Noli Irritare Leones

Decades ago, I was volunteering in a drop-in center for an urban ministry. One day, I was at the drop-in center, along with two men, whom I will refer to as White Guy and Black Guy, because, for the purposes of this particular anecdote, their race is what matters. Both of them were living on the street, and White Guy at least (probably Black Guy as well, but I knew him less well) was there long term.

White Guy started to talk about how white people would always run the world, or be the source of all advances and technology, or some such. And I said, to White Guy, with just enough hint of irony that he was sure to hear it, “Of course. They always have.” Meaning, hey, White Guy, you know as well as me that Europeans haven’t always been the dominant civilization of the world. White Guy did know this as well as I did, and he got my meaning.

Black Guy didn’t. He turned to me in anger, and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that no race was that superior to another, and certainly not the one I had named. And I realized, as I listened to him, that I was wrong and he was right. He didn’t know me, and had no reason to assume my good will. I had not made it nearly clear enough that I meant the opposite of what I said – White Guy got it only because White Guy knew me better. And I wasn’t entitled to expect that Black Guy would see through to the inner purity of my mostly non-racist heart when, in this case, my actual words were racist. Nothing in his experience prepared him to make that assumption. Because people do exist, and they aren’t all that rare, who believe things just as racist as what I’d said.

All of which is a roundabout introduction to what I expect will be my last set of links to posts on the whole Don Imus business. Look, many of us may, at one time or another, have said something that came out more racist than whatever we meant to say. So it doesn’t bother me when people who have different past impressions of Don Imus come to different conclusions about just how racist a person he may or may not personally be, or whatever he may actually have meant to convey by referring to some darn good college women’s basketball players as “nappy-headed hos.” That Nathan thinks Imus is being singled out for an opprobrium that would be more deserved by someone like Michael Savage, while zuzu thinks Imus’ past record is so bad that she wonders why it took so long for him to be fired, that’s par for the course. And, since all I knew about him before this incident was that he had some sort of radio show, I have no previous opinion of him to go on.

But a creepy line gets crossed when some of Imus’ defenders go beyond explanations of why he’s a generally good guy, didn’t mean anything racist, has apologized, or whatever, to actual anger that anyone would take “nappy-headed ho” as an insult. Because, what exactly? Because we all know Imus well enough that we should take this as “all in the family,” and something anyone knows he couldn’t mean amiss? Or because, maybe, some of you guys really think it’s OK to see black women as nappy-headed hos? And this happens every darn time some random famous white guy gets flack for saying something racist or sexist, no matter how racist or sexist his actual words may be. It’s getting old.

Now for the links to other people’s comments.

Junia’s Daughter on Imus, apologies, and Holding and Releasing sin.

Stentor has a reflection on Imus and free speech.

And Barbara Ehrenreich, in Nappy-headed Ho’s of the World Unite!, sees a certain ambivalence to Don Imus’ remarks.

But I changed my mind when I saw the whole sequence on the news. Imus didn’t utter those poisonous words in a tone of racist, misogynist, contempt, but with something that sounded like admiration. “That’s some rough girls from Rutgers,” he told producer Bernard McGuirk, “Man, they got tattoos …” It was McGuirk who introduced the ho theme, responding, “’Some hardcore ho’s.”

Not to be out-done in the tastelessness department, Imus then muttered appreciatively, ‘That’s some nappy-headed ho’s there, I’m going to tell you that.” In the same way, an African-American might compliment a male athlete of his own race as “one bad-ass n-word,” or something like that. The Rutgers women were “rough” – which is good in an athlete, right? – inspiring McGuirk and Imus to flex their testosterone
glands and act even tougher, and the only way they could think to do that was by adopting the argot of hip-hop. It was like watching a couple of suburban white boys slouching around in full ghetto get-up: Cute, in a way, but mostly pathetic.

This doesn’t excuse Imus, because he misses a crucial point: That an insult, used often enough, becomes the exclusive property of the insulted. Take the word “bitch,” as applied to any woman with the guts to offend. At first it stung, but then we appropriated it for ourselves. Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote a feminist book called Bitch, and there’s a feminist magazine of the same name. I can call my sister “bitch” in a jokey, tough-gal, way. But you can’t call her that, not if you’re a guy, unless you want to step outside with me.

Non-Imus links:

Kathimerini on a disturbing rise in African sex workers in Greece.

One of the most worrying aspects of this new trend is that trafficking ring members are allegedly exploiting the perceived potency of native African voodoo and spells to hold the women in their grip.

“The women are told that if they do not follow orders, the spells will bring harm to their families, so they dare not speak out,” said Daniil Esdras, head of the Greek office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

In Pray for Courageous Bishops Everywhere, Karen Knapp passes on a pastoral letter of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

City of Brass writes about Islamic banking.

The New York Times reports that Arab and non-Arab militias from Darfur are holding talks in eastern Chad that could result in both groups uniting against the Sudanese government.

Andrea the Serial Deviant writes about a research and treatment program for psychopaths.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Abuse allegations against the Catholic Church have declined for the second year in a row. Meanwhile, the Southern Baptists confront their own abuse scandal.

Former US military leaders are urging action on climate change.

And Blogbharti reports on a feminist interpretation of Indian philosophy.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 7:24 am and is filed under Blogwatch, News and Commentary, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.