Bozell Column: The Double Standard on 'Hoes'
Remember when Don Imus saw his cushy CBS Radio and MSNBC career go up in smoke in 2007 when he tried very early one morning to make one of his fake-misanthropic jokes about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being “nappy-headed hoes”? Black activists demanded his firing. Advertisers fled. The corporate suits, appalled and fearful of the terrible publicity, canned him.
But if you’re a black rapper, terms like this advance your career. The female rapper Nicki Minaj has a very hot new video called “Stupid Hoe.” She uses that same term to snap at other women – “We ship platinum, them b---es are shipping wood / Them nappy headed hoes, but my kitchen good.” (Don’t hurt your brain trying to make sense of it.) Minaj even threw the N-word in the lyrics: “How you gon’ be the stunt double to the nigga monkey?”
The video broke YouTube records by clocking up 4.8 million views in its first 24 hours on the site and 11 million over the weekend. But outrage from our elites? Hello? Anyone? So far, the silence is deafening from America’s major race-card players.
Back in 2007, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – the Dynamic Duo of racial correctness – met with CBS chairman Les Moonves to demand Imus be given the boot. When they won, Jackson called the firing "a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation."
Sharpton added: "It's not about taking Imus down. It's about lifting decency up...We cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism."
Sumner Redstone, chairman of the CBS Corporation board and its chief stockholder, had told Newsweek that he had expected Moonves to "do the right thing.” Translation: Bye-bye, Imus.
It seems rather clear that Imus deserved some punishment, even if his dismissal might be excessive. So why were the Reverends applauded universally for their activism?
Because all of their fuss wasn’t about “public decency” or “degradation” or media companies “mainstreaming racism and sexism," not really. It was about race, and about how whites cannot say “indecent” things about blacks, not even in jest. But blacks can use those very same words, however they wish, with the ugliest of intentions if desired, with impunity. Where are Jackson and Sharpton over 'Stupid Hoe" now? Cricket, cricket.
The Washington Post is running a major series this week on the self-esteem issues of black women in America. So But when will the Post and other media scolds discover this song and what it says -- and shouldn’t say -- about black women?
As for degrading “public decency,” the song has 10 uses of “bitch,” 10 F-bombs, and unsurprisingly, 37 uses of “hoe.” The “refrain,” if you want to call it that, is “You a stupid hoe” – repeated 14 times. A verb, like the word “are,” was apparently not necessary. This has to be one of the dumbest, most illiterate songs ever to go viral.
Just because Minaj caused a major YouTube splash, and just because the elites were silent, doesn’t mean the reaction was favorable. Anyone who clicks on it quickly learns this is not a “song,” but a droning, rapid-fire hip-hop headache. The video is so jumpy it could cause epileptic seizures. In the first few days, YouTube watchers gave the Minaj video about twice as many Dislikes as Likes -- 176,000 to 87,000.
Some commenters just nailed it: “You know, if she's trying to call someone else a stupid hoe, it doesn't help her case too much when she's on all fours, dressed like a leopard, trapped in a cage and whipping her hair everywhere.”
But this is my favorite: “36 seconds in and I was losing the will to live.”
Last summer, Minaj shocked many by having a breast pop out as she performed on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Why the Disney-owned network put this woman on is anybody’s guess. She was performing the song “Where Them Girls At,” with classy morning-TV lyrics like "You can suck a d--k / Or you can suck a ballsack." In her “Stupid Hoe” song, Minaj raps twice that “you can suck my diznik.”
Minaj is an “artist” for Cash Money Records, now a subsidiary of the Universal Music Group, which brags that it is “the world’s largest music content company.” (The French media conglomerate Vivendi did not include UMG in its NBC-Universal deal.) If one accepts these boasts, no one in the world can “mainstream racism and sexism” faster than these people. Let’s see if the Imus Firing Squad ever says a word.
- Brent Bozell's blog
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Comments
Turn it around
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 9:25am.
Maybe Imus should make this his shows theme music, and quote liberally from it.
What a Great Idea!
Submitted by NC Boy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 10:01am.
Bleep out all the words that Imus isn't allowed to say on the air. It would be a "bleepfest"! What a statement!
This is all
Submitted by HardRightTurn on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 9:58am.
Abe Lincoln's fault.
To more fully comprehend the Left, one must read “Leftism As Psychopathy” by John Ray, M.A., Ph.D. Caution, it might scare you a little bit.
http://jonjayray.tripod.com/psycho.html
I have a question.
Submitted by Newsbubba on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 10:01am.
Since I've never heard the "song" before, and probably will never bother to actually listen to it, when the writer says, “How you gon’ be the stunt double to the nigga monkey?” what is he referring to?
Could it possibly be our (gasp) esteemed president?
