Nappy headed hoes

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18054788/

Here's a good article relating to what happened, and talking about double standards.

A small piece from the article...

“There’s a double, double standard,” the Rev. Dr. DeForest Soaries, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, N.J., told Matt Lauer on TODAY. “If Don Imus had called the wife of a CBS executive an ugly whore he’d have been fired.”

But, a young African-American man told TODAY correspondent Kerry Sanders on the street in Miami: “If a black talk show host said it, there wouldn’t have been any controversy whatever.”
 
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Better material than Comedy Central. :)
 
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roqua you've presented a lot of thought provoking material in that post and somewhat to my surprise I agree with a lot of it.

Your last statement though is a little superficial. Back when the earth's crust was still cooling, I had a high school English teacher who basically told us:
"If you say you can't express something in words, then you are pretty well screwed, because words are all we have. " You aren't going to do much effective communicating with ESP. You can express hatred, anger, disapproval and dismissal of a person's worth pretty well with words.

Words are tools and weapon. They can be more effective, be remembered longer and cause far more harm than a physical slap in the face. Words fuel the propaganda machine, words cause wars, name-calling and insults cause pain, especially out of the blue from total strangers on the national news. I don't think you have to be a sissie to value your reputation .

All harm short of death is temporary harm. It may not be the deep drastic harm we think it is at the time. It may become something that ultimately changes someone for the better, but at the time it happens, it's very real.

If Imus had joked around in the same room with these women and no one else had gotten involved, it would be a one on one thing as you describe. Most people would laugh and shrug it off. But the media got involved. The insult that isn't really an insult isn't the big deal here to me. It's the disruption of lives, the being exposed to the entire world like a specimen under a microscope, the fact that any resume these women submit in the next ten years will be from one of those NHH from Rutgers, not from Jane Doe the person that I think is the problem.

But then, I just hate the media. ;)

@JDR13--I agree with your comment also. Total BS.

Edit: I think tangle-haired cavewomen is more of a compliment, myself. Yes, everything is relative.

Let's say an English teacher got involved in our debate, and tore me and curious a new hole and called us all sorts of hurtful names due to our abuse and misuse of the English language, spelling, and grammar. Wouldn't it be justified?

What if Imus beat the team with a bat. Would you rather be called a name or punched in the face? Would you rather be called a really good insult, or stabbed?

Its impossible to compare name calling and physical harm. Being married, my wife and I have called each other every mean name invented and a lot of made up sounds, we say things that are just meant to hurt. But I've never laid a hand on her. If I did would that be the same as name calling or is that a whole new level?

Names can hurt, my wife can hurt me with names or just by knowing what buttons of mine to push. But when the fight is over, and years later, the only events that really stick out is when she flew off the handles and attacked me.

Having thin-skin isn't a virtue. People shouldn't walk around calling each other names for no reason, but if someone decides to get into a pissing match with me I'm not holding back. And if someone is going to say something I find offensive that might be politically correct to say, I am going to say thinks they will think is offensive, politcally correct or not.

Virtualy everything someone says is going to hurt someone's feelings. Where does the hurt feeling think stop? When everyone stops saying anything?

And I bet the people that push the "name calling is bad and should be stopped" issue probably hate someone and call them all sorts of names. Is it okay to call someone mean and hurtful things behind their back? Isn't it better to be honest and have enough guts to say it directly to them? Isn't honesty and courage virtues?

"STicks and stones may break my bones, etc." I find it very offensive when other men cry, or say that men should be allowed to cry, and it fills me with a horrible undescribable feeling of something my known emotional range can't identify. But those are the breaks. Those "guys" aren't going to pander to my feelings, and I don't expect them to. That is the price of different people having different opinions and points of views that clash. Feelings can't and shouldn't be in issue ever where free speach is concerned.
 
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Let's say an English teacher got involved in our debate, and tore me and curious a new hole and called us all sorts of hurtful names due to our abuse and misuse of the English language, spelling, and grammar. Wouldn't it be justified?

What if Imus beat the team with a bat. Would you rather be called a name or punched in the face? Would you rather be called a really good insult, or stabbed?


