IMUS, DUKE, AND THE "N" WORD THROUGH A CHILD'S EYES

It was perfect timing really. I was riding the subway in Manhattan about ten days before Don Imus' crude sports commentary, standing near two young Hispanic youths, one male, one female. Nothing really distinct about them, the male good-looking and sporting neatly coiffed cornrows, the female attractive, but slightly disheveled in baggy sweater that showed some midriff.

They looked younger than their 18 years -- that was the age she said she was after proudly proclaiming that she "at least waited until then" to have her baby. He was ribbing her about how many of her friends had kids at ages of 17, 16 and 14. So she had reason to be proud. She even crowed that her "baby daddy" helped her support the child with money. He countered, "Nah, if I get one of these women pregnant, I ain't giving them no money. I'll buy some Pampers, maybe some sneakers, but they ain't gettin' my money." These kids did not appear to the the "hardcore, bad ass, scary" ghetto urchins people fear on the subway. On the whole they spoke good English and in clear terms, punctuated with street slang.

This until the "word" slipped out. Yep, the "N" word, which they repeated several times, while laughing and talking. Though their skin was about as brown as mine, they clearly would be what most would classify as Hispanic. Like often with young people they used the word not in a derogatory way towards Black people, but as an adjective to describe behavior or as a synonym for person. As I've said before I am not one to franchise the word Nigger (or nigga) to other races or age groups, nor do I think we can redefine it.

But then something interesting occurred. The female said to the male, "Hey you better watch your language, you can't say that no more." "I know," he replied, "you can get arrested for saying it now. At least get a fine." This refers to the New York City Council ruling that the "N" word is bad. Bravo.

"That's the old people," she said. "They use it for something bad. It's funny, when white people used it to hurt Black people, there wasn't no law against it. "

"Yeah," he said, " You know what? Next Black History Month we should all say it, every day -- call each other niggas in protest. I can't imagine no white people getting arrested for saying it, they will just use the law against us young people."

"Yeah, I wish they would arrest some white people for saying it!"

Which brings us to Mr. Imus who called a fine group of young women, "nappy headed hos." Although he has lost his MSNBC television simulcast and garnered a two-week paid suspension I doubt we will see him in hand cuffs.

What is interesting here is not only what he said, but the reaction to it -- and the impact. The latter will be hard to estimate, only time will tell.

As to what Imus said, two things come to mind: Did he not believe that it would cause harm? Or did he not care? And most importantly -- why wasn't he afraid to say it? Afraid not only of repercussions from his networks, but from the Black community, women and others who felt offended. There was a time (circa late 1960s and most of the '70s) when this kind of banter would be heard only in lily white bars by guys swilling Budweiser and looking at the TV set between gulps. There was a time when the station would have been besieged by demonstrators -- not all of them peaceful pickets -- almost immediately. I mean some folks would've skipped work. A colleague of mine who used to work the Black radio "chitlin' circuit" in the deep south as a DJ and engineer, said that when one station declined to hire Black staff a group of Blacks interrupted the station's board meeting and made a not so veiled threat to burn the transmitter down. I'm not recommending that this happen, but hey -- they did get a meeting with the board.

But ever since the fires of the civil rights movement have died down, the right wing, the religious conservatives and the just plain racists have been emboldened. This started with Ronald Reagan, whose best performance was putting a smiley face on the vilest of attitudes in this country by blowing up balloons and waving flags. A real American. This man who the media made its darling, succumbing to his Hollywood charms, went so far as to kick off his election campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. A town of a few thousand only known outside the county as the place where in 1964 the decaying bodies of three civil rights workers who were brutally murdered for the crime of registering Blacks to vote were dug out of the swamp. Two white, one Black in their early 20s. There is absolutely no other historical or cultural distinction of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Of all the landscapes of America from sea to shining sea, Reagan selected this one. A nod and a wink to the old south.

Reagan went on to create an America that never existed. He said he wanted to restore America to its previous glory, even though that glory included slavery, Jim Crow laws, land grabbing and virtual extinction of Native Americans and a pattern of institutional discrimination that still exists. Add to that the lack of guts and vision the Democrats and the left have displayed over the past 30 years and the Ol' Gipper had a clear path to the goal of making it alright to exhibit white privilege. A smart strategy it was, because no hard-working, barely making mortgage payments, white factory worker will ever believe that he/she is "privileged." But they will see affirmative action hires, snappy-dressing Black TV news anchors, Condolessa Rice, over-paid athletes that sure don't act like Willie Mays and Floyd Patterson and of course, the rappers who flaunt the law along with their bling, broads and pimped out rides. Hey, a white guy deserves to be pissed.

