I don’t think a Cinderella story come-from-behind basketball team making it to the championship game would be called “hos” by any comedian, black or white. If the Rutgers girls were pole dancing strippers & the hos term was thrown out, I doubt anyone would have noticed. Or cared. But they had achieved a huge, unexpected goal. I don’t think a single girl was anything but a credit to her team & university throughout the season. So the ‘ho’ comment really is sickening.</p>
<p>Plenty of black comedians use racial humor. Chris Rock is my favorite. But Imus used racist humor. Big difference.</p>
<p>I am far from an expert on either race humor or rap music. But, in my admittedly limited experience, I have never ever heard descriptors close to what Imus used utilized to describe particular and identifiable individuals.</p>
<p>mini, what have you never heard before? Ho? That’s clearly a nasty slur, even though it’s used in rap lyrics all the time. Nothing positive about that word, for sure.</p>
<p>Nappy? That’s just a description of a hair texture that most blacks have. There’s a kids’ book called Happy to Be Nappy, by Bell Hooks, which is a nice rhyming tale of the beauty of nappy hair & the fun “girl” time shared doing the hairstyles kids & their moms like to fuss with. The book is well received and provides a “much-needed message encouraging girls to love and accept themselves (and others) just the way they are.”</p>
<p>“mini, what have you never heard before? Ho? That’s clearly a nasty slur, even though it’s used in rap lyrics all the time. Nothing positive about that word, for sure.”</p>
<p>I have never heard a rap song that applied the term to specific and identifiable people (and certainly never to any that the rappers hadn’t ever met, but that’s another subject.) I have heard the generalized slang (which I don’t like, and neither do any of the African-American leaders who have spoken out repeatedly on the subject), but never applied to particular people. </p>
<p>I agree with both of you. And I think the “other people have done it too” arguments which are popping up on this thread are totally beside the point–it is totally unjustifiable and unbelievably offenseive that these fine young women were subjected to such ricidule. What others have done in the past is immaterial. </p>
<p>Imus didn’t make a mistake. He made a choice.</p>
<p>It’s sad and depressing that these young ladies had to hear the adjectives Imus chose to describe them. However, I’d be willing to bet that prior to this they never even heard of the fool.</p>
<p>I’d also be willing to bet that they hear African American women being referred to as b***<em>, h</em>* and n*** on a daily basis. Many of the teenagers they attended high school with had this kind of rap music plugged into their ears 24/7–my guess.</p>
<p>What Imus said is wrong and he should be fired. But I’d really like to see Sharpton and Jackson use their clout to put an end to this offensive music. Despite their weak protestations that they have: no, they haven’t really.</p>
<p>If you took a poll, I bet the only celebrity, or “leader,” people would identify with this effort is Bill Cosby.</p>
<p>“I’d also be willing to bet that they hear African American women being referred to as b***<em>, h</em>* and n*** on a daily basis. Many of the teenagers they attended high school with had this kind of rap music plugged into their ears 24/7–my guess.”</p>
<p>Again, I have never heard a rap song that applied the term to specific and identifiable people (and certainly never to any that the rappers hadn’t ever met, but that’s another subject.)</p>
<p>That may be right. Imus’ mistake was in speaking too specificallly. Maybe he should take a clue from the hip hop music industry. Give me a break.</p>
<p>However, I don’t think rappers are going to be fired, although they have done, and will continue to do, much, much more harm to thousands of young men and women (including white kids) than what was done to the members of this team. </p>
<p>Excusing rap because it doesn’t apply to “specific and identifiable people” is kind of sad.</p>
<p>I wish Sharpton and Jackson could be replaced with some real leaders on this issue.</p>
<p>Maybe you should familiarize yourself a bit more with the genre.</p>
<p>No one here seems to be defending the rap industry, dadx. If you are unclear what Imus’ “mistake” is, maybe you are just a might blinded by idealogy. It seems plain to me–except as I said above, it wasn’t a mistake, it was a choice. I woulda figured you to be a believer in personal responsibility, not playing the “they did it first” card.</p>