Its impossible to compare name calling and physical harm. Being married, my wife and I have called each other every mean name invented and a lot of made up sounds, we say things that are just meant to hurt. But I've never laid a hand on her. If I did would that be the same as name calling or is that a whole new level?

Names can hurt, my wife can hurt me with names or just by knowing what buttons of mine to push. But when the fight is over, and years later, the only events that really stick out is when she flew off the handles and attacked me.

Having thin-skin isn't a virtue. People shouldn't walk around calling each other names for no reason, but if someone decides to get into a pissing match with me I'm not holding back. And if someone is going to say something I find offensive that might be politically correct to say, I am going to say thinks they will think is offensive, politcally correct or not.

Virtualy everything someone says is going to hurt someone's feelings. Where does the hurt feeling think stop? When everyone stops saying anything?

And I bet the people that push the "name calling is bad and should be stopped" issue probably hate someone and call them all sorts of names. Is it okay to call someone mean and hurtful things behind their back? Isn't it better to be honest and have enough guts to say it directly to them? Isn't honesty and courage virtues?

"STicks and stones may break my bones, etc." I find it very offensive when other men cry, or say that men should be allowed to cry, and it fills me with a horrible undescribable feeling of something my known emotional range can't identify. But those are the breaks. Those "guys" aren't going to pander to my feelings, and I don't expect them to. That is the price of different people having different opinions and points of views that clash. Feelings can't and shouldn't be in issue ever where free speach is concerned.

Much less superficial and better thought out argument. "Hurt Feelings" are definitely not as serious as damaged body parts, and the truth remains the truth whether you want to hear it or not. AFA the line between physical and verbal abuse in a relationship, it's my experience that they are equally damaging, but YMMV.

I'm contending that the issue isn't about that, but about invasion of people's private lives by a rapacious bunch of bottom-feeders who want to exploit a situation for their own ends, and don't care who they victimize in the process-- yes, including Mr. Imus. I started out this argument by agreeing with you--god knows where we'd be at if I disagreed! ;)

I agree that people should deal honestly and frankly with one another, and that the only way to understand another person or culture is to allow it/him/her to speak freely.

We disagree in that I don't think the constitutional provision for free speech guarantees any godgiven right to use it to the detriment of others. However, I also would rather have people making any number of irresponsible and idiotic remarks for whatever reason, then live in a society that tells you precisely what you are permitted to say or think and punishes you for diverging.

I think the fuss about Mr. Imus is a worldwide joke and yet another
embarassment for our country.(Like Britney Spears isn't enough!!)Yes, he's been fired, but as long as there's a shred of material to exploit the circus will continue. I'm sure he'll be photographed cozying up to the Rutgers team and copiously eating his words and end up being hired by Fox or something. Who freaking cares????Why was it singled out for coverage on the national news? Who did the damage, Imus and his mouth, or the media and their self-serving drive for sensation?
 
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Mind if I jump in? (good argument going on here!).

Imus blew it. He had it made, walking the fine line, making all kinds of money, but he made a misstep there for sure. It's not nice to call women names, and he called a bunch of 'em a bad one.

Still, he probably should have survived it ok. Unfortunately for him, there are a cadre of black "leaders" who do well for themselves playing up the "victim" card on behalf of black Americans.

Didn't black prostitutes coin the phrase "ho?" I think so. I think it started in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle or Vancouver or someplace like that). How in the world did a term like that make it into mainstream conversation?
 
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If hoe is a mean and hurtful word why isn't pimp? Why isn't "Pimp my Ride" singled out. Squeek, why is not nice to specifically call women names? I could infer from your implication that it is jim-dandy to call men names.

I agree margerette that it would be a better world if people were more polite and had more manners and common curtesy, and were more respectful of each other's feelings. But I will never see what Imus did as wrong or an error. WHat he messed up on was being sorry for saying a joke that ment absolutley nothing and had zero chance of hurting the feelings of a normal person.