So Don Imus, starting in the big time during the tail end of the '70s, plays on this feeling like Reagan did: The Blacks have had enough and its time for us to take the country back. So you target Blacks and other persons of color as well as women and Democrats, etc. So it provides a place to ridicule, insult and discredit people and organizations in a safe haven. Very important, because Imus' listeners would not dream of saying this aloud around Black people. But it feeds their fantasy of standing up to the Blacks, which developed into a political strategy for people such as former NYC Mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani. Many others do it also, across the country. They espouse seemingly liberal views publicly, but in those small rooms and venues where they preach to the converted, they let their audiences know, that they will protect them from the Blacks.

Tune in every morning and release your anger and feeling of impotence in the face of athletes, rappers and menacing teenagers on the subways and buses by listening to Imus dehumanize them.

Imus has spawned quite a following, being the first real shock jock along with his then side kick Howard Stern. There is at least one in every major market. Mostly they are not at all as funny or smart as Imus, just cheap knock offs. Oh yes, Imus is smart. Which is why this seems so strange. I could see this coming from the mouths of one of imitators -- or even some Black jocks on rap stations. But after all this time and experience? Unless he wants out of his recently renewed 5-year multi-million dollar contract, something inside him must have triggered this.

The reaction was predictable: some whites in the media showed outrage and asked for his head. Even a few conservatives, after all such a clear violation is a marvelous chance to not look like a racist. Then there are the white guys who defend Imus based on freedom of speech, a great way to hide the fact that they liked what he said. Many of them cite the fact that rappers use this language frequently -- and they do. Others dug back and dusted off the files about Rev. Jesse Jackson's use of the word "Hymietown" referring to New York City's large Jewish population, and Rev. Al Sharpton's role in the Tawana Brawley unproven rape case. Maybe they'll even want to investigate whether the last Super Bowl was part of a conspiracy to insure that both coaches would be Black.

On the money side, the sponsors were either ahead of the pack -- like Staples, Bigelow Teas and Proctor & Gamble who immediately withdrew their ads from the show; or behind it -- like American Express, GM and others who came later. Many are still waiting to see how significant the reaction will be. Interestingly, the New York Times each day has had an Imus story on its front page and then jumps it to the Business Section. How fitting.

On Wednesday, the Times along with the New York Daily News, ran a compelling photo of Rutgers basketball team members on their front pages. The News referred to them as "dignified." Not to be picky, but you have to look pretty darn hard to find when the word "dignified" -- compliment that it is -- was last used about a white person. If so, they were senior citizens.

The New York Post today, (speaking of dignified!) chose to run a huge page one photo of the woman who accused the Duke University Lacrosse players of rape, apparently falsely. It referred to her as the "Duke liar."

So the fair haired boys got cleared -- actually proven innocent which is rare. Good news if there was no crime. But that shouldn't take Imus out of the spotlight, nor should it lessen the heat.

And by the way, have the parents or Duke administrators asked these future leaders why such Big Men on Campus have the need to send out for strippers like its Domino's Pizza? And why did they want Black girls? To feed some BET video fantasy of rap hos? Haven't they seen the "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials that feature an array of white (yes they are all white) co-eds willingly stripping and more for the camera? They could have stayed in their own demographic.

And why are Black girls getting themselves into these situations? Are white guys "safer?" Is it that they have more money? Would they have gone to a predominantly Black Basketball team party and strip?

Race in America is as complex as it gets. It even trumps gender issues. Now the discussion begins about language, freedom of speech, and respect. And that includes rappers and Black DJs. If you go after Imus, they must be in your parallax view as well, they have played a role in opening the barn door.

Kids shouldn't be pregnant at 18 hoping that baby daddy helps with the Pampers. They shouldn't be using the "N" word casually. But boy, didn't they raise an interesting point about trying to criminalize it. At least, they were paying attention.

THE SEARCH FOR THE ACCEPTABLE NEGRO

(Part II: Return of The Dutchman)

So it was confirmed to me last week by a white woman sitting next to me at a bar. Introduced to her just moments before by a black male friend of mine, she asked: "So what do you think of Obama? Will you vote for him? I like him, but do you think he has enough experience? I mean I don't know where he stands on anything or what he's done," said the off-duty editor at The Economist.

"I'm not sure what he's done either," I said, "he needs to make that clearer. As for experience, he's smart. And George Bush has experience. What about Hillary?"

