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"Nappy-Haired Hos"

Wow, that sure offended a lot of people. Al Sharpton, Oprah, Al Roker, the list goes on forever. I have a question or three. Why?

Why did the comment offend all these people so greviously that they had to clog up the national discourse for so long? Why did the locker-room humor of a nappy-haired cracker sudddenly become a clarion-call for black activism? What tangible harm did it do?

People get offended over all sorts of things. Some people get offended over pretty much anything. Some people seldom get offended at all. Its because we each choose what we find offensive. Some people dislike the drama that comes along with being offended so they narrow the range of things they choose to get offended about to a very few. Other people love the drama that goes along with getting offended so they choose to get offended over pretty much anything. And finally some people choose to get offended over whatever their friends and role models choose to get offended over because, well, they want to support their friends and they want to emulate their role-models.

Epictetus is credited with saying, "Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things." In other words, if we think something is bad, then it is. The thing itself may be of no more significance than a dead fly, but if we choose to form the notion that this insignificant thing is of vast importance, then it is.

But there is more at work here than mere love of drama. After all, if I had used the term "nappy-haired hos" in reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team, not a single person would have batted an eye. But this was Don Imus! This was a nationally broadcast talkshow host with tens of thousands of television viewers and radio listeners! This guy was "Somebody"!

Now, lets be honest. Everyone of us "regular people" secretly love it when a big-shot is brought low. It gives us a little shiver of smug satisfation running down our spines. We can say (even if its only in our own minds), "Ah, you're not such a big-shot now, huh Mr. Big-Shot?" The playing field is a bit more levelled, even it was accomplished not by raising ourselves up but by bringing someone else down.

So Don Imus is pretty much destroyed. Even his wife and family are suffering. Al Sharpton mobilized his not-inconsiderable publicity machine and played a major role in bringing Imus down. Why did he do this? Well, it sure didn't hurt his political future nor did it diminish the number of people who think Al Sharpton is God's right-hand man.

Did it hurt the Rutgers Women's basketball team? Hardly. You can bet that all this publicity has had several postive effects on them both individually and as a team. People who may have never had an interest in basketball before now know about them. They may even watch a game or buy a T-shirt. Affluent white people who feel a sort of "guilt by association" because they are the same color as Don Imus will probably present some opportunities in the form of jobs or scholarships to offset the "harm" that was done. The fact that no tangible harm was done will never be realized. Destroying Don Imus' life and career is not a proportionate punishment for the crime of merely hurting someone's feelings.

But that probably doesn't matter. There was drama and outrage and self-righteous indignation and some big-shot was brought down and everyone gets to feel all enlightened and cultured and couth. Certainly the suffering of the Imus family is a small price to pay for all that?