He should've went on the attack and named his show the "Nappy-headed Hoe Show." And said Nappy Headed Hoe every minute, and also threw in other racial comments on every other group that came to mind. As soon as you say sorry you give the other side the right and give up all yours. Yes, thats a sad, sad truth of our current society, but its true. If it were Opie and Anthony thats what they would have done, and they would of been far more outragous than any of the people going after them.

They would've lost some sponsors and gained others, and would've came out on top in the end. And keep in mind, Imus made far worse racial comments in the past. And since CBS's/NBC's policy was never applied consistently, he could've sued for damages if fired. Ask anyone that had a union job, if every day Bill makes racial slurs and never gets in trouble, regardless of the policy, they can't make an example out of Bill. They have to notify everyone of the policy will be enforced and that it will start being enforced.

So if his other racial comments didn't even merrit a warning, how could his employers have set a clear expectation for his joking? If anything they seemed to have supported it.

But of course, if Immus pushes that now and tries to sue the corps for a wrongful firing he has no ammo since he appologized. He admitted he was wrong and the fake harm, etc. He screwed himself by his actions after the harmless statement.

The core point is he didn't do anything wrong. Regardless of how much you disagree with what he said or how offensive you feel it is, him being fired is a blow to free speach. Limiting our speach with hypocritcal standards and siding with that just leads us down a slippery slope no one that actually believes in freedom should want to go down.

And I'll never disagree with you about the name calling/physical abuse craziness. Under no rational or logical standard can the two be compared. And I ask the people that are saying this to remember this during the up coming election or the next time you talk behind someones back, because remember, the names you call the person is equal to smashing them in the face with a tire-iron.
 
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Squeek, why is not nice to specifically call women names? I could infer from your implication that it is jim-dandy to call men names.
Logic is a useful tool for thinking, but there are more suitable tools for the issues involved here. Logic alone just isn't enough.

How about compassion? As a group, who's been more mistreated than women? I think you would have to say black people in America. Imus insulted a bunch of black women. He simply went too far.

Imus knows it too. That's why he's not defending himself.
 
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roqua, we could go on like this forever and it's interesting, but you reason like a politician and I'm not devious enough for it. I'll just hit the first & last paragraphs of your last post because it's late and I'm old.
Why is Hoe(=whore) demeaning and Pimp isn't? The Pimp is the winner in the situation, the controller and the person making the money. Being a pimp is glamorous, being a whore is not (unless you're Anna Nicole--and that's debatable.) Being a dawg is something other men may envy. being a whore is something most women would like to avoid. If you can't tell the difference, start peddling your own butt for a nickle bag and giving the proceeds to someone who beats you and see if you still think it's just a silly little meaningless term.

AFA as the tire iron vs namecalling, I take it this is irony on your part. ;)

A child that's physically abused has a hell of a life and grows up warped. A child that is never physically abused, but is emotionally and verbally abused, has a hell of a life and grows up warped. They are equally damaging up to the point of death. When you kill someone, you have gone further than namecalling--though namecalling can drive people to take their own lives and other's lives as well.

peace out

@Squeek
Jump in anytime! That's called freedom of speech. :)
 
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We've been having something similar down here with the head of the Islamic church in Australia who basically called non-muslim women 'uncovered meat who deserved to be raped'!! We're still howling for his head!!!! Even many of his own people are abandoning him.
 
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Logic is a useful tool for thinking, but there are more suitable tools for the issues involved here. Logic alone just isn't enough.

How about compassion? As a group, who's been more mistreated than women? I think you would have to say black people in America. Imus insulted a bunch of black women. He simply went too far.

Imus knows it too. That's why he's not defending himself.

Logic *has* to be enough or we are living in a lawless, mob rule state - which is *exactly* what has happened. This isn't about making sense, using logic, or applying standards - it is a race riot created by the biggest racist group we have today - the people like Sharpton & Jackson, stirring up problems once again where there is very little problem.

Look - it is simple, there are either equal rights or there are not; words either mean something or they don't. If a white person using the 'N-word' would cause a furor but a black person would not, then there is a problem - there is no equality. Black people and other minorities get special rights and treatment in an attempt to compensate for our shame over slavery and other mistreatments of history. That is not equality.
 
