Blacks and Women as Children

This week's article:

In modern America, be careful, lest you let a racial epithet slip. Just ask Don Imus. Less than two weeks after referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team as “nappy-headed hos”, the popular radio talk show host suddenly found himself without a job. I'm not here to defend Imus' comments; they were crass, unfair and mean-spirited. Decorum demanded that he apologize to the Rutger's women. Yet apologies were not enough to mollify the wrath of the offended. Carelessly derogating African-American women is now an unpardonable sin. The story has been preposterously overblown. But it is indicative of the way we have completely lost our sanity in relating to race in this country. I offer several points:

1) There is no racial or sexual property of associativity. If one member of a group is maligned, the whole group doesn't need to go to Oprah for mass counseling. Imus owed an apology to the female basketball players of Rutgers University. If African-Americans and/or women were offended by his statement, they need to get tougher skin. I have no idea what it would be like to be either African-American or female, but that is completely beside the point. Imus' words applied to a minuscule segment of the population. It is the height of absurdity to require apologies for every single group which may be in any way affiliated with the people who was maligned. Those who disparage Hitler need not apologize to all Germans. And yet, every time a black person is offended, blacks in general are deeply wounded. What palpable nonsense.

2) The women who were actually offended should lighten up. Again, I'm a middle-class straight white male of European descent; but I didn't know that only those who were similarly classified were required to possess a spine. Listen to the words of one of the women from Rutgers: "All of our accomplishments were lost, our moment was taken away." She simply can't be expressing herself honestly. Every woman and every African-American should be deeply embarrassed by the actions of those on the basketball team. Can anyone imagine Bush, weakly warbling that his presidency is all for naught because a few liberals still think he stole the election from Gore and called him a daddy's boy? So why on earth do we accept such behavior from other adults?

3) During the entirety of the witch hunt to get Imus, no one has actually addressed his claim. I do not, for one instant, suppose that all of the women in question are either nappy-headed or hos. But if the claim is, as I suspect, absurd on its face, why was it treated so solemnly? All the women needed to do was explain that they were neither nappy-headed nor ho-ish, and dismiss Imus as an ignorant crank. Then the story would then have faded into blessed obscurity. Instead, we all had to dwell on the fact that Imus was a—fill in your negative adjective of choice—old man. For the first time I am wondering whether or not there is validity to his rash claim. If the women aren't nappy-headed hos, they're certainly acting like a whiny bunch of little girls.

4) Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson can go take a flying crap in the rain, to borrow from Allen Ginsberg. As Token so brilliantly noted in a recent episode of South Park, Jesse Jackson isn't the mayor of black people. As for Sharpton, I have but two words: Tawana Brawley. Granted, for the third time, that I am not black, I don't see the need to have a couple of clowns to entertain the media circus every time someone white says something stupid about someone black. If blacks were still getting lynched, I might see the need for a figurehead—though I'd question the judgment of appointing two hypocritical cretins like Sharpton and Jackon—but blacks are, thankfully, no longer being lynched. Aren't blacks strong enough to defend themselves against mere words?

As usual, I've plum ran out of room. I don't know how much racism lingers in this here country of ours. It may still be substantial. But as the boy who cried wolf could tell you, constantly complaining about mere trifles is a good way to get people to ignore genuine signs of trouble. And, as the boy could further note, when genuine trouble comes along, cold dark humanity generally believes that such ill fates are well deserved. Acting like little children may prove beneficial in the short-run—after all, Imus no longer haunts the airwaves. But in the longterm, acting like children is a surefire way to be treated like them.