Well, one thing has happened as a result of Imus's infamous "hos" comment that I wouldn't have predicted: my family is now involved in an e-discussion about race and language. We haven't gotten to white privilege yet, but give me time.
My father, who in addition to being a lifetime Republican is an affluent white guy in his 60s, is a big Imus fan. When we were growing up, my dad thought Imus was the funniest guy on the planet. Who knows, maybe back in the 1980s he was. And yet, my father appears to be taking the view that two weeks' suspension for this episode is not enough, and speaks approvingly of the way in which the Rutgers coach, and I quote, "tore Imus a new one" over his remarks. He has also offered myself and my sister (the other person who's getting cc'd on all these emails) a short tutorial on the etymology and cultural currency of the term "ho" (for some reason he believes that the 'correct' spelling of it is 'who,' with a silent w, to indicate that it is a contraction of "whore;" you'd have to ask William Safire, I guess, but I believe he's wrong about this). You'd have to know my dad, I guess, to understand why hearing him talk about hip hop is hilarious.
My dad is by no means hip and on the dance floor, he's not too good at the hop either. But apparently, he can still identify and reject racism when it's blatant enough, which cheers me up. Cause last time I posted about him, you may remember, it was because he was reading Pat Buchanan's book about illegal immigration and talking about it like it made sense.
My sister pointed us to a piece by
Gwen Ifill in which she mentions that years ago Imus, apparently ticked off because she wouldn't appear on his radio show, referred to her on air as "the cleaning lady." Which actually reminds me of an old Plaidder family story.
Back in the 70s and 80s, my father was a partner in a large consulting firm. He has always enjoyed mentoring people, so we met a number of the newly-created partners when he had them over to the house or out to dinner with us. The ones I remember meeting were the "firsts"--the first woman partner, the first African-American partner. I don't know whether that's just my memory selecting or whether my father made a special effort to mentor them because he realized that being the 'first' put them under special pressure. Anyway, one time when my grandmother was visiting we were having dinner and talking about an issue of some magazine in which my father had been quoted on something, and it transpired that nobody had gotten around to sending my grandmother a copy so that she could read it and be proud of her boy. Irritated by this oversight, she blurted out, "What's the matter with that black man in your office?"
The "black man" to whom she was referring was, of course, the firm's first African-American partner. Now, to anyone reading this in the here and now, I hope it is obvious that my grandmother, while not consciously intending to denigrate or defame this particular guy, was revealing at that moment the racism that still structured her view of the world. Although she had met this guy and knew that he was a partner, her mind apparently couldn't cope with the idea of a Black executive, so instead she mentally demoted him to the rank of my father's personal assistant. Her mind took an African-American professional and transformed him into a servant--and did it so automatically and silently that she was genuinely shocked when the rest of the family responded with a variety of individualized spit-takes. The loudest reaction, again somewhat surprisingly, came from my lifetime Republican brother--the same guy who believes that the federal government ought to be eliminated and that instead of a justice system we should try everything by combat like in the middle ages--who responsed with a loud, "Jesus Christ!" The upshot was that we tried to correct my grandmother's impression--with little faith that it would stick any better this time around than it had before--and that my brother had to apologize for having shouted my grandmother, who was excused on the grounds of being elderly and not knowing any better and, you know, old people, what can you do.
Imus's "cleaning lady" crack did exactly the same thing to Gwen Ifill: it drew on the racist assumption that white people rule and black people serve in order to strip Ifill of her profession, credentials, and accomplishments--just because he was pissed off. And the "hos" remark does something very similar to the Rutgers basketball team; but this time with a bonus side of misogyny and, I think, plain old fear. Confronted with a group of determined and accomplished African-American women who are succeeding in what guys of his generation assumed would always be a male-dominated field, he uses what may be the oldest trick in the Big Book of Patriarchy, and degrades and subjugates them by making them sexual objects. And he uses a racial slur to further increase the imaginary dominance he's establishing over them--because apparently the thought that there are women out there who could kick his sorry ass on the basketball court makes him just that insecure.
Or maybe he genuinely thinks that women and minorities are just funnier when they're servicing white men. Who knows. The point is, this comment manifested the same racism that structured my grandmother's perception of my father's African-American colleague--and unlike my grandmother, Imus was appealing to that racism deliberately, and in a forum where he could be pretty sure his targets would hear about it. The fact that he claims to have done it as a joke, IMHO, makes it worse. Because seriously, why is calling a group of African-American women athletes "nappy-headed hos" funny? Can anyone explain that to me in any way that doesn't involve Imus and his fans enjoying the scandalous pleasure of publicly airing their secretly-cherished racist views like the bad boys they just know they are? Or relishing the opportunity to use their privileged position as white men to insult and cheapen people who aren't white or male just because, what the hell, they can?
It's a serious question. It's possible there's an answer. I'll wait.
While I wait, though, let me just say this. I am one of those people who believes that it's nearly impossible for white people to fully divest themselves of the racist attitudes that prop up white privilege. You may agree or disagree with me on that. Nevertheless, the fact that it's nearly impossible doesn't absolve us white liberals from the responsibility of trying; and talking about something like this is one of the ways we do that. This kind of thing does matter, because it reminds us that racism is still part of our cultural infrastructure, and that instead of getting defensive about our own political purity, it is part of our job to learn how to recgonize racism and understand where it comes from and what it props up, so that we may more effectively learn how to dismantle it. I have often felt that in liberal circles in general there is way too much self-congratulation on this point, as if the fact that we're not all rushing off to join the Minutemen is something for which we should be given medals. I know, anyway, that I have a lot to learn about race and racism and how to have a productive conversation about it, and I always try to take the opportunity to learn--even if it might teach me something about myself that I don't want to know.
C ya,
The Plaid Adder