The recent outcry by black and white citizens—both for and against—sparked by the callous comments of radio Shock Jock Don Imus, that described the African American players on the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy heade ho’s,” has caused an avalanche of controversy, and placed the twin specters of gender and ethnicity at the epicenter of public discourse.
In his rebuttal to detractors, proponents and various media outlets, Imus, in Flip Wilson* style, rationalizes his remarks by asserting that his words originated in the African American community. On the April 10th (2007) NBC Today Show, Imus told host Matt Lauer:
“I may be a white man, but I know that…young black women all through that society are demeaned and disparaged and disrespected…by their own black men and they are called that name.”
The debaters in the ring on this issue are: public figures such as TV evangelist Pat Buchanan, scores of citizen bloggers and social conservatives that support Imus’s constitutional rights to free speech; the liberal leaning activist community that wants Imus fired because of his perceived, inherent racism; and lastly, the Hip Hop music industry that believes Imus was wrong, but, that Hip Hop artists should maintain a level of freedom that allows for free artistic expression—even if it means course, lewd, derisive expression.
One key element of the debate, which none of the aforementioned parties (and very few media pundits) has trumpeted very loudly is the money making aspect. The American business structure and our very existence as the world’s number one super power, is predicated upon our economic system. Capitalism must have an ongoing cycle of goods (regardless of tangibility), sellers and consumers.
Regardless of how profane and crass some consider Imus, he does meet and far exceed the criteria of what corporations look for in a strong, viable, money generating entity. The same can be said for the commercial rap music industry; though considered repugnant in some circles, is in fact a fattened cash cow, with adherents on urban streets and high rise board rooms hypnotized by its hedonism, machoism and bling-bling http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/bling.
When the rapper Nas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nas recently commented that Hip Hop is dead, he may have been referring to the fact that black and Hispanic inner city urban youth are no longer the primary consumers of rap music, and that corporate control has stifled musical innovation which was the hallmark of jazz, R&B etc. The car window rattling music, the prison inspired low hanging pants and the sexist, violence-laced songs have found a home in Middle America. The Hood has moved to the corn fields of Iowa, the potato fields of Idaho and other areas of suburbia—and with it drive by shootings, drug activity, gangs etc.
Constitutional rights and consumerism aside: I am of the opinion that the Hip Hop rappers and Mr. Imus are birds of the same feather except on different birds! But they may both be influenced by “unconscious racial and gender” attitudes and, a degree of self hate that even they are unaware of.
The journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell http://www.gladwell.com/ devotes an entire chapter to the subtleties of unconscious attitudes in his book Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking http://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316172324 . In the chapter “The Warren Harden Error,” Gladwell contends that of the 50,000 African Americans that have taken the race assessment test, over half tended to see whites (Anglo Americans) in a more positive light than blacks.
The conscious attitudes of prejudice and race are stated values and belief systems; which was apparent in the segregated Jim Crow South, apartheid era South Africa and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. But the “unconscious attitudes” are far more nefarious; in that they tend to be the automatic assumptions people make when they see or experience something, e.g. people, events etc. Often these assumptions have their origins in daily living, people, books, parents, television etc.
What unconscious associations will the policeman make when he sees a young African American male dressed in the popular youth attire of the day? What unconscious associations will an Arab national make when he sees a white airport officer approach him in a crowded airport? Similarly, what unconscious associations went through his Mr. Imus’s mind when he saw the African American women basketball players? Or, what unconscious associations do Rap musicians have when they see young black women? The associated image might register as a benevolent maid or a bikini-clad, rump shaking video girl or a smart business woman.
The self-hate and prejudice that portray women in negative stereotypical ways so prevalent in rap videos, books and popular culture has its origins in America history. A good book on the subject is Winthrop Jordan’s The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States.
This type of ethnic self-loathing, which may have been brought about by the continuous, generational onslaught of negative portrayals (in image, word and deed) was first brought to America’s attention by pioneering psychologists Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/kenneth_mamie_clark.html.
In the Clark’s Doll Test (conducted in 1954), black and white dolls were shown to black and white children across the United States. The children were asked which dolls were nice, which dolls were bad and, which they would like to play with. The majority of the white and black children chose to play with the white dolls and reacted to them positively. The majority of the same children reacted to the black dolls with disdain and contempt.
Some might argue that these reactions are not applicable to our modern situation; that the children of Pre-Civil Rights Bill America were products of their environment and education. However, a young New York film maker Kiri Davis, in her short film A Girl Like Me http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/6/# corroborates the Clark’s earlier findings and reminds us that today’s Hip Hop http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/topics/urban/hip-hop.php, rap music loving youth, are not immune to the ignorance and illogical thinking of an earlier generation.
As a result of the mergence, development and access to New Media http://rebuildingmedia.corante.com/archives/2006/04/27/what_is_new_media.php younger generations may be more prone to emulate the nescient behavior frowned upon by W.E.B. DuBois’s http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html Talented Tenth http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=174 and people of an older generation.
Individuals interested in understanding their own unconscious attitudes relative to race and gender are asked to take the Implicit Association Test or IAT developed by psychologist Anthony Greenwald. This online assessment test can be found at http://www.I-A-T.org.
Although current governmental and constitutional laws have, by and large removed many of the vestiges of inequality in American life, it may be erroneous to conclude that the progeny of the persecuted (African Americans) and the persecutor (Anglo Americans) are void of astuteness, sophistication and learnedness. Learned patterns of behavior are especially difficult to unlearn. Who knows? Maybe at the end of the day, Mr. Imus, today’s crude Rappers, the Hip Hop music industry and the professional critics will laugh their way to the bank while the bamboozled consumer constituents and social reformists debate the reasons they were not allowed to share in the wealth.
* The comedian Flip Wilson had a TV comedy show in the early 1970s and one of his characters (the mercurial Geraldine often justified her bad actions by saying “The Devil Made Me Do It!”
