Letters to the Editor
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Joan--
Good on you for standing up to that stupidity last night. For half a minute, I thought I'd stumbled on some kind of brilliant satire-- but no, it was just another night on Scarborough Country.
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Thank you for speaking up about the nonsense.
And for continuing to point out that not all rap music is misogynistic. Too often rap/hip-hop is talked about as if it is monolithic.
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I'm Overweight
The NOTORIOUS B.I.G. made me eat all that stuff.
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Joan...
what are your plans to go after rappers? Imus has been taken care of and since you have such a deep seated offence at comments like Imus made, rappers would be the next logical target.
Who at the recording companies will you be pursuing? How will you be utilizing the power of Salon to rid us of the hateful terms that can no longer hide behind the facade of entertainment.
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This Is Liable To...
...piss off the terrorists. The rappers are taking away all their pub.
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Has anyone else had Imus nightmares?
Last night--I am not kidding--I had a horrible dream that Nosferatu, wearing a clown wig and a cowboy hat, chased me around with a garden hoe. Has anyone else had Imus nightmares, or is it just me?
Of course, I guess I can just blame my bad dream on rappers--Puff Squiddly Diddly Daddy snuck in my room, put a microchip in my brain, and is now programming me to have bad thoughts and dreams about poor old (and I do mean OLD) I-Man. It's all part of their master plan to...I'm not sure what!
Keep sticking it to Joe, Joan!
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Joan's bias is showing.
Joan concedes that rap music is misogynistic. Why then won't she acknowledge its popularity and influence, which incidentally is well documented? And it's like what Joan is positing that Imus lives in a vacuum, a sum of innate personality traits completely divorced from the world in which he lives. Silly, and logically strained.
I didn't see Scar Co, but I don't think that what people are saying is that Imus bears no responsibility. It doesn't have to be either/or.
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Why the surprise, Joan?
Apparently, it is the fault of black rappers, Sharpton, and Jackson for poor Don Imus's unfortunate gaffe. Not that he is an adult with working brain and responsible for his own actions. And oh, this is really a civil rights issue for poor white men and their right to use derogatory words - as they so eloquently did in your emails. Kinda makes that civil rights movement in the 60's seem so silly, huh?
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Stupid excuse, but
You know, hip hop made me do it is a stupid excuse. It's also stupid when people say "Black people use the n-word so why can't I?" Context matters, especially in a free society. But every time a debate like this surfaces, someone makes the "they do it, too" argument and many, many people seem to buy it.
Do I think Imus is a racist because of hip hop? No. Not at all. But do I think the misogyny, especially against women of color, that permeates hip hop influences racist people? Yes. I think that racists are, in general, not very smart. They don't understand context. I think that if they hear Nelly or Jay-Z use vulgar language, it validates their own desire to do so. Hearing it from people of color just makes it a little more acceptable, even though the context is different. (BTW, I don’t defend vulgarity or misogyny found in hip hop or any other kind music. I don’t think its okay. I just think the context is different.)
But the trick here is, Imus doesn't strike me as a hip hop listener. If he were a teenage white boy with a IPOD full misogyny, I'd be willing to debate hip hip's influence on attitudes. Imus? Pull the other one.
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I'm Starting To Smell
State constitutional amendments at the ballot box dealing with rap music.
That's the kind of thing that can deflect attention away from stuff like bombs going off in the Iraqi Politicians cafeteria inside the green zone.
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Rap music is white music
Aside from the "entrepenuers" such as Jay Z, Puffy, et al, the rap industry is headed by old white men. The heads of most, almost all, the major record companies who represent rap music are white. They do not care about the culture they are destroying, they only care about making money.
Rap is capable of GREAT things. I once heard someone say that rap is like an engine that could power the world, but it is currently being used as a door stop.
To condemn rap, and the rap artists, for anything is wrong. Condemn the people who really profit from it, and have the ability to change it.
That being said, I believe that using rap, in this case, as a scapegoat for Dom Imus' comments is wrong. I'm surprised they didn't use this reasoning to excuse Anne Coulter for calling John Edwards a faggot. After all they say that in rap as well.
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I am not defending Imus at all, but there is a question of why
Imus can't use words that are aired thousands of times daily over the radio and on tv.
Is it because:
a) Imus attacked young women in college that were obvious not how he described them and had no platform to defend themselves?
b) Imus used these words on public airwaves and not on cable?
c) Imus is white?
I understand that there is a double standard on the use of certain words, the n word. And I believe that double standard is reasonable, especially in personal conversations and writings. I am not sure that double standard should be allowed to exist on broadcast media, or be defended when exploited in a profit driven manner.
When Al Sharpton years ago spoke against the use of "Ho", what was the media's response to Sharpton? Was he taken seriously? What was Salon's response?
If the point of the rappers is that they are artists, and they are making commentary on society, then why can't Imus make that claim too?
Now, I don't know what the defense of the rappers is. But maybe Salon could look into that. I am not defending Imus, I am asking why it is somehow okay for rappers to use these words and still have society EXPECT that no one else can.
In a similar vein, look at the "b" word, which I would never use. But I certainly hear women call each other "b" all of the time, and I also hear feminists claim a) if men use the "b" word they are misogynists, but b) the feminists have reclaimed the "b" word so it's okay for one feminist to call other women a "b". In the meantime, the word is now so prevalent that the "Winx club", a cartoon for young girls about witches, feels free to have one witch call another witch a "weeyotch" as in of course, a "beeyotch", a bitch.
So is it rational for society to give artists a pass on their language and still expect the rest of society not to pick up and use that language?
And how is all of that language policing and thought policing working out for us anyway?