Segment on '60 Minutes' Shows Prison Culture's Influence
By JASON WHITLOCK
AOL
Sports Commentary
I’m going to sellout again today. Yep, it’s time for a little more Uncle Tomming in the name of trying to wake up black people to a crisis in our community.
You watched “60 Minutes” Sunday night, right? You saw Anderson Cooper’s piece on “Stop Snitchin’,’’ which was basically a 13-minute expose on how prison values have intersected with hip hop culture and turned inner-city communities into un-policed killing fields?
I hope you watched. It was a televised version of what I’ve been telling you right here at Real Talk for the past two months.
The rapper Cam’ron bragged on camera that he wouldn’t snitch on a next-door neighbor who was a serial killer. A black anti-violence advocate basically compared the millionaire rappers who promote prison values to the KKK. And a group of young black kids acknowledged that the gangsta rappers are influencing the values of young people.
“Whatever they dish out, we eat it up,” one girl said of the rappers. “They could dish out the nastiest thing in the world and we still would eat it up.”
Surprisingly, not one of these kids mentioned being scarred for life by Don Imus or any other white man they did not know. Maybe Cooper cut out those soundbites. I’m sure the ignorant ramblings of a radio shock jock did more damage to these young kids than the black-on-black violence they acknowledged witnessing.
Or maybe the kids are just a bunch of Uncle Toms, and they need a Vivian Stringer-type leader to explain to them why Imus’ words are more harmful than the prison lifestyle that is promoted in popular rap music.
OK, I’m done with the sarcasm. Cooper put together a powerful story. Unfortunately, he didn’t connect all the dots. That’s why it’s necessary to come here.
Hip hop/prison culture is a natural outgrowth from Ronald Reagan’s “war on drugs/poor people” and the subsequent incarceration and brutalization of a large percentage of black men age 15 to 40.
Prison building and warehousing black drug offenders – the new, all-American Apartheid -- is big business. It’s a booming industry financially and politically. Americans bought the lies told by political strategists that locking up black, brown and poor men for long stretches would make America safe.
Are we safer? Or are we in far more fear of not only crime but of the youth culture (hip hop) that is swallowing black and white kids?
It’s worth restating what I’ve said in previous columns: the tattoos, cornrows, sagging pants, hostile attitude, anti-snitching philosophy, down-low sexual lifestyle, rep-your-‘hood mantra and instant-gratification approach to life – the tenets of hip hop culture -- are all taken straight from the penitentiary.
The values needed to survive in America’s barbaric prisons are being marketed to our children through gangsta rap. Denied hope, education, a legitimate opportunity at rehabilitation, the black men incarcerated in our prisons have immersed themselves in prison ethics and are passing along their hopelessness to their free and incarcerated children, relatives and friends.
It’s all rather predictable. Much of art is born out of pain and suffering. America’s flawed, immoral and discriminatory-enforced drug policies have created a significant amount of pain and suffering in the black community.
In order to diffuse this deadly culture, black America is going to have to develop the willpower to reject the negative aspects of hip hop and our country’s lawmakers are going to have to end the “war on drugs” and introduce hope, rehabilitation/habilitation, aggressive education and common decency into our prison system.
I’m sorry, we cannot simply lock up human beings and forget about them. The price of this crime against humanity should now be obvious. You can’t make the world more civilized by treating a segment of the population in an uncivilized manner. Prison building may be economically profitable, but the toll it is taking on society does not justify the profits. It’s no different from the tobacco industry. Astronomical incarceration is hazardous to our health.
The reason I’m adamant about fighting the negative images promoted in hip hop is because these powerful and pervasive images will damage the relief efforts made by well-meaning people to halt America’s drug war and globe-leading incarceration rate.
As long as Cam’ron and the other black KKK rappers are allowed to define us as lawless, uneducated buffoons, we will face impossible-to-overcome challenges in regards to changing our drug laws and introducing significant prison reform.
Based on what Cam’ron said on “60 Minutes,” do you think any sane person wants him as a next-door neighbor? Based on the picture he painted, don’t you think it’s a little more difficult today to convince viewers of that show that there are black men in prison worthy of rehabilitation?
You want to see America spend more money on education in our inner cities? It would be easier to make the case and pressure lawmakers if Americans who have virtually no insight into us – except what they see on TV through pop culture – believed our culture valued education more than prison ethics.
Who caused more damage to black America’s quest for social and economic equality, Cam’ron or Don Imus?
2007 America Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2007-04-23 11:15:23
--------------------------------------------------
This is the 60 minutes Segment this article is referring to.
Showing posts with label Jason Whitlock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jason Whitlock. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Whitlock appears on “Oprah”
The Kansas City Star
Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, whose columns on talk-show host Don Imus have garnered national attention, was featured on Monday’s “The Oprah Winfrey Show”.
