Al Sharpton sees red
by James Buchanan
The Don Imus-Nappy Head scandal has dominated the news during an otherwise slow news week. The whole controversy began during a recent “Imus in the Morning” show. Producer Bernard McGuirk said: “that’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos… Some hardcore hoes.” Don Imus (pictured) responded “That’s some nappy-headed hoes.”
The first thing to note is that McGuirk and Imus were using language from rap songs or talking in Ebonics to each other. A White American would say “those are some rough girls” not “that’s some rough girls.” This was just an attempt to be entertaining, which didn’t exactly pan out. One big problem is that the vast majority of the Imus audience has no idea what lyrics are in rap songs.A few searches on a http://search.azlyrics.com/cgi-bin/azseek.cgi?q=nappy+head (Warning: Many lyrics available through this link are highly offensive- editor) reveal that the phrase “nappy head hoes” turns up in 14 rap songs. The more vulgar “nappy head b***h” is found in 25 rap songs. And the expression “nappy head” appears in 51 rap songs. The rappers are responsible for making the term “nappy head” synonymous with “Black,” not Don Imus. The only truly bad term Imus used was “ho” and Imus admits immediately regretting using that term (which his producer had stupidly used first). The producer is much more guilty than Imus, but Al Sharpton prefers to go after a famous talk show host, rather than some two-bit producer, who seems better at destroying a talk show than producing it.
The whole incident stemmed from Imus remarking that one women’s basketball team (from Memphis, Tennessee) was “cute” while the Rutgers team was less than cute. This aspect of the story has been swept under the rug since the pictures of the teams would make people tend to side with Imus. The Memphis team has some very pretty girls while the Rutgers team has some players who range from rough to scary. The producer McGuirk upped the ante by calling the Rutgers’ team “hoes” and Imus went along with McGuirk’s impromptu Ebonics by throwing in a phrase (nappy head) from various popular rap songs. The term “nappy head” merely means kinky haired, but apparently White men are not allowed to point out the obvious such as the mostly Black make up of the Rutgers team without the likes of Al Sharpton running in front of the media cameras to steal another fifteen minutes of fame.
Imus simply stated his opinion that the Tennessee women basketball players were more attractive than the ones from Rutgers. Is this going to be a crime now? Will Al Sharpton be running around the country suing any athletic team which has more attractive White women than the opposing Black players? Will Sharpton demand that Maria Sharapova quit tennis so that Serena Williams doesn’t have such a pretty White girl competing against her? To add insult to injury for Mr. Sharpton, the Tennessee team with the pretty White girls beat the Rutgers team in their last game.