Welcome to Rastafari Speaks
  Login/Create an Account Homepage | Interactive Home | Weblog | Links | Forums  

Main Menu
· Interactive Home 
· Search 
· Stories Archive 
· Surveys 
· AvantGo 
· Recommend Us 
· Feedback 
· Web Links 
· Private Messages 
· Your Account 
· Amazon Shopping 

Website Links

· AfricaSpeaks Home 
· Rasta Times 
· Articles/Archive 
· News Weblog 
· Rastafari Archive 
· Marcus Garvey 
· Haile Selassie 
· Message Board 
· Reasoning Forum 
· Black Africans 
· Reasoning Archive 
· Sudan Crisis 
· Zimbabwe 
· Haiti's Coup 
· Venezuela/Chavez 

Website Info.

· About Us 
· Terms of Use 
· Fair Use Notice 
· Privacy Policy 

Big Story of Today
There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.

Categories Menu
  • African Diaspora
  • Book Reviews
  • Caribbean
  • Caribbean Views
  • Haile Selassie
  • Israel/Palestine
  • Marcus Garvey
  • Poetry
  • Psychology
  • Racism Watch
  • Rasta Revolution
  • Rastafari
  • South America
  • Spirituality
  • Syria
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • U.S.A.
  • War and Terror
  • War on Libya
  • War with Russia
  • Women
  • World Focus

  • Old Articles
    Thursday, May 19
    ·
    Monday, April 25
    ·
    Friday, April 22
    · Denying Discrimination: Clintonian Political Calculus and the Culture of Hooey
    Wednesday, December 09
    · The Religious Element of Terrorism
    Sunday, November 29
    ·
    Saturday, November 21
    · The Paris Attacks and the White Lives Matter Movement
    Sunday, September 27
    · Freedom Rider: Ahmed Mohamed and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
    Monday, August 10
    ·
    Saturday, June 20
    · America Prosecutes the World
    Wednesday, April 29
    · Skip Gates and Sony Exposed by Wikileaks

    Older Articles

    Books
    Buy Books

    Racism Watch: Imus and White Privilege: Don't Blame Rap Music
    Posted on Sunday, April 15 @ 10:45:31 UTC by admin

    Black and White By Ayinde
    rastafaritimes@yahoo.com
    April 15, 2007


    We are witnessing an attempt to portray Don Imus as a victim of a Black conspiracy and hypocrisy. Apparently many commentators want to make Africans complicit in Don Imus' racist, sexist and homophobic conduct.

    Don Imus is a racist and not much different from most other Whites.

    Just because Whites have been hearing some Rap and Hip Hop artists using the terms 'ho' and 'nigga', making statements about their 'ghetto' disposition when relating to each other, this does not mean that Whites should use such terms to or about Africans, including in jest. I never met one White person who was unclear about this. But because Imus, a White icon, crossed the line and had to pay (temporarily, as Whites are already supporting him), Whites are suddenly pretending that they do not understand the difference. Whites should know that because of racism, Africans have been experimenting with different ways to create enclaves for themselves. Rap was born out of this.

    Before I go further, let me say that I do not condone Africans using the terms 'ho', 'bitch' and 'nigga' to refer to each other although I know when African Americans use these terms they do not carry the same racist weight as when Whites use them towards Africans. There is the history of White supremacy behind the use of these words by Whites and this can never be ignored. It was only a matter of time before some arrogant Whites felt their privileges entitled them to cross the line and publicly call Africans 'niggers' once more.

    Many Africans, including myself, have been discouraging other African Americans from using these derogatory terms towards each other, but the White mainstream media was not interested in promoting our point of view. The White-owned media are making money from Rap and Hip Hop and if they thought the terms were derogatory they surely had no problem with Africans degrading each other. They promoted derogatory references to Blacks in Rap and Hip Hop music, so they cannot now blame African leaders.

    Commentators are now claiming that Africans were not raising hell when some Africans use 'derogatory' terms towards other Africans. They want to see Africans be as firm with other Africans as we are with Whites who disrespect us.

    As a result of institutionalized White racism, some Africans have been killing and prostituting themselves in the 'ghetto' over cocaine the U.S. government intentionally flooded these communities with. Many are survivors of this scourge. These are the communities that some Africans grew up in and learned the language of Whites in relation to their deprived conditions. They knew, to White America, they were nothing but 'niggers' and 'whores'.

    White society has not made it easy for Africans to pull themselves up. As the Rutgers incident shows, even if Blacks try to do their best in White America, the demoralizing racism will always follow them.

    The playing field is not level, so it is very dishonest for Whites, who have the system loaded in their favour, to be trying to claim they are not getting equal treatment from Africans. Whites prove they have no intention of relinquishing their White privilege to promote equality.

    Africans have a shared history of mistreatment at the hands of Whites and should be used to Whites fueling dissension among Africans. Although Africans have to take personal responsibility for their conduct, the poor conduct of some Africans is as a result of the legacy of slavery and the racist societies they live in that deny them equal opportunity. So it is understandable that Africans would be more tolerant of other Africans using these words than of Whites. White Jews are more tolerant of the poor conduct of fellow Jews than others with a similar conduct towards them. American Indians are more tolerant of the poor conduct of each other than of others towards them. People are less offended when people who share their experiences poke fun at them.

    Generally speaking, most Whites should know that when Africans use the term 'nigga' as a term of endearment towards each other, they are making a statement about how society views and treats them while signaling to other Africans that they can love each other and develop in spite of the system. That is a very powerful and complex statement that allows Blacks to have a sanctuary in a society that promotes Whites privileges. Whites cannot get that intimate with Africans and they cannot enter certain domains of discourse because of Whites privilege.

    Don Imus represents White privilege and unaddressed racism. Most Whites are trying to stay in denial about their own racism in order to hang onto their White privilege; thus they support Don Imus.

    From the time the Imus story broke, many White spokespersons and even some Blacks have been trying to flip the script to place the blame on Africans. All of a sudden, some of these commentators are saying that the word 'ho', in reference to women, was developed in the Black community.

    For the neophyte, the term 'ho' is derived from the word 'whore', which was derived from the Old English word 'hore'. The general meaning is a prostitute. Whites introduced 'Nigger', 'bitch' and all the other derogatory words that some African Rap artists use.

    There are many issues that Africans have to resolve within the African community and among the many is the use of derogatory terms. Many Africans have been addressing these issues but there would be no 'big stick' approach as Africans in general are survivors of the racist system.

    Whites have to know that their privileges do not allow them to empathize with Africans on many levels so they cannot easily follow all African discourses. They just cannot be part of everything. Their society does not allow equal opportunity; therefore, they cannot expect Africans to react towards them the same as they would to other Africans.

    White privilege only goes so far.

    Email: rastafaritimes@yahoo.com


     
    Related Links
    · More about Black and White
    · News by admin


    Most read story about Black and White:
    Skin tone important for African Americans seeking jobs


    Article Rating
    Average Score: 4.68
    Votes: 19


    Please take a second and vote for this article:

    Excellent
    Very Good
    Good
    Regular
    Bad


    Options

     Printer Friendly Printer Friendly



    Views expressed on our Websites are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared, endorsed, or recommended by the management and staff of RastafariSpeaks.com.

    All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © 2004- 2008 RastafariSpeaks.com.
    You can syndicate our news using the file backend.php or ultramode.txt

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.10 Seconds
    AfricaSpeaks.com