Don Imus’ career-vaporizing comment was certainly a hot subject. Once the story got hot, many longtime colleagues appeared shocked and renounced him. A few arrogantly defended him, arguing that he plays a character on his radio show and that he’s really a ‘good guy’, though some admitted that he likes to throw the N-word around liberally in conversation. Huh? Good guy?
Predictably the focus quickly shifted to everyone’s favorite American scapegoat: youth of color. The argument goes something like this: What Imus said was terrible and hurtful and where would Imus have heard the term if not for hip hop?
Rap music is clearly a dominant cultural force, but Don Imus didn’t use that term because he’s a huge Too Short fan. He heard it because there’s a dominant style of rap that is marketed around the world. Like violence in film or radio shock jocks, this style is aggressively marketed and appeals to a wide-range of disenfranchised people. While it can be nihilistic and violent, it is not just that. Hip hop is the story of people who are constantly attacked by capitalism. In the lyrics you get their dreams, their struggles, their prejudices; the ugliest and (to quote Keith Murray) most beautifullest parts of their world. This doesn’t excuse the sexism in rap, but it should help explain it.
It doesn’t really matter what term he used, Don Imus would have said something hateful without the influence of rap music. Hip hop didn’t invent the N-word, and he seems to be a fan of that one, too. How can it be hip hop’s fault when some old white man says something terrible about young black women? Rap music didn’t invent old white bigots. Old white bigots created the economic environment that spawned hip hop.
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