<p>Actually, other than two or three people, most here seem reluctant to condemn rap–why is that?</p>
<p>Without gangsta rap, there wouldn’t be the slang term “ho” in our culture presently.</p>
<p>It objectifies and disrepects women to the nth degree, and yet I also haven’t heard one single women’s rights group speak out against it either.</p>
<p>And back in my day, we listened to songs about ‘cocaine’ and ‘bogarting joints’. Some music can be distasteful, or not, depending on your sensibilities. But the fact that some rap music has objectionable content or that the Rutgers team possibly didn’t know who Don Imus was prior to his outburst, doesn’t excuse him from consequences. I don’t mean to invalidate your concerns hh and I know you condemn what Imus said; but I am always leery of the ‘but what about X’ or devil’s advocate argument and dilutive effect it has on the issue at hand.</p>
<p>No actually not hh. My point is…why change the subject? </p>
<p>You may ask why I won’t condemn rap and my response is why do you want to deflect attention from or dilute what was done to the Rutgers team by dragging rap music into the discussion? Rap music is not why Don Imus called these girls ‘nappy headed ho’s’ or an NPR anchor a ‘cleaning lady’ or a sportscaster ‘a quota hire’ or why he referred to Maya Angelou as ‘being plucked from the jungle by Whitey’. Don Imus made those comments because he holds racist views in his heart, despite his protests otherwise.</p>
<p>“That may be right. Imus’ mistake was in speaking too specificallly. Maybe he should take a clue from the hip hop music industry. Give me a break.”</p>
<p>I’m no fan of the rap industry (and I’ve never heard of an African-American leader who was.) But I’ve yet to hear of a rapper who ruined memories of the best day in a bunch of committed collegiate student-athletes lives. </p>
<p>“It objectifies and disrepects women to the nth degree, and yet I also haven’t heard one single women’s rights group speak out against it either.”</p>
<p>You haven’t been listening. And you haven’t been listening to rap either, or you could name at least one (even one?) rap song that applied the term to specific and identifiable people. (I’m no expert either, but I can’t come up with a single one.)</p>
<p>Just a thought: if the media hadn’t exploded with this story (for whatever reason–we won’t know, since Imus has a history of this kind of language–why it happened now), these girls would have never had to know.</p>
<p>Instead, it’s a huge cause now, with our friends Jesse and Al involved, as usual. </p>
<p>Much easier to take on Imus than the rest of the mess rap contributes to, isn’t it.</p>
<p>The point about the liberal media enabling Imus all these years, the point about Sharpton and Jackson being the biggest hypocrites (and/or worse) on the planet, the points about the cesspool that is rap–let’s not go there.</p>
<p>Let’s just focus on Imus so everyone can feel good about themselves because they condemned “racism.” To feel even better, let’s jump on people who are trying to broaden the discussion, implying they are racist for this attempt. So simple.</p>
<p>“Just a thought: if the media hadn’t exploded with this story (for whatever reason–we won’t know, since Imus has a history of this kind of language–why it happened now), these girls would have never had to know.”</p>
<p>Ah-hem…Imus IS the media? (or a good part of it?)</p>
<p>Still can’t come up with a rap song, can you? That’s okay, I can’t either. Anyone else out there?</p>
<p>If you can point me to some women’s groups who have organized against this, I’d like to see it. I pay pretty close attention to the news, and I have not seen a major campaign/effort in this regard.</p>
<p>Last I remembered was Tipper Gore trying to clean up lyrics, and they shut her up pretty well when it was time to enlist Hollywood donors.</p>
<p>Hillary made a statement about video games a while back in a lame attempt to attract conservatives…haven’t heard much more about that.</p>
Actually it is. “Ho” is taken directly from the rap lexicon. </p>
<p>I don’t doubt he’s a racist. As Jim treacher says, Imus is about 187 years old and probably OWNED slaves in his youth. He surely has a large & varried racist vocabulary from which to pull vile insults. But he went to the rap world for his pathetic attempt at humor. He might have thought he’d get away with “ho” because it’s blasted from the airways every second of every day.</p>