I agree D.I. was wrong, but doesn’t anyone think there’s a double standard with this whole, rasicm, sexism mess?

Just asking… please con’t attack me. LoL

scream at me
rob “TexIz”

A powerful individual being insensitive to people with less power.

An elder being insensitive to the youth.

Wealthy, famous, white, male, elder uses offensive language to describe (presumably) working-class, not famous, “ethnic”, female, youth.

That’s not comparable to young ethnic friends and acquaintances using insensitive language amongst themselves.

That doesn’t make sense to me.

The consensus seems to be that members of each ethnic group are entitled to take some liberties with of members of their own ethnic group.

Likewise, members of a gender group or sexual-orientation are entitled to take some liberties amongst themselves.

I think it is a pretty horrible idea that members of an ethnic or gender group should be expected to communicate amongst themselves exactly as they communicate to members of other ethnicities or genders.

What are you striving for here, cultural uniformity?

One other thing I noticed:

Cora Daniels said:
Yo, Imus, I am a Nappy Headed Ho.

Don Imus was fired for using that description of others. It was proper that he should have been fired, in my opinion.

Don Imus made three transgressions in one statement.

He used insensitive language as a white person describing people of another ethnicity, as a male describing females, and as one individual attempting to define the identities of other individuals.

Cora is not being criticized for labeling herself (ironically or not) because she is black, a woman, and describing herself. No foul.

If she described Oprah as she just described herself, there might be a problem.

First, Virgil is dead on about why do trashy blacks reflect on all blacks when trashy whites do not reflect on all whites? It is definitely unfair. I must admit that occasionally I do it too. You are walking down the street and see some young men shuffling and dancing, not to mention using atrocious English, not mention often saying rude things to you as you pass, and your little white devil inside starts to say “uh-huh, just typical.” But I often stand back and hold myself accountable for those thoughts and think “wait a minute – is this every black person you know?” Certainly not. In fact it is hardly ANY of the black people you know. So why does that awful little devil pop up? Even to a super-liberal who was born in the sixties and has always lived and worked in an extremely mixed environment in a huge international city. I think there is a certain media-conditioning and it’s a shame.

I can imagine, however, a certain frustration some blacks must have over the ghetto/rap image. Watch an old Hollywood movie. Remember those awful pop-eyed, sho-nuff-boss stereotypes that a couple of generations have worked SERIOUSLY HARD to erase. Now imagine an older person who lived through the battles and the Civil Rights movement having to see these youngins glorifying the same old stereotypes – in a new package.

For the record I am a 19 year old man in college. I would like to state I see many Black Elites who try to turn on the poor urban communities, but lets not forget that the people who struggled and died in the 60’s all came from the poorest black communities so you can not just try to label these people as “ghetto: (what ever this term means in the 21st century). You still have a debt to these communities for the people that died and allowed you to get where you are today.

Furthermore, I am disgusted by societies double-standards. Why is it ok for some people to say something and if someone else says the exact same thing, we want them punished for it. Why is it that I see white people calling each other ‘crackas’ and black people calling each other ‘niggas’ but if the roles were reversed, it would be racism. Why do we choose a word with such a negative connotation as a term of endearment? And why do we not only tolerate it, but embrace it as a form of comedic entertainment and musical artistry?

And to further broaden the gap, white americans look past racism and discrimination against our own race for fear that we will undo all that has been accomplished and be called racists. We allow groups that discriminate against other groups as long as they are not white, ie, ‘Miss Black America’, ‘National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’, minority scholarships. Would this be tolerated if there were a ‘Miss White America’ or scholarships that were only for hispanics?

My boyfriend and I had a conversation one day about my childhood and what it was like growing up as a minority. He had never heard the familiar saying that ‘white people smell like wet dogs when it rains’, although I’d heard it hundreds of times. A few days later, we were watching a very popular show on tv, ‘Scrubs’, when a black co-star was ‘killed’ off the show and in her tribute, one of the white co-stars remembered ‘Laverne, you always told me that white people smelled like wet dogs when it rains and you were right’.

Why do we allow such a racist comment in public media? Would the same comment have made it onto public television had it been redirected at another race? Why is it ok to be racist as long as you are part of the race?

No discrimintion and no racisim means none at all, it doesn’t mean that the roles should be allowed to be reversed or there should ever be exceptions.

Looking back at my childhood, I feel like I was a sacrificial lamb. I feel I was allowed to be degraded and insulted for the administration and faculty’s fear of being called a racist for disciplining those of african american descent. I suffered many, many years of being told I was priveledged because I was white while I constantly trudged uphill through all the humiliation to prove that I earned everything on my own merit.

Are we truly working towards abolishing racism and discrimination or are we only enabling vengeance against innocents when we choose to ignore all aspects of the issue and make the argument one sided?

People are people, we all bleed red. If everyone truly wants equal opportunity and to eliminate racism and discrimination, then do unto others as you would do to yourself, regardless of the color of their skin.