"Oh I like Hillary, she's great and she could win."

"So name five things she's done for New York state," I asked the Upper West Side resident.

She smiled. "You're right, I can't. But I think she'd be good on the main issues."

"She really pulled back on a women's right to choose to attract the red-staters," I said. "I used to work for Planned Parenthood, I don't see choice as a bargaining chip. And she voted for the war and Obama didn't. Are you going to vote for her?"

"Yeah."

That's why Obama won't win. The Hillary - Obama heavyweight match already being hyped in such major publications as the Washington Post, the NY Daily News and the NY Times -- and all over the network morning news shows -- will split the vote of the liberal Democratic party. White women will vote for Hillary. The 40-something soccer moms, the 30-something aspiring soccer moms, those who tolerate abortion only with tight restrictions, and the baby boomer white women who see Hillary as one of them -- a glass ceiling shatterer.

That leaves only a handful of white women who will either a) see deeply into Hillary's slithering around from popular position to popular position; b) can't forgive her for not leaving that nasty-ass Bill; c) are proud to be liberal and hip white girls.

A vanishing breed in this era where Katie Couric takes the venerable mantle of network news anchor and promptly puts on a prom dress and bleaches her hair even blonder than it was on "Today."

This morning "Good Morning America," had a group of current and former female senators, about 16 in all, who have been staying in touch over the years to share their thoughts, etc. about women in politics. Diane Sawyer (also blonde) was as thrilled to see them as they were to be seen. Bursting with pride she talked with them about all of their ground breaking accomplishments in furthering the progress of women in government.

Unless I was in the bathroom, I saw no Black woman. There was Carol Mosley Braun from Illinois, you'll recall. Nor was there any mention of the whiteness of this group. They spoke as if they were members of a downtrodden class, 'buked and scorned.

When I entered the corporate world in the mid 1970s, one would have thought (based on the rhetoric at least) that as more persons of color entered that arena, white women would at least be parallel allies with us. I thought that anyone who was not a white male would join the fray to tackle the all-boys club.

But the issues that Black people (both male and female) and white women faced were quite different. White women, after all were never socially discriminated against to the degree that Blacks were. They could date, marry and sit next to each other in the theater or the classroom. The well-to-do ones even had Blacks working for them. (Hey these things form perceptions!)

At a ceremony at a major university honoring NY state law enforcement agencies for their work in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I stood next to two white women, one the head of Government Affairs for the school, the other a uniformed Sergeant. One turned to the other and said, "It's a shame that in a room of over 100 people there are only about six other women here. Sometimes you wonder how much things have changed! " I nodded and smiled and said, "Yep, I counted only one other Black and one Latino."

But they would have never noticed -- it wasn't their concern.

It going to be tough for Obama regardless, because he is Black. But to go up against a white women diminishes his potential base considerably. Maybe he'll capture the hearts (that's literally what he'll have to do) of young white females looking for a change. New voters. As a buddy of mine put it: "The new slogan is: 'Don't tell mama -- vote for Obama!"

Maybe. Or maybe he'll just energize them, but not enough to cast a vote his way. Like the girl who drinks and flirts with you at the bar all night and leaves you and goes home at closing time.

Watch your back Obama. They have to be very delicate how they come at you because of this race thing. They won't act like real enemies. Many will act as allies. Stop and count the number of white women in the room. And then count the Black folk.

And while you're at it, go to the library and check out a copy of Amiri Baraka's, play, "The Dutchman."

Isn't that the one where the white woman pushes the brother in front of the subway train?

A JAMES BROWN CHRISTMAS

Remembrances of Who He Was and Who We Were

It is always tougher to hear the news of a death near the holidays. My mother, two years ago, ten days before Christmas, not wholly unexpected, but devastating nonetheless.

This year, while lying in bed peacefully, ears focused on the early morning drizzle from the North Carolina skies, blurry eyes adjusting to the TV's glare, I saw his picture. At least I thought it was him, in the far right hand corner over ABC newsman Ron Claiborne's talking head. By the time my eyes realized who it was, I saw the two dates: 1933 - 2006, and heard the words, "James Brown the Godfather of Soul..." and started saying, "no, no, no!"

It was totally unexpected and as devastating as any loss of any person whom I have never met.

On Christmas morning, how cruel I thought, until Rev. Al Sharpton remarked that "Mr. Brown himself "would have picked the biggest day of the year to take his final bow. But small comfort to a generation (or two or three) who felt his death as a personal loss and a loss to the culture (as we define it) never to be replaced.

