Wednesday, April 11

Hold Up (Imus continued...)

(4/5) First:


Wow. I'm trying to not let that "We've got a long way to go..." feeling sink in.

(4/10) Then: He talked about it/around it with The Voice of All Black Folks and tried to explain himself.

(4/11) And now: MSNBC's cuttin him loose. But I think MSNBC should be destroyed altogether. Either way, I'm surprised the sponsors pulled out, I'm surprised the network dropped him. But those three words struck a nerve so deep, the consequence doesn't even begin to make me, or anyway I've talked to, feel better.

At the bodega today, with his face all over all the newspapers, I heard this from two black women that work at the school above mine:
"Ha ha, he called them nappy headed!"
"Yeah, he called them nappy-headed hos! Hahaha!"
"And then tell me why at the press conference all those bitches had their hair done?"

Long way to go, indeed.

2 comments:

meera bowman-johnson said...

That's interesting about the bodega comments you overheard (I miss that about the city...kind of!).
Is it just me, or are there two schools of black thought on this:
1) Those of us who are Happy to be Nappy (or aren't, but still appreciate natural hair) and resent the term "nappy" being used that way, especially combined with the word ho' to insult somebody.
2) Those of us who wouldn't be caught dead with "nappy" hair and feel the need to show white folks that by getting Hawaiian Silky relaxers and wraps the night before the press conference or being a 50+ year old black man, leading marches with a perm.

And is it just me, or does it seem like many of us were much more offended by the first part of the insult than the second?

On so many levels and for so many reasons, we all have a loooong way to go.

Great blog. :)

ahnka said...

Hey Mrs. J,

Thank you.
And yeah, I do think there are two camps when it comes to how we keeep our hair. I'm finding that older Black men are almost always in the first. See a fro seems to bring back sweet memories for them.
Anyway, I told my older sister about your blog. She's raising a 6-year old and 4-year old fraternal twins. I think your writing might offer her some perspective she's not accepting from her side of the family, mostly about how to raise kids while being thoughtful of racial dynamics.