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Rants and Raves From Yours Truly…

RACE MATTERS

It seems as if every time the issue of race or racist remarks comes up in the media (i.e Michael Richards and most recently Don Imus) theres a huge uproar about who can /cannot use certain words (Nigger, nappy, hoe, whatever), as well as who is to blame.  But for all of those involved in the debates on Andreas Hale’s Blog “Fox News Picked On The Wrong Negro!” or any other post involving the Don Imus topic……here are a few unfortunate truths of the world:

RACE MATTERS -
Always has, always will.  And to be completely honest?..thats not even a bad thing.  We need to accept and embrace the differences between the people in the world…and if you say youre “color blind” then how is that possible?  The only bad part of race mattering is when people choose to degrade, discredit, disenfranchise or otherwise destroy people based on their race.

I CAN SAY IT, YOU CAN’T –
Lets take race out of the equation for a second.  Lets say two people of the same race (Black, White, Purple, doesn’t matter) are talking.  Jane is complaining to John about her mother and calls her a “fuckin’ bitch”.  The next week, Jane overhears John calling her mother a bitch and takes EXTREME offense to it.  Double standard? Sure.  But there are tons of things in life that aren’t fair. This is one of them.  People are entitled to talk shit about “their own”, but others can’t.  Now of course, it was wrong for Jane to call her own mother a bitch (just as how one could argue it’s wrong for the Black community to call their women bitches and hoes etc), and Jane (as well as the Black community) might want to have some insightful dialogue about why this is happening… but that doesn’t make it open game for outsiders.

“BITCHES AINT SHIT BUT HOES AND TRICKS ” © Snoop –
Now, a lot of people came down on Snoop for trying to justify why a rapper can use demeaning terms for women and Imus can’t (see     Meka Soul’s blog "Snoop Dogg, Voice of the Black People". But at the risk of being burned at the feminist stake…I kinda agree with     Snoop…

       For those that don’t know, this is what was said:

 "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about hoes that's in the 'hood that ain't doing shit, that's trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthafuckas say we in the same league as him."

Lets be honest.  There are some scandalous-ass women who earn the title of being called a bitch or a hoe…and there are others that do not….Im sorry if you think that’s an ignorant comment, but that’s just the way I feel.  And I don’t wanna hear anyone try to discredit me on that unless you have never in your LIFE called a woman a bitch or a hoe EVER…

FREEDOM OF SPEECH HAS A DARK SIDE-
I guess what bothers me about this whole thing is that I get the sense that the “Thought Police” will be knocking at our doors soon. When we start censoring what people can and cannot talk about or say about people then we start to enter a very dangerous territory.  We     cannot say that there is freedom of speech in America, then put an asterisk next to it saying “only as long as you are saying nice, polite, appropriate things”.  YES, most people (including myself)  were in some degree offended by what Don Imus said…but think about how the whole Hip-Hop community banded together when they tried to ban 2 Live Crew for their offensive lyrics?? Oh no, we weren’t havin it then. People must understand that some of our freedoms are a double-edged sword, and what cuts others might also cut us one day. 

 

So whats the solution? I have no f*ckin idea.  But I CAN tell you this: The conspiracy- theorist  part of me believes that Imus is being used as a Trojan Horse.  The “gift” to the Black community is feeling like we have in some how won a battle against racism…but hidden within that gift is a wide open opportunity to once again try to censor our music and, therefore, our culture.  So we (as in the Hip-Hop community) all need to be very careful about being so quick to point fingers, because I bet any amount of money that we’re next.

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