Rising above it
THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT the racist and sexist remark that cost Don Imus his job has been analyzed from a multitude of perspectives. But two aspects of this episode are worth noting: the decency of the Rutgers basketball players that the shock jock disparaged as “nappy-headed hos” and the reminder that America’s racial divide, while it may be narrowing, hasn’t disappeared.
Imus was toppled from his perch at CBS Radio and MSNBC by a combination of factors. Protests from advertisers and network employees played a part, as did the fact that this wasn’t by any means his first offense against civility.
Still, a turning point may have come Tuesday with the news conference by the mostly black Rutgers squad. The young women, deprived of their dignity for the sake of a cheap joke, impressively gave the lie to Imus’ characterization of them. Nothing shamed Imus more than comments like this one from sophomore center Kia Vaughn: “Unless they’ve given ‘ho’ a whole new definition, that’s not what I am.”
The grace under pressure shown by Vaughn and her teammates was especially admirable because of the way Imus’ remark touched the raw nerve of race.
Yes, his crack was also misogynistic, and yes, the word “ho” passes the lips of African American rappers. But when a white American uses the word to disparage black women, he is drawing on -- and he should know he is drawing on -- a centuries-old well of white disrespect for black people. W.E.B. DuBois wrote that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line.” That dividing line didn’t end when the century did.
The persistence of that divide was evident in this week’s other racially charged story: the exoneration of three former Duke University lacrosse players. Because the men were white and the woman they were accused of assaulting was black, too many Americans jumped to the conclusion that here was a reenactment of the historical victimization of black women by white men. (And some whites no doubt questioned the accuser’s story simply because she was black.)
Like the Rutgers basketball players, the three defendants in the Duke case were victims, and they too put some of their elders to shame with a hard-won dignity and even wisdom.
“If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever,” said Reade Seligmann, “I can’t imagine what they would do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves.” He didn’t add -- he didn’t have to -- that many of the people he referred to are black.