01 Apr 2007 Black Liberals Need To Stop The Double Standard, by Akindele Akinyemi

Black Liberals Need To Stop The Double Standard by Akindele Akinyemi (bio)

Radio host Don Imus’s reputation and career quickly went downhill.

Imus recently made the bad decision to describe the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “rough girls” with “tattoos,” adding, “That’s some nappy-headed hos there.”  Imus’s executive producer Bernard McGuirk described them as “hardcore hos” and compared the game to “the jigaboos vs. the wannabees” – apparently referring to the Spike Lee film “School Daze” that addresses intra-racial divisions at historically-black colleges.  Imus sports announcer Sid Rosenberg added: “The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors [professional men’s basketball team].”

Here is the actual dialogue (from Wikipedia):

DON IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between – a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women’s final.

SID ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night – seventh championship for [Tennessee coach] Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and…

BERNARD McGUIRK: Some hardcore hos.

IMUS: That’s some nappy-headed hos there.  I’m gonna tell you that now, man, that’s some – woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like – kinda like – I don’t know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The jigaboos vs. the wannabes – that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough…

CHARLES McCORD [co-host]: “Do the Right Thing.”

McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

IMUS: I don’t know if I’d have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch.  The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

I must say that what Imus and his buddies said on the air was out of line.  I feel it’s a shame, however, that black liberals are always protesting and demanding white people be fired for saying something stupid while we give blacks who consistently call our sisters bitches and hos on a regular basis a free pass.  We degrade our race by trying to live like “Good Times” or live out our lives in poverty.  We enjoy sagging our pants in public, even in church.

Imus was right about something.  Those sisters on the Rutgers Basketball team were sporting tattoos.  Why would you risk getting Hepatitis with those needles?  How can you get a decent-paying job with 20 tattoos on your body?  I mean both arms, legs, neck and – for sisters – a tat on your behind?

We have people in our community who call black women freaks, hizzoes, hos (yes, even nappy-head hos), tramps, pigeons, dykes, jiggas and skanks.  We call each other the n-word (oh, I forgot we graduated – now we call each other “niggas”), fags and other dreadful names.

We never demand Wendy Williams be from fired from her radio show and VH1 for what she says, or other black personalities who call other races disrespectful names.  I have heard black personalities and black liberals call whites “crackers” and “redneck hillbillies.”  But, if a white person calls someone black a “ho,” we demand the person’s removal?

What about black radio programs that actively promote sex, soft porn and violence?  The images that are shown on black-oriented television can be compared to a minstrel show.  We show brothers and sisters fornicating on TV (not making love), calling each other bitches and showing the most un-Christian images.  Yet no one is protesting those shows.

Will you ever see the Reverend Al Sharpton demanding more positive images from black-oriented television and radio shows?  Hell no, unless it has a liberal twist.

This is why I never pay attention to the establishment black liberal leadership.  They love to play a double standard with people.  Urban conservatives should not even fall for the traps of the liberal media and their black pawns.

#  #  #

Akindele Akinyemi is a member of the national advisory council of the black leadership network Project 21.  Comments may be sent to [email protected].

Published by The National Center for Public Policy Research. Reprints permitted provided source is credited. New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21 or the National Center for Public Policy Research.