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No, it's called reverse discrimination, fueled by a guilt complex!!
 
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Logic *has* to be enough or we are living in a lawless, mob rule state - which is *exactly* what has happened. This isn't about making sense, using logic, or applying standards - it is a race riot created by the biggest racist group we have today - the people like Sharpton & Jackson, stirring up problems once again where there is very little problem.

Look - it is simple, there are either equal rights or there are not; words either mean something or they don't. If a white person using the 'N-word' would cause a furor but a black person would not, then there is a problem - there is no equality. Black people and other minorities get special rights and treatment in an attempt to compensate for our shame over slavery and other mistreatments of history. That is not equality.


I agree 100%. There is no one alive today that was a slave or who owned slaves, yet that certain group of people seems to be under the impression that we owe them something for things that happened over 100 years ago.
 
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I agree 100%. There is no one alive today that was a slave or who owned slaves, yet that certain group of people seems to be under the impression that we owe them something for things that happened over 100 years ago.

There are things we *do* owe them, and they are the same things they owe us and that we all owe everyone else - to be treated with respect and dignity, and judged based on their actions and not their appearance or heritage.
 
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There are things we *do* owe them, and they are the same things they owe us and that we all owe everyone else - to be treated with respect and dignity, and judged based on their actions and not their appearance or heritage.


...or mistakes of the past that have nothing to do with todays world.
 
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There is no one alive today that was a slave or who owned slaves

Not in the US, certainly.

To say it with Star Wars Episoide I : "But I thought it was forbidden ... ?"

We can not say what gois on i parts of the world we basically don't hear nothing about.
 
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Mike wrote:
There are things we *do* owe them, and they are the same things they owe us and that we all owe everyone else - to be treated with respect and dignity, and judged based on their actions and not their appearance or heritage.

...or mistakes of the past that have nothing to do with todays world.

I agree completely. And though in an earlier post I advocated the lawsuit route out of my own personal feelings as to how I would react, I do deplore the tendency of our society to wallow in real or assumed guilt, and to patronize and insult people by perceiving them as victims, or encouraging them to see themselves that way.

Another case in point is the Duke University suit. I'd like to post something here for others to comment on. I received this from an ultra-conservative friend today, and while I normally don't consider Pat Buchanon an unbiased source, he is echoing a lot of what is being said on this board:

The Imus lynch party by Pat Buchanan

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 13, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern



In the end, it was not about Imus. It was about us.

Are we really a better country because, after he was publicly whipped for 10 days as the worst kind of racist, with whom no decent person could associate, he was thrown off the air?

Cards on the table.

This writer works for MSNBC, has been on the Imus show scores of times, watches Imus every morning, and likes the show, the music and the guys: the I-Man, Bernie, Charles and Tom Bowman.

And Imus is among the best interviewers in our business. Not only does he read and follow the news closely, he listens and probes as well as any interviewer in America. Because he is a comic, people mistake how good a questioner he is.

(Column continues below)


Is "Imus in the Morning" outrageous? Over the top at times? Are things said every week, if not every day, where you say, "He's going too far"? Yeah. But outrageousness is part of the show, whether the skits are of "Teddy Kennedy," "Reverend Falwell," "Mayor Nagin" or "The Cardinal."

And when Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team "tattooed ... nappy-headed hos," he went over the top. The women deserved an apology. There was no cause, no call to use those terms. As Ann Coulter said, they were not fair game.

But Imus did apologize, again and again and again.

And lest we forget, these are athletes in their prime, the same age as young women in Iraq. They are not 5-year-old girls, and they are capable of brushing off an ignorant comment by a talk-show host who does not know them, or anything about them.

Who, after all, believed the slur was true? No one.

Compare, if you will, what was done to them – a single nasty insult – to the savage slanders for weeks on end of the Duke lacrosse team and the three players accused by a lying stripper of having gang-raped her at a frat party.

