerto Rico protesting the bombing there). One week before the Imus fiasco, Sharpton was slated to participate in the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network’s protest against rapper Tony Yayo for his alleged assault of the 14-year old son of a hip hop rival. While this is not specifically related to the lyrics themselves, the actions correlate to the lyrics which are indicative of the lifestyle.
I do believe that Don Imus was made into an example as there are many others who have said much worse with no repercussions. We can not change other people but I do believe that we should change the way we refer to ourselves. We need to own our own images and take responsibility for them. That includes taking anyone to task that represents us (collectively) negatively. The Imus incident has opened up an important dialog that we can hopefully keep going and use to effect change.
P.S. Can someone tell me why the Rutgers women’s basketball team received death threats when they have done absolutely nothing wrong? That is what real hate looks like.
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