Imus flap likely to open debate

Now will they listen?

A host of black social critics and commentators, in addition to prominent figures from the popular arts such as actor Bill Cosby, director Spike Lee and jazz musician Wynton Marsalis have in recent years implored black entertainers and their fans to quit using the n-word and rap slang associated with prostitution.

Maybe a racial slur against the Rutgers University women’s basketball team by a 67-year-old white shock jock will, oddly enough, help drive the point home.

Don Imus’ now-notorious “nappy-headed hos” remark is a “teachable moment,” says syndicated columnist Jabiri Asim, who recently published “The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why,” a historical study of the slur.

“Imus was wrong, and Imus should be punished. But he’s in no way the only public figure who engages in this kind of dialogue,” Mr. Asim observes, referring to the rampant disparagement of women in the lyrics of rap music.

Conservative writer Michelle Malkin yesterday posted on her Web site several videos from artists currently on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart, including Mims, R. Kelly and Bow Wow.

Language resembling that used by Mr. Imus figured in each clip, prompting Mrs. Malkin to ask whether Imus critics such as the Rev. Al Sharpton — who himself has a checkered history of stoking racial flames — are “truly committed to cleaning up cultural pollution that demeans women and perpetuates racial epithets.”

For Cynthia Neal Spence, an associate professor of sociology at Spelman College, a historically black women’s school in Atlanta, the Imus controversy has literally been a teachable moment.

“My students have been so hurt by all of this — and particularly their own role in it,” she says.

Ms. Spence was hardly shocked to learn that all of her female students recall having been called by the same noun that Mr. Imus used. What surprised her is that many of them acknowledged having themselves used the word.

“There’s been a desensitization process that’s had a profound effect on our choices of language, especially for our young people, who are so influenced by media culture,” Ms. Spence says. “These young people are growing up in a generation where everything goes.

“They now understand better the need to begin a new discourse,” she continues. “They say that they are prepared to take a stand when they hear others use this language. How can they protest [rapper] Nelly or Don Imus when they don’t protest within their own community?”

Defending the use of such language in an interview published yesterday on MTV.com, hip-hop star Snoop Dogg said, “We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel.”

Moreover, there is a difference, insisted Snoop Dogg, between “collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports” and what he characterized as shiftless women who are merely “after [men’s] money.”

“That’s ridiculous,” parried Ms. Spence.

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