Lasse Burholt... Everywhere! | | Will the Real Nappy-Headed Ho’s Please Stand Up?
Well I tried paying no heed to the whole thing, but I can’t…
The monumental melodrama of the Don Imus and his Nappy-Headed
Ho’s controversy is too much for even me to ignore. The media
sensationalism on this has eclipsed even the Anna Nicole
hysteria, yet I don’t see any intelligent discussion of the real
issues here. Sadly, it took 33 people dying at Virginia Tech to
get the story off of breathless panic mode.
But first let me get one thing out of the way. I’m not defending
Imus. Both the comments he made and the context he made them are
despicable. To tarnish the ladies of that Rutgers team with that
broad brush is unconscionable.
But let’s go a little deeper…
Why is it ok for 50 Cent, Snoop Dog, Luther Campbell and others
to smear virtually all women with the same the same taunts, yet
Imus lost his livelihood over it? Why can the people on Russell
Simmon’s “Def Poetry” show bandy about niga and nigger
indiscriminately, yet Michael Richards is banished to infamy? Is
it ok because they’re black?
That’s bullshit, and just racism in another context.
Now of course Imus won’t be out of work for long. In fact, if XM
and Sirius Satellite radio networks weren’t trying to merge and
needing approval from the Bush cronies at the Justice department
and FCC – you can bet they would have been falling all over each
other to sign Imus within an hour of the news that CBS cancelled
his ticket.
Imus is one of the top-rated jocks in the country, and he
brought in over ten million dollars a year in advertising
revenue. So now it is just a waiting game, with radio executives
waiting until they think enough time has elapsed and Imus has
showed enough public repentance to be “safe” for advertisers to
jump on the bandwagon again.
The truth is, America loves his brand of humor, just as they
love Howard Stern, Neil Rogers, and others like them. And they
love the brutal, sexist, homophobic, and degrading lyrics of
today’s rappers and hip hop comedians. In fact, a CD or
monologue with references only to nappy-headed ho’s, would
actually be quite tame by today’s standards. If you’re not
talking about killing cops, knifing people, or raping the
bitches – you may as well be Tony Bennett.
One generation thought James Dean was corrupting our youth, and
the next one was convinced it was Lenny Bruce and Elvis. The
following generation feared George Carlin and Jim Morrison. Then
it was Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson. Now we’re at Imus and
the shock jock culture.
The truth is all these people did their part to influence
morality and what is socially acceptable. But they did it in a
certain context. The truth is, music and comedy have always been
a mirror to what is happening in society.
Sometimes they are just crass and vulgar. Because sometimes
society is just crass and vulgar. But they often are a catalyst
for positive change, because they reveal an ugliness about
ourselves, that we don’t like when we see it in the mirror.
Great authors like Kurt Vonnegut, who we lost this week, do the
same thing.
I came of age in the 70’s, which was a time of great political
dissent, free love, and psychedelic drugs. So I protested, I
fucked, and I got stoned. There isn’t much that shocks me.
I recall those “Great Jewish Athletes in History” parodies on
SNL back in the day with fond remembrance. I howled with
laughter when the Wayons Bros. did their skits of the two faggy
movie critics on “In Living Color.” I think guys like Bruce,
Carlin, Chris Rock, Dennis Miller, and Bill Maher are comic
geniuses.
I make it a point to watch “Def Poetry” on HBO, and recently
came across P. Diddy’s “Bad Boys of Comedy” show. On both of
these programs I have seen vitriolic diatribes against Gays,
blacks, whites, women, men, the government, and a host of other
targets. And a lot of what I have seen on those two shows could
only be described as brilliant, amazing, poignant, poetic, and
transformational. You may not be able to have one without the
other.
I think the true gift of these shows and the comedians and
musicians I mentioned, is their ability to create a change in
consciousness. But to create that change, they will often say
things that make the remarks from Imus sound like Mary Poppins.
The problem I have with the comments Imus made is that they
certainly were not affecting any positive social change, or
showing the fallacy of any stereotypes through humor. They were
just mean-spirited, degrading and cynical, and directed against
a bunch of young ladies who are wonderful examples of the human
spirit.
So I do think Imus’ comments were vile. But I didn’t get
lathered into shock and outrage when I heard them. He said
something stupid. Who hasn’t?
Furthermore, anyone who listens to his show knows what to expect
and shouldn’t be surprised by that. Anyone who doesn’t like his
brand of humor need only switch the dial.
What shocks us and offends us gets more desensitized with every
generation. I don’t know whether that is good or bad, I just
know it is. As a Libertarian, I don’t want any government
deciding what we can watch or listen to, and most definitely not
THIS government.
But let’s be honest here, and also admit that there is a price
we pay as a society for these freedoms, and we all need to
exercise some personal responsibility…
I have to say I am impressed with 50 Cent and the talent he has.
I love Snoop Dog, and I believe he has a special kind of
charisma, whether making records or acting. And there is not a
chance in the world that if I were raising a young child, I
would let them buy the CDs of either of these guys.