Duke faculty and talking heads took that occasion to vent their venom toward all white "jocks" on college campuses. Where are the demands for apologies from the talk-show hosts, guests, Duke faculty members and smear artists, all of whom bought into the lies about those Duke kids – because the lies comported with their hateful view of America?

And hate is what this is all about.

While the remarks of Imus and Bernie about the Rutgers women were indefensible, they were more unthinking and stupid than vicious and malicious. But malice is the right word to describe the howls for their show to be canceled and them to be driven from the airwaves – by phonies who endlessly prattle about the First Amendment.

The hypocrisy here was too thick to cut with a chainsaw.

What was the term the I-Man used? It was "hos," slang for whores, a term employed ad infinitum et ad nauseam by rap and hip-hop "artists." It is a term out of the African-American community. Yet, if any of a hundred rap singers has lost his contract or been driven from the airwaves for using it, maybe someone can tell me about it.

If the word "hos" is a filthy insult to decent black women, and it is, why are hip-hop artists and rap singers who use it incessantly not pariahs in the black community? Why would black politicians hobnob with them? Why are there no boycotts of the advertisers of the radio stations that play their degrading music?

Answer: The issue here is not the word Imus used. The issue is who Imus is – a white man, who used a term about black women only black folks are permitted to use with impunity and immunity.

Whatever Imus' sins, no one deserves to have Al Sharpton – hero of the Tawana Brawley hoax, resolute defender of the fake rape charge against half a dozen innocent guys, which ruined lives – sit in moral judgment upon them.

"It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves," says Sharpton. It says something about America that someone with Al's track record can claim the role of national censor.

Who is next? And why do we take it?

I did a bad thing, but I am not a bad person, says Imus. Indeed, whoever used his microphone to do more good for more people – be they the cancer kids of Imus Ranch, the families of Iraq war dead now more justly compensated because of the I-Man or the cause of a cure for autism?

"We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality," said Lord Macaulay. Unfortunately, Macaulay never saw the likes of the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson.

Imus threw himself on the mercy of the court of elite opinion – and that court, pandering to the mob, lynched him. Yet, for all his sins, he was a better man than the lot of them rejoicing at the foot of the cottonwood tree.


Thoughts?
 
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" Al Sharpton – hero of the Tawana Brawley hoax, resolute defender of the fake rape charge against half a dozen innocent guys, which ruined lives"

Lol, that man is pathetic. He reminds me of a fat shark that is constantly looking for someone to chew on. Total POS who is always playing the race card.
 
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Oh boy. Don't even get me started on the whole "slavery was so long ago, it really doesn't matter anymore." If you honestly believe that slavery has no bearing on the state of the African American community today, you need a serious history lesson. It was only 150 years ago, which in the context of human history is a drop in the bucket. The ramifications of something as serious as whole-sale slavery and subsequent severe discrimination, both based almost strictly on race, last for a very, very long time. Thinking otherwise is just plain ignorance. The details on how best to progress and heal from that are certainly debatable. The fact that it still plays a big role in African American's lives and how they relate to the country's almost exclusively white power structure is not. At all.

On a different subject, you "let-the-free-market-decide", "we-don't-need-regulations-society-will-manage-itself" types always make me laugh. Everything is regulated, to some extent. Any society that agrees to rise above rampant anarchy implicitly agrees to some level regulation in the form of law. There is no such thing in our country as purely self-regulating systems, social or economic, of any significance. Therefore, the argument that "free speech is either applied across the board with no restriction or not at all" is naive, at best. The real argument is to what extent free speech, or any other cornerstone of our American system of society and government, should be regulated. So, pretty much all the questions you raise in an attempt to make it seem that you must either reject all of them or live in some sort of tyrannical state are actually the exact questions that we have an obligation as a democracy to tackle, not run away from. Laws and governing are complicated and messy and hard, yes, but necessary. I'm sorry, but you simply can't brush it all away with a wave of your hand and an implication that if it's not all one way, it's unworkable. That point of view is just plain fantasy-land.
 
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I may not think highly of Pat Buchanan as a politician and may disagree with many of his ideas, but he is a sharp dude and that is right on.
 
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