I really don't want to write about Don Imus anymore. I just have to post that as of tonight, Wednesday April 11, MSNBC has announced that they will no longer be airing his show. Good. He'll still be on the radio though. Bad.
Check out this article from Newsweek editor Marcus Marby on what the whole Imus mess really means for American media. The most distressing point he makes is that this whole episode is putting us back in O.J. Simpson America where Whites and Blacks are pitted against each other, seeing the world in polar opposites.
Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
Here at the Meltingpot, rather than be discouraged, we will continue to find the stories where Black and White are sticking together like peanut butter and jelly to create a harmonius and gooey sandwich of life.
Peace Out!
3 comments:
I really hope that this doesn't build any more animosity between the races. It is a good idea to focus on the positives.
More of the good stuff happening across the color line should be let known. Nevertheless, it is a good thing that Imus is gone. This time he went too far, like so many other times, but the truth of the matter is that the tipping point this time is not that the while males in charge of the big companies give a rat's ass about race or racism. These big guys withdrew their adds from the show for fear of being associated with this racist mess. Then, CBS fired Imus's ass because of the financial support taken away by the big guys. So, who made this change possible? the big guys? the media? Nope, it was people taking a stand and threatening not to buy a product. That really scared the big companies about their bottomline. The message here?Nothing can stop people when we rise!
Barba tecadi
Hi Lori,
I'm late to the party over here, but wanted to know your thoughts on this issue and share mine. First being that I thought that what Imus did was dispicable and inexcusable. I'm really glad he was fired.
And I'm with you in that I was shocked that he knew the word too, but as a product of the whole "Black to the Future" school (you know, went to college between School Daze and Biggie, lived on Native Tongues and P.E. #1), I never knew the word was still THAT painful. I thought we'd reclaimed it.Yet to many, it's still an insult (we seemed far more upset about that part than the ho's part, what is that telling us?). I thought we redefined it to simply mean spongy hair and that we're aware that that's not a bad thing...that we love ourselves now, just the way we are.
But I guess I'm naive, b/c we have our black "leader"...a grown man with a perm leading marches on it, the entire Rutgers team wearing wraps and doobies at the press conference only missing t-shirts that said "I am NOT nappyheaded!". No beautiful, natural haired woman like India Arie or Alfre Woodard or Cassandra Wilson or Alice Walker or Jill Scott explaining that our hair does not have to be straight to be acceptable. Who speaks for them? What is this saying about where we are (as black women) right now, how we see ourselves and how we think others should?
I posted about this last week, basically saying that we can't let certain people say the word "nappy" (because it will be misused).But it appears as if I'm alone in this thinking. Or maybe this incident proves that that is too hard to do, that we need to get rid of certain words altogether.
But you wrote the book, so please set me straight (no pun here, promise) - is "nappy" as a word, sinful, no matter how it's used? Or does it depend on its usage and context and whose mouth it comes out of? Should Bell Hook's "Happy to be Nappy" be pulled from the shelves now? Should Halle Berry stop the production of her film "Nappily Ever After" (based on the book)?
Can you help me out here? I'm (still) somewhat perplexed.
mbj
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