Imus out

Until someone else picks him up, that is. I attend a Black Land Grant college and last night in my social problems class, most of the discussion was taken up by the thoughts about Don Imus' comments and how the mostly African American students felt about his ousting, which was announced just before class began.

We had two ministers in attendance, my instructor and another campus minister for a discussion on students working in Mississippi on the Katrina flood, complete with a slide show. Then the topic went directly to Imus (it may have been my fault), and we spent two hours in earnest dialogue.

One topic the minister asked about was why Black rappers can use "ho" and racial epithets and it's "okay." One of the comments of the evening went to a wonderfully funny African American social worker, who said, "The women who audition for rap videos are "hos" and the women who buy rap are "residual hos." The entire class fell out laughing. I'd never heard of a "residual ho," but maybe I've led a sheltered life.

We didn't solve any sweeping social problems last night, but we talked with the Dean of Students, who was there, about how the college can better work to bring the races together. One thing I asked was about was the cafeteria. I've been to the cafeteria a couple times for lunch (I'm a night student mainly) and the food is really, really good. Yet I've never seen a white student there. What's up with that?

The Black students said that they don't go there because it's too loud. And the White students, they told me, bring their lunches and eat at one of the halls in a break room. I think, personally, the White students are too intimidated to go in because it's loud and extremely "Black," as one of the students said.

Fear is often at the heart of things, isn't it? I think the races in their hearts don't hate each other so much as they fear each other. My parents didn't bring me up to be racist; the most they said is that if we intermarried, it would be hard on our children. My parents were way ahead of their time and I thank God for the tolerance they taught me. I am not afraid of differences; I only fear that we can't heal these differences.

What gives me hope is that some are at least willing to engage in tough dialogue about how we can heal this great racial divide in America. As I've pointed out before, what Imus said was not a joke. He can hide behind that lame excuse all he wants. He is a racist and a sexist, or he would not have said those horrific comments to those beautiful, courageous women. By the way, did you watch the interviews of the women from the Rutgers team? Did they look like hos to you?

To my women readers and my readers of any color than White, if those women are hos, then we are all hos. I'll paraphrase Alan Ginsberg here by saying, "Ah, ho, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time."

To quote Ginsberg directly, "While I'm here I'll do the work. And what's the work? To ease the pain of living . . . " This incident has caused me pain. It should cause me pain, because it speaks to a great, great problem in America. Despite the Civil Rights movement and despite "integrating" our schools (have you been to a school in Compton lately?) and despite the lip service we pay to racial equality, this nation stands divided. I, for one, believe we can do better than this.