Imus has always been an equal opportunity offender
for more than three decades. His no-holds-barred humor has assailed
broad demographics of the American public, from heads of state
to homeless citizens.
So why now his firing? And any explication that
Imus’ firing is because his influence is far more reaching
and egregiously vile than the gangsta genre of hip-hop, from which
Imus appropriates the language, is an example of modern-day Orwellian
doublespeak.
Or is there a subtext here in this imbroglio?
Unspoken is that Imus hurled a gender specific
racial invective that struck a raw nerve in the African American
community - black women’s hair. He ridiculed the Rutgers
women’s basketball team by not only calling them “hos”
but by also calling them “nappy-headed” ones. The
other n-word in the African American community.
While the etymology of the work “nappy”
derives from Britain meaning a baby’s cotton napkin or diaper,
in America, the word became racialized to mean unkempt wild and
wooly hair associated with people of African descent. Used to
demean and to degrade African Americans, the word “nappy-headed”
is a loaded word in our cultural lexicon, even today since the
afro hairstyle.
However, depending on the users’ tone, tenor
and intent, the word can also be received as a compliment. But
when it is not, the word is unquestionably a put-down. And hearing
the word used pejoratively from the mouth of Imus stoked both
the historical flames of American racism and the shame and stigma
African American women have borne for centuries about their hair.
And any acts of contrition by Imus, from going
on the obligatory “beat down” trail by appearing on
Al Sharpton's radio show to expressing a heartfelt apology - both
publicly on the airwaves or privately to the women’s basketball
team - would not absolve Imus for jokingly stepping on this land
mine.
But even with good intentions the land mine can
be detonated. In 1998 Ruth Ann Sherman, a white third grade teacher,
who taught in a predominately African American and Latino elementary
school in Brooklyn, learned that lesson. Unlike Imus, Sherman’s
intent was to teach acceptance of racial differences and to teach
black children, especially, about self-acceptance when she read
African American author Carolivia Herron’s award winning
children’s book “Nappy Hair, ” a celebration
of black hair. And while Sherman’s children loved the book
their parents and the community, however, loathed the book’s
premise and the topic being taught and talked about by someone
outside of their cultural milieu.
While many African American women today wear their
hair in afros, cornrows, locks, braids, Senegalese twists, wraps
or bald, our hair - both symbolically and literally - continues
to be a battlefield in this country's politics of hair and beauty
aesthetics, within and outside of the African American community.
And it is also the elephant that sits in middle
of the Imus debate.
BC columnist, the Rev. Irene
Monroe is a religion columnist, public theologian, and speaker.
She is a Ford Fellow and doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity
School. As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks
for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website
is www.irenemonroe.com.
Click
here to contact the Rev. Monroe. |