Sounding Off!

Just had to say something about the Don Imus/Rutgers womens basketball mess. I am a firm believer in free speech, I think that's the one of the most appealing things to me about America, the right to speak regardless of one's opinions but I also feel we hold a responsiblitly for whatever rolls off our tongues into listening ears. I was very angered by what Imus said particularly because I am a Rutgers student and I know first hand the pride that the womens basketball team has brought to us all in the collegiate community. These girls overcame many odds in reaching the NCAA finals and were the first team, not the first female basketball team, but the very first team in the schools history (spanning over 200 years) to play in a national championship game of any kind. Very little has been made of that over the last week, very little in my opinion in New Jersey and even more surprising, in Rutgers and I say this because not too long ago, the school was in full "scarlet fever" living and dying with every play made by the Football team who eventually managed a minor bowl berth.

As I said before, I support every individuals right to speak regardless of what is being said which is why I'm not supporting Al Sharpton's push to have Imus' microphone permanently turned off. I believe that having listeners turn away from his broadcast or advertisers cut campaigns from his program will send a clear enough message that whatever you say, in whatever context will be held to a certain standard of decency.

While we're chastizing Imus for his comments (Al Sharpton and co) what is to be said of black run magazines, black entertainment television studios, even black operated radio stations continuing to support the DMX's, Snoops, Eminems and venerate the Tu Pac's and Biggie Smalls all of whom profit from their defamatory and degrading music. Don't we have any responsibilies whatsoever for how we represent ourselves seeing that now, in the present, we do have some leverage and some power to do so. If Al Sharpton will crusade in equal measure against mysognistic and homophobic representations from the black community with as much fervor as he does against the Micheal Richards and Don Imus' of Ameica, maybe this will hit more of a nerve amongst everyone especially those who from their high thrones of power will not ... or maybe cannot understand how deep the roots of white supremacist ideology have sunk in the minds of many black and white americans.

What hurts me so much when I hear discussions of black people in america is the blatant unwillingness of many white americans (and some other minorities) to look back on a sordid history that is as much thiers as it is black america's. Weather black people or white people want to admit it or not, they have shaped each other. Without the white man, there would be no negro american, and without the negro american, america would never have become the democracy it prides itself in today. Then why is it we can't help each other look back as a way to move forward. where are the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks Baldwin spoke of, why haven't they multiplied since. How is it that many white people can look me in the face and say its no different when a white person uses the N word as opposed to when a black person uses it. There is a world of different between Don Imus calling a bunch of mostly black girls in college "nappy-headed hos" than say if Dave Chappelle said so and yes, its because one is white and the other black. I make no justification of the use of such derogatory characterizations because there is none but the difference is there and you'd see it if you only opened your eyes to the true nature of your past. If you would only see that throughout history, the image of the african america has always been fashioned for him and not by him and he (the black american) has never had the power to either resist or control these images. Thats where the hurt comes from, that why black leaders and all conscionable people of any ethnicity ought to be outraged. Lets start by seeing that much and we can begin to see why hopelessness pervades the ghettos or why black men are locked up in jail in high numbers, why many young black men find a role model in 50 cent as opposed to Obama and why black on black crime is on the rise.

You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. Jame Baldwin

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to go on this long or this far off tangent but I'm mad...a bunch of young, classy ladies who have decided to do positive things with thier lives and are doing it and doing it as well as anyone who has ever done it before them, have been subject to racist barbs dressed up as "comedy" by old men who ought to know better. I hope this sets up some dialogue within the black community that you cannot continue to scrutinize others more intensely that you do yourself without running the risk of sounding hypocritical. An even greater leap of ... hope will be that we will all examine our past in order to understand why things are ordered like they are today.

:-) Hey I can dream...chances both these things will happen is slim to nil. GO RU WOMEN"S BASKETBALL ... maybe thats all that needs to be said. Sorry for all the typos and fragmented thoughts and what-nots, all this just poured out all at once.