How many more Black male bona-fide music icons from that R&B/Soul/Rock&Roll era are left standing?

Smokey Robinson.

Stevie Wonder.

Jerry Butler.

Isaac Hayes.

Al Green.

And of course the old heads: Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, B.B. King and Johnny Mathis.

There are also the groups: The Dells (remarkably in tact with original members after 50 years), two remaining original members of the Four Tops and one last original Temptations member.

Lost already in the past year, Lou Rawls and Wilson Pickett. Not long before them Barry White and Luther Vandross.

James Brown. Mr. Brown. The Godfather.

Everybody has a James Brown story -- whether you actually met him or even seen him perform live, somehow he played a role in our existence. We all share a memory about him like we would a family member.

When I returned to New York City a few days later, the impact was deep. The radio tributes from the Black and Black-oriented stations was a constant drumbeat of his music, his words, his philosophy and the way James Brown lived his life, warts and all.

Who else could get radio (especially in today's canned, formulaic, corporate radio) to play his music nearly non-stop? And how few, if any, artists had that much good music over more than five decades?

Felix Hernandez, who hosts the "Rhythm Revue" for non-commercial WBGO-FM specializes in classic and the more obscure, "classic soul" in his shows. Hernandez dedicated his entire show to Brown's music. He came on the air somberly and said: "I really hadn't planned to do this show today. Didn't plan to do a James Brown tribute..." He added "[Someone] asked me how I could squeeze all of his music into four hours, and I said, 'I can't.'"

During his twenty-year run of "Rhythm Revue," now available on line and on commercial WRKS-FM radio, Hernandez said he doesn't believe he has ever had a show without playing at least one James Brown record.

Other stations played interviews of Brown from the past, including one from WBLS-FM in 1996 hosted by the late Frankie Crocker, an icon in his own right in the development of FM radio music formats. WRKS played interviews from people lined up outside the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where he took the stage for the last time, lying in state like the royalty he was to many. I walked past there myself, just feeling the energy of the crowd. I ran into many folks I knew, most in their 50s, but saw all ages in the crowd. As I walked by a subway exit I saw three teenaged girls (who I will assume are not candidates for Rhodes scholarship) and overheard one say: "All this is for James Brown?" I turned to her and said, "It ain't for Gerald Ford!"

People flooded radio stations with calls about their remembrances of Brown -- celebrities, former staff people, persons who even the briefest of encounters with him. Longtime radio personality Gary Byrd, who brought Black history and Black pride along with music in the late 1960s, talked of meeting James Brown when he first worked as a DJ at WWRL. Brown, touring in NYC at the time, asked the fledging DJ if he had found a place to live yet. Byrd laughed and, said, "Yes, now I've got to furnish it!" Brown liked that Byrd was bringing a message of Black pride to his shows. After they talked, Brown squeezed, as Byrd put it, "enough money in my hand to furnish two apartments!" Brown said that, "If you don't have to worry about money, you won't ever have to compromise yourself."

James Brown was truly an original. Who else would get this kind of outpouring of love and attention by even the national mainstream media? Few among even the very best who have gone on.

James Brown was rapping before rap. He was speaking out unabashedly against drugs ("King Heroin") and for education ("Don't be a dropout"), and for racial pride and independence ("Say it Loud!") and ("I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing, Open Up the Door -- I'll Get It Myself"). He could care less what the radio stations and record companies wanted to hear -- his message was for the people.

Not always the most successful businessman, Brown made several significant inroads into Black self-determination by buying several radio stations and even one TV station. He also had several other business ventures with varying degrees of success. But one thing he never sold was James Brown. You couldn't buy him.

His well deserved tributes poured in from all over -- except of course, from our Rapper friends. All of this praise seemed to be lost on them. Yet they have sampled his music to death -- and probably beyond. Brown's music is the most sampled of any artist among rappers, and Brown has appeared on stage with many and in many videos despite the fact that he had major issues with some of the content he found offensive.

Not one peep from them. Where were they? Did even one show up at any of the tributes? Did one speak? Even Michael Jackson came out of hiding long enough to show up and speak about him at his funeral. Where were all the tough guys?

I have always said that in life it matters not who the tough guys are -- but rather -- who shows up for the fight!

It took a long time to start this piece and even longer to finish. In a way that is good. Because there have been several significant developments since I began it: Sen. Barack Obama has all but officially announced that he wants to be head of the free world. And "Dreamgirls" racked up several Golden Globe Awards, paving the road for similar success in the Oscar nominations.

If you don't understand the connection, you haven't been paying attention -- not for a few decades.