He will appear on the show again Tuesday.
Whitlock has appeared on numerous news and talk shows in the past few days after his Wednesday column that addressed Imus’ recent racist comments about the members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team. He was a guest Thursday on MSNBC’s “Tucker” show and on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” Friday morning he spoke with the Rev. Al Sharpton on CNN and appeared on the “Today” show.
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” can be seen at 4 p.m. on KMBC, Channel 9.
http://www.kansascity.com/159/story/69589.html
Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, whose columns on talk-show host Don Imus have garnered national attention, was featured on Monday’s “The Oprah Winfrey Show”.
He will appear on the show again Tuesday.
Whitlock has appeared on numerous news and talk shows in the past few days after his Wednesday column that addressed Imus’ recent racist comments about the members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team. He was a guest Thursday on MSNBC’s “Tucker” show and on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” Friday morning he spoke with the Rev. Al Sharpton on CNN and appeared on the “Today” show.
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” can be seen at 4 p.m. on KMBC, Channel 9.
http://www.kansascity.com/159/story/69589.html
Friday, April 13, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist
http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html#recent_comm
Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com
By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist
http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html#recent_comm
Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Why Redefine the N-Word?
Why Redefine the N-Word?
4/9/07
Editorials
Howard University The Hilltop (subscription), DC
http://media.www.thehilltoponline.com/media/storage/paper590/news/2007/04/09/Editorials/Why-Redefine.The.NWord-2829990.shtml
The debate over the N-word has gone on for years, decades even, and it will probably continue.
Those in support of the word argue that it is acceptable because it has been “flipped,” taking what was once negative and turning it into a positive term of endearment without the negative connotation.
Some who stand in support of the N-word, like the late-great 2Pac, have even invented new definitions of the word like 2Pac’s acronym, “Never Ignorant about Getting Goals Accomplished.”
This frame of thought has been extended to other words with negative connotations such as bourgeoisie, ghetto, uppity and even pimp.
We at The Hilltop believe that those who attempt to do this have good intentions at heart, but their methods are fundamentally flawed.
Regardless of what new definition you give to a word or what type of spin you try to put on that word, it will not change where the word came from.
Many of these negative words are deeply rooted in pain, oppression, hatred, discrimination, blood, sweat and tears.
Despite how we may want to change how these words are currently perceived, it is impossible to erase the history that they will forever be tied to.
And although these newer definitions may make sense to us and may be accepted inside of our communities, we must remember that many will not define them in the same way.
Those who exist outside of the black community as well as many inside the black community will always hold to the traditional definitions of words like pimp and ghetto.
What is even worse is that in order to transform the definition or perception of a word, one must first embrace the initial comprehension of the word.
By embracing these derogatory terms one is, in a sense, accepting the stereotypes and prejudices that travel hand-in-hand.
It is time to stop trying to alter the meaning of hurtful and derogatory terms, and it is time to remove them from our vocabulary completely.
4/9/07
Editorials
Howard University The Hilltop (subscription), DC
http://media.www.thehilltoponline.com/media/storage/paper590/news/2007/04/09/Editorials/Why-Redefine.The.NWord-2829990.shtml
The debate over the N-word has gone on for years, decades even, and it will probably continue.
Those in support of the word argue that it is acceptable because it has been “flipped,” taking what was once negative and turning it into a positive term of endearment without the negative connotation.
Some who stand in support of the N-word, like the late-great 2Pac, have even invented new definitions of the word like 2Pac’s acronym, “Never Ignorant about Getting Goals Accomplished.”
This frame of thought has been extended to other words with negative connotations such as bourgeoisie, ghetto, uppity and even pimp.
We at The Hilltop believe that those who attempt to do this have good intentions at heart, but their methods are fundamentally flawed.
Regardless of what new definition you give to a word or what type of spin you try to put on that word, it will not change where the word came from.
Many of these negative words are deeply rooted in pain, oppression, hatred, discrimination, blood, sweat and tears.
Despite how we may want to change how these words are currently perceived, it is impossible to erase the history that they will forever be tied to.
And although these newer definitions may make sense to us and may be accepted inside of our communities, we must remember that many will not define them in the same way.
Those who exist outside of the black community as well as many inside the black community will always hold to the traditional definitions of words like pimp and ghetto.
What is even worse is that in order to transform the definition or perception of a word, one must first embrace the initial comprehension of the word.
By embracing these derogatory terms one is, in a sense, accepting the stereotypes and prejudices that travel hand-in-hand.
It is time to stop trying to alter the meaning of hurtful and derogatory terms, and it is time to remove them from our vocabulary completely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
