Don Imus, Hip Hop and Racism

Filed in archive Latin Chat on April 16, 2007

The following is a statement from Russell Simmons, Chairman, and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, President of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network:
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"Hip-hop is a worldwide cultural phenomena that transcends race and doesn't engage in racial slurs. Don Imus' racially-motivated diatribe toward the Rutgers' women's basketball team was in no way connected to hip-hop culture. As Chairman and President of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), respectively, we are concerned by the false comparisons some in the media are making between Don Imus and hip-hop. We want to clarify what we feel very strongly is an obvious difference between the two.

"HSAN believes in freedom of artistic expression. We also believe, with that freedom, comes responsibility. Don Imus is not a hip-hop artist or a poet. Hip-hop artists rap about what they see, hear and feel around them, their experience of the world. Like the artists throughout history, their messages are a mirror of what is right and wrong with society. Sometimes their observations or the way in which they choose to express their art may be uncomfortable for some to hear, but our job is not to silence or censor that expression. Our job is to be an inclusive voice for the hip-hop community and to help create an environment that encourages the positive growth of hip-hop.

Language can be a powerful tool. That is why ones intention, when using the power of language, should be made clear. Comparing Don Imus' language with hip-hop artists' poetic expression is misguided and inaccurate and feeds into a mindset that can be a catalyst for unwarranted, rampant censorship."

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Do you agree with him? Do you think hip-hop is a "poetic expression" that "doesn't engage in racial slurs"?

I think Leonard Pitts Jr. nailed it in this article in The Miami Herald: Don Imus isn't the only one who ought to be ashamed. He says:

There are a few things that need saying here:

One, it is beyond pathetic that two grown men would use the reach and power afforded them as members of the media to mock the looks of a bunch of college girls.

Two, while it is fitting that Mr. Imus' slur has angered and energized the black community, one hopes we'll see this same indignation next time some idiot black rapper (paging Snoop Dogg) refers to black women in terms this raw or worse. Indeed, it's doubtful Mr. Imus would have even known the word "ho" - black slang for "whore" - had idiot black rappers not spent the last 20 years popularizing it. (...)

What's sad isn't that he was willing to lead in that direction.

What's sad is that so many of us were willing to follow.

Leonard is absolutely right. Racism (not only against "black people" but against any "people" who is considered different of ourselves) exists because too many of us are willing to follow this kind of horrible thinking about other human beings.