Of course, if it is, that would fit right in with the Reverend Jesse Jasson saying he'd like to remove the president's gonads, and referring to him using the same word.
Now that it is evident that the word "nigga" is officially in vogue for the black community, and since this is an equal opportunity country, can i now say nigga? Better yet, can I refer to the president as RBFSOBNM?
This is all very confusing.
You certainly have my permission,...
Submitted by BBallleaper on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:01pm.
but first I'd check with Ice-T, Ice-Cube, Ice-H2O, Vanilla Ice, Ice-Cold, and Ice-Hoe. They may not like it! Brrrrrr! I detect a chill in the air!
Their culture, perhaps their race is absolutely doomed.
Submitted by WhoIsJohnGalt on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 10:02am.
Let's just hope that it doesn't take the rest of us with it.
"Let's just hope that it doesn't take the rest of us with it."
Submitted by Newsbubba on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 11:17am.
Unfortunately, that ship already sailed when we started believing that "All men ARE equal," instead of "All men are CREATED equal."
We all start out the same. Unfortunately what we do after that has somehow taken on a new meaning that may doom the human race.
So, Brent, what do you want to see?
Submitted by CO2Maker on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 10:05am.
Do you expect Rev. Hymietown Jackson to step in and call for the black entertainment industry to clean it up? Don't hold you breath. (Remember the response of the NAACP to Bill Cosby's "pound cake" speech at their convention in New Orleans in 2004 on the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision?)
Not sure how anyone...
Submitted by HeavyChevy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 10:50am.
can listen to some crazy chick who eye look like she's in a state of perpetual shock or someone is shining a light in her eyes...good thing its not the latter and she don't have antlers that could end bad for her.
⇒ Chevy!!!!
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 11:26am.
It must be codespeak, because I understood exactly what that
hoeyoung lady said.Cool!
Submitted by HeavyChevy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:21pm.
Whaddup brother long time no see. How's life treating you!
⇒ Not much Chevy
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:24pm.
Still working my butt off, trying to stay 1% above the 47%.
You're the one who's been about as rare as a hen's tooth around these parts.
Hope you've been raking it in. I only get ahead when the overtime train starts rolling.
No way brother...
Submitted by HeavyChevy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:47pm.
I'm barely keeping my head above water. After a long acquisition, the buyout of the company we contract for is finally coming to an end (felt like an eternity) so by March we finally find out if the new owners will either keep our contract or tell us to take a hike.
Its all good though, God been good to me to have this job for this long, If they tell us to take a hike that's just the "big guy's" way of saying "there's nothing more for you to do here, time to go, I got bigger plans for you."
Good hearing from you man.
⇒ You too, Chevy
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:57pm.
I hang in there for family. Not much different from most people I know. And that makes life good.
Its "cultural"
Submitted by Dave the mailman on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 11:09am.
You know, like when a proud southerner displays a Confederate flag, its RACIST, and must be stopped, but when blacks fight pit bulls it's CULTURAL.
⇒ Liberal Minstrelsy
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 11:46am.
Minaj is carrying on the fine tradition of minstrelsy enjoyed by White Liberal Democrats for more than a hundred years. How many Conservatives buy Miss Minstrel's recordings?
In return for not using certain words (in public, of course), White Liberal Democrats vicariously savor guilty pleasure of "nigga" as it flows from the tongue of their minstrel performer.
That concrete lawn jockey may no longer adorn the entrance to the Liberal Plantation, but I guaran-damm-tee-ya' it's been moved upstairs to the smoking room.
I loved...
Submitted by BBallleaper on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 11:57am.
her opening for B.Barry Man-Hoe at the State of the Union. She's laid'em in the aisles!
Maybe it's their right
Submitted by bkeyser on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:05pm.
Not a "Constitutional" right, but sort of like their birth-right. You can be sure there is a certain segment of the black population who believes this.
Liberals can deny it all they want but if you grow up black in the inner cities of today, there's a good chance you're being raised to -if not flat out hate- then at least distrust the white man. You're also likely being raised to believe you're owed something by the American government.
I saw Bob Beckel on the Five yesterday trying to downplay the fraud and waste in the SNAP program; saying very few people that are on food stamps or EBT cards are misusing them. Well, he's just wrong. He's not living with these folks. He's not shopping where they shop. He's not buying (anymore) what they're buying. The fact is, a significant portion of those on government assistance are living just fine -thank you- making a lot of money in the drug trade. The other fact is, there is no way most of these folks want a legitimate job- it doesn't pay nearly as much as the tax-free one they have. These are the facts and unless you actually put your feet on the ground in these neighborhoods you can go around with blinders on and ignore it.