I make an appointment to watch “The Sopranos” each week, because
I believe it is the most brilliantly written and acted show on
television. But if I had kids under 16 or 17, I certainly
wouldn’t let them watch it.
CBS Radio is a big corporation, true. But corporations are still
owned and run by individual people. The CEO there still has to
look into the mirror each morning and know that what they allow
on their stations can be heard by millions of casual listeners
and reflects on them.
The same is true for the studios that release the movies today
and the recording companies that put out these hip hop CDs
spewing intolerance, hate, and violence. You can argue that the
sales prove that these things are what the public wants. But
there is no moral victory in that.
The herd delights in salacious, gossipy, mean-spirited content.
Movies with gratuitous sex and violence become blockbusters. And
TV shows like Jerry Springer that pander to the basest and
lowest common denominator of the most ignorant, get big ratings.
But that doesn’t mean you should produce them…
At the end of the day, we all have to ask ourselves if what we
do to make a living is congruent with the person we want to be.
And as a society, we can’t have it both ways. If we fight for
the right to have kids’ video games with the most realistic,
blood-spattering mayhem, movies with triple-digit body counts,
shock jocks, and the chance to buy Glock semi-automatic pistols
& assault rifles as easy as purchasing beer – then we can’t be
shocked and surprised when some mixed-up, troubled loner goes to
campus and snuffs out the lives of 33 people. Saddened, yes. But
surprised? No way.
I don’t have a problem with Bill Maher, Howard Stern or others
ridiculing or satirizing someone who has voluntarily put
themselves in the public eye. If you star in some vulgar reality
show like Ozzie Osbourne, use your movie career to further your
political agenda like Susan Sarandon, or write books on how to
live a better life like I do – then you open yourself up to a
certain amount of criticism. And that’s fair game.
But we can ridicule the president’s policy, but respect the
office. We can satirize the actions we dislike of someone,
without destroying their character.
Tuesday night, “American Idol judge Simon Cowell was rude,
mean-spirited, and nasty in his comments to Sanjaya Malakar
after his performance. (Which it turns out, was his last.) The
next day, a writer in The Miami Herald wrote that Sanjaya’s name
was “Indian for tone deaf.” Sanjaya has also been the flavor of
the week for a lot of late night TV comedians.
Free speech? Sign me up; I’m all for it. But come on, that kid
is a kid. For sophisticated adults to heap public ridicule on a
17-year-old is no better than a schoolyard bully. And to do it
to a kid who has the guts to perform in a talent competition on
live TV in front of 30 million people – that’s just flat out
disgusting.
Part of the reason the Imus controversy captured the attention
of the masses is because he also was attacking young people,
whose only sin was aspiring to do something great.
Of course the reason the media clamped onto it like a bulldog on
a bone, is because it played the ever-reliable black versus
white race card. And a rich white guy keeping down young black
women student/athletes couldn’t be more scintillating.
But no one has been looking at the real issues…
Namely the victim-hood mentality the media coverage is creating,
and the way the Black leadership in America is perpetuating
this.
If you read my last book, then you know it’s all about how we
get infected with mind viruses that we aren’t even aware we
have. These viruses are just like the ones your computer gets.
They get imbedded on your hard drive (your subconscious mind)
and can cause you to unknowingly sabotage your efforts at
success.
Some of the most common mind viruses today are: money is bad,
rich people are evil, it’s spiritual to be poor, etc. Of course
if you buy into these viruses, you are volunteering to be a
victim.
On a conscious level, you are working to be successful. But your
subconscious mind is undermining all you try to do. These
dangerous viruses are spread constantly by governments,
organized religion and the media. And this Imus flap is packed
with them!
The truth is, Imus can’t hold down those young ladies; they can
only hold down themselves. And I think their response to all
this has demonstrated that they refused to let anyone keep them
down, and they are moving forward in a positive way.
Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for millions of other
Blacks…
Because they have followed the lead of the media and their
“leaders” and latched onto the scandal as yet more evidence of
how they are being held back, kept down, and denied their fair
shot at accomplishment. They have fallen into the trap of using
this as validation for why they haven’t achieved the success
they want.
Do Blacks have a fair shot at success in America today? Of
course not. And neither do women, Asians, Gays, and you could
even argue – white men! The truth is, the herd doesn’t want
anyone to break out and achieve high-level success, because it
will make them look bad. So we are all surrounded by people who
want to see us fail. (Often it’s the people who you think are
your supporters.) If you succeed, it takes away their excuses
for why they couldn’t make it.
It’s pretty hard to convince me you can’t make it without a high
school diploma, since I was expelled from Madison West High.
Likewise, you’d probably have a difficult time convincing Bill
Gates that the reason you can’t make it is because you don’t
have a college degree. But if me and Bill aren’t hanging around,
it would be pretty easy to convince yourself that your lack of
formal education is what’s really holding you back.
