By Lindsay Christ
After a controversial week in the media over language use and free speech, the African Peoples Organization (APO) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held a debate in the Student Center on Wednesday over the controversy surrounding Don Imus and his comments about the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball team.
The discussion started by showing the clip where Imus refers to the Rutgers team as “nappy-headed hos.” The panel of officers from both the APO and the NAACP then started the debate by raising the question, “Do you think it was right for him to be fired?” One student answered yes, saying that he had a history of bigotry, while another said no, saying that it was just satire and he targets everyone, despite race, gender or religious background.
In the audience, another student voiced that since Imus got fired, then many other more controversial hosts should also be terminated and eventually free speech would be obsolete. They also pointed out that hip hop artists today have many songs with the words “bitch” and “ho” as commonplace slang.
Many students also said the only reason that Imus was fired was because Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson pushed so hard for his immediate dismissal from CBS. Since the day after Imus was fired, he donated money to children in Africa and raised millions in revenue for CBS from advertisers during his radio broadcast. Overall, students at the panel felt that he was not truly racist because he repeated terms that are already found in popular youth culture.
However, a major concern discussed among APO and the NAACP are the subsequent effects these phrases have on young people. One member of the audience cited black leader Malcolm X-urging African-Americans to stand up against white dominance by resolving problems among themselves as a community.
Some attendees said hip-hop music portrays African-Americans in an undesirable manner-describing that it is hypocritical when African Americans say certain things like than-word,” while it was completely off limits for whites, and that it should be negative no matter who says it.
A large portion of the female audience felt that the worst part of Imus’ comment was the “hos” slang-a derogatory phrase directed at women. One student pointed out that women need to have more respect for themselves and stop participating in degrading rap music videos. She felt that the blame needed to be distributed equally among women, the rappers and men like Imus.
One person said it is unfortunate that the word “nappy” is taken as an insult, because it is just describing the texture of African American hair and that they should be proud of their heritage.
One of the questions asked was: Do you think he would have been fired if he were black? The majority of the students said no he would not have been. Some people felt that the players had been cheated out of their season since they had worked so hard and achieved so much, but all anyone wanted to do was talk about this controversy. Toward the end of the debate, it was almost unanimously agreed that students need to help make a change by listening to music with more positive messages and by trying to exterminate biases toward African Americans.
The Rutgers Women’s Basketball team, receiving an award for theiroutstanding season which was overshadowed by talk-radio host Don Imus’ remarks.