So when it comes to these lyrics and the media double standard, it's not going away. There are two segments of our society that believe in reparations: blacks entrenched in the squalor of urban life and the leftist media. For the media, however; looking the other way and attacking conservatism is the preferred method. (By the way, liberal politicians do not believe in reparations; instead, they actively pursue an enslavement agenda led in part by the SNAP program.)
⇒ You mean SNAP DiddyO ?
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:12pm.
SNAP DiddyO admits that's his music, too.
The only target rappers hate more than white men is black women.
Rap
Submitted by hughg on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 12:45pm.
Rap is no form music. It's more of a poetic form to express something that normally would be considered trashing anything or anybody that one wants to enrage or degrade. It began as a black phenomenon and now because some think it to be the cool or popular thing to do, many other races have mimicked same. Integrity of mine forbids me to publicly express ALL my true feelings about the great American "double standard". I can tell one who will listen that standards are for people of integrity. All the rest's standards change with what passes as popular or good for me. I can't wait until self emulation such as setting oneself on fire becomes the new standard for trashing ideas or dislike of "inequality". I wonder how many will jump on that band wagon?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Submitted by GregE on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 1:09pm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=msbo6TiwA5A#t=210s
I'm no fan of rap or naughty lyrics.
Submitted by vaboxrboy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:05pm.
but making this a racial issue is despicable. She's a pop artist and that's why she's been on GMA and may open for Britney Spears on tour. Don't kid yourself and think that all black inner-city youth are listening to this and taking it seriously. They pay as much attention to it as we did back in the day with Kiss or Iron Maiden. I would love the music industry to clean up its act, but bottom line, they push it on kids, they buy it and this is the result. As parents we can push back. Why not blame the folks who allow their kids to hear such trash instead of the performer who is just trying to make a buck? I know it's a tough job, but we have to control what we allow into our homes.
⇒ Thank you, boxrboy
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:21pm.
But I didn't catch KISS and Iron Maiden when they went through their "nigga" phase.
I'm sure it must be true, but could you provide me a link anyway?
Nikki Minaj has set herself up as a One Woman Minstrel show. Her sponsorship is strictly from Liberals, many of whom enjoy words like "nigga" and "hoe", or else they wouldn't buy her crap.
By definition, her act is racist.
"Her sponsorship is strictly
Submitted by balboa on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 9:24pm.
"Her sponsorship is strictly from Liberals."
How do you know this?
"making this a racial issue" ?
Submitted by Dave the mailman on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:31pm.
It became a racial issue when blacks said 'white people can't say this but we can'.
if they really want equality, how about NOBODY says it?
“How you gon’ be the stunt
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:26pm.
“How you gon’ be the stunt double to the nigga monkey?”
wow is Obama her target?
⇒ Has Minaj been reading Darwin?
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 2:57pm.
The title of his opus, "Origin of the Species" in its entirety; H/T botg
ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES
By Natural Selection
or the
PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
Maybe she actually believes Darwin. Obviously many of her sisters believe Margaret Sanger.
Coolif I were to take a wild
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 5:02pm.
Cool
if I were to take a wild stab at all it all, I'd just say she watched too many reruns of Saturday Night Live with Eddie Murphy.
On the other hand she just might be a candidate for the "Darwin Awards".
We could also place her in the Darwin category of evolution but in reversal form. she is not demonstrating a move upward into superiority but downward and now is on the last step before being totally flat.
When we place her with brother Al and brother Barrack it looks like to me they are on their last steps before being pushed out the door.
Rap lyrics heard...
Submitted by bigdaddy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:15pm.
...on my daughter's iPod...
..."Fu*k Y'all Niggas"...
I about fell out of the car laughing.
This is a perfect proof of
Submitted by Rusty Shackleford on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:15pm.
This is a perfect proof of the college study that proved conservatives are less intelligent than Liberals. Here we have a complex work of art that is making profound statements upon society, and conservatives just don't see the sophisticated intellectualism of it at all.
Like the study says, conservatives like structure and order and therefore you are unable to appreciate the nuianced complexity of this Liberal hypocrisy.
Ah my mind has gotten so broad after spending the week watching my new box set of The View - Season 6. I'm almost at the part where Rosie O'Donnell flings poo at her opponents.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Matthews: The Joy Behar of MSNBC.
Bill Maher: The Joy Behar of HBO.
Paul Krugman: The Joy Behar of The New York Times.
Well Played Rusty!
Submitted by bigdaddy on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 3:40pm.
Did you see the part where Rosie speaks Mandarin? Still trying to find the translation for, "Ching-Chong-Ching"? Maybe Jon Huntsman knows.
All of these rap lyrics
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 5:09pm.
All of these rap lyrics remind me of 1969 when Sly and the Family Stone issued a song called "Don't call me nigger Whitey" I had the album for about 1 year when I discovered : when albums were placed over a hot pan the edges would curl and make a great ashtray.