Loud and Wrong

Commentary by Cantice

It took news stories announcing Don Imus’ racist statements and the Duke boys’ declared innocence to bring me out of my self-induced isolation. So let’s get right down to business. Don Imus is a victim of his own enablers. MSNBC hired him for his controversial, backwoods commentaries and when his antics were highly publicized at an inconvenient time, he was fired. In the case of Evans, Finnerty, and Seligmann, formerly of Duke’s lacrosse team, justice served them as it does today for any perceived victim of reverse- or traditional discrimination.

That said, the prejudiced woman in me is a little disgusted at the way North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper is popping up all over the news exonerating the bunch of ex-athletes. When these three student-athletes invited two strippers to their home in spring of 2006, they must have been getting a jump start on refusing to be role models. If you know my background, you know I’m glad that the bunch was made into a spectacle. Immature sexual behavior brings its spectators and their communities into sinking sands of depravity and should be exposed, if perhaps to save one headed down its path. But if evidence in their favor was withheld and charges were sustained beyond the cases’ legal viability, then I guess they should be vindicated to the greatest extent possible; I would expect as much if the races of the accuser and defendants were reversed.

Justice in the case of Don Imus has a high price. On the one hand, it was shameful that a mainstream news company carried his Archie Bunker commentary. But in the real world, his radio show attracted enough listeners to warrant MSNBC’s endorsement. On the other hand shouldn’t some common places be free from indictment if members of one group want to candidly speak about members of another group? What I’m saying in plain English is, if Tom Joyner was to call Britney Spears a silly, ball-headed cracker, would the African-American community nod in agreement, or demand that he be snatched off the air?

Double standards usually come back to bite somebody in the butt. I don’t want it to be me one day. Whether in my classroom, at my church, in my living room, or on this blog, I don’t want to feel like my speech must be bridled, especially since my voice changes to cater to my intended audience. I do myself a favor to keep my speech free from obscenities or other reactive statements that would misrepresent my character on a good day. In the public sphere, when it all comes down to it, my voice, be it prejudiced, ignorant, or educated and sensible is all I have.

Response by Wanda

I think you’ve covered everything I would say about the subject. My natural proclivity is to deal with the Duke University situation, but this week I will mix things up a little and talk about the double standard African American women have exercised this week in calling for the termination of Don Imus. You should know by now that Imus called the Rutgers University women’s basketball team players “nappy headed hos.” I am not going to deal with the “hos” portion of his commentary because I believe we have discussed that enough. How about the nappy head comment? Why is nappy head a derogatory term? Most African American women unless you have loose curly hair, our hair is nappy (or kinky--I avoided the pejorative analogy “good hair" vs. "bad hair” as if hair has values or morals).

I will not mention the names of women, including close family members, who have literally prayed for their children to have “good” hair. What about videos, television and movies? How likely are we to see roles for “African-American” women cast with Bi-racial women who have curly hair. I even hear people say “Oh yes she’s pretty with that good hair” so what’s wrong with Don Imus saying out loud what you think or imply on a weekly basis?

I have not made the jump to natural hair so I gladly embrace my relaxer every eight weeks. However, I do not see an intrinsic value in naturally curly hair, straight hair or nappy (kinky) hair. Healthy hair vs. damaged hair should be our understanding of the quality of hair. If we empower ourselves and celebrate the diversity of hair textures (especially with our children) that would take the control from ignorant people like Imus to denigrate what is unique to our race.