Yes, being born Black in America (and some other places as well)
can give you a disadvantage in life. So can being born blind,
deaf, or in a dysfunctional family. My friend W. Mitchell had
his face and fingers burned off in an accident, and then became
paralyzed in a plane crash. Does that kind of give him a
disadvantage to becoming successful?
The truth is, there are thousands of convincing excuses why you
can’t make it. If you’re looking for validation, you can find
that everywhere. But at some point, you have to make a decision…
You can be a victim, or you can be a victor. But you can’t be
both.
Ok you were born on the wrong side of the tracks, you were
denied a promotion because of your religion, or your mother
tried to bronze your baby boots when you were still in them. So
what?
You can spend the rest of your life trying to discover your
inner child, or you can move on and use that as motivation for
your eventual success. The problem with the world today is that
we have all kinds of religious, government, and media leaders
who are determined to keep you in victim-hood. And this is
particularly prevalent in the Black community…
The people being trotted out as empowering leaders for Black
equality are actually the champions of Black inequality! They
make their careers exploiting their own people and keeping them
oppressed.
The real issue is not that Don Imus called someone nappy-headed
ho’s. The real issue is that he called the wrong people nappy
headed ho’s! Because if he wanted to ridicule someone who was
whoring themselves out, he should have started with the two good
Reverends who were all over this mess: Jesse Jackson and Al
Sharpton.
Jesse and Al are the self-appointed guardians of all things
Black. Unfortunately, for them to get the kind of attention and
publicity they crave, they need their people to be exploited.
Their only job that I can see, is always looking for the next
crisis to exploit, and the next microphone they can get in front
of.
Now I have nothing against shameless self-promoters. Marketing
makes the world go round. But when you have to oppress your own
people to be perceived as the liberator, things are getting way
out of hand.
Worst of all, the mainstream media falls all over these two.
Rather than do the work and uncover some true leaders with the
community at heart, they keep trotting back to the two Reverends
for their tried and true “poor exploited Black man” sound bites.
Of course Jackson and Sharpton are not alone. There were
hundreds of other ho’s trying to use the situation to further
their own agenda. Did you read that the governor of New Jersey
was injured in a car accident, on his way to a meeting between
Imus and the Rutgers team? Are you fucking kidding me!
You’re telling me the governor of a state the size of New Jersey
has nothing better to do than going to that meeting? Any bets on
whether he would have conducted a press conference afterward?
At least we have the poetic justice of him getting into the
accident. The only way it could have been better would have been
if he had crashed with Jackson and Sharpton.
For Reverend Jackson to present himself as the protector against
racial slurs strains credibility a little. Since this is the
same guy who ran for president in 1984 referring to Jews as
“hymies,” and New York City as “Hymietown.”
And for Reverend Sharpton to portray himself as a racial
conciliator is a little like Hannibal Lector marketing himself
as a diet coach. You’ll remember Reverend Al exploiting the
Tawana Brawley hoax for all it was worth back in 1987. (Brawley
was the black teenager found smeared in feces and marked with
racial slurs that said she was raped by white guys. Later we
found out that this was a story she cooked up because she ran
away from home for a few days.) But there was Sharpton, running
from microphone to microphone, inciting fear, hatred, and
intolerance at every opportunity.
Truthfully, there was a time when Jesse Jackson was a hero of
mine. So I’d like to think that his motives are pure. It’s quite
a stretch for me imagining Reverend Sharpton doing what he does
for the greater good, but let’s give him the benefit of the
doubt. The point is, even if these guys mean well, what they are
doing is not helping their people, it is keeping them mired in a
victim mindset.
What Black America needs is leaders who will help them overcome
obstacles and reach for greatness. Leaders who won’t focus on
who or what is holding people back, but who or what can lead
them forward. And Black people must demand that those who want
to speak for them, do so with a message of empowerment, not
victim-hood.
This week was 60 years to the day that Jackie Robinson broke the
color barrier in baseball. We need more people like Jackie. And
we need the media to feature those kinds of Black leaders. Since
we’re talking baseball, how about interviewing Hank Aaron or
Frank Robinson? Dave Winfield has a new book out. Rachel
Robinson is doing great work with the Jackie Robinson
Foundation.
Bill Cosby is the voice of reason in a sea of sensationalism.
Will Smith impresses me to no end. Oprah is not just a talk show
host; she is a dynamic, articulate, powerful Black woman who has
overcome much to accomplish amazing things. Let’s hear from
these people when issues arise.
This is not just a Black thing either. There are many minority
groups that are led by people who exploit them. And a lot of
people of all races and colors who look first for the reasons
they can’t achieve great things. But this specific event can
give some serious food for thought for us all.
So what about YOU?
What happens when things don’t work out the way you planned?
When you come across obstacles to what you want to achieve? Are
you looking for validation of why you’re a victim – or intent of
finding the way to becoming a victor? Give it some serious
thought.
Have a great week!
Randy Gage
http://www.randygage.com
Lasse Burholt - LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lasseburholt
Inspiration, motivation: http://freespirit-network.ryze.com/
Personal Blog (Pictures): http://www.burholt.blogspot.com
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