Nappy Headed “ho’s” “Whores” Revisited in the Mind of Mencia
Everyone knows about the former Don Imus Show and his comment regarding the winning
New Jersey basketball team. I personally thought the issue had been put to rest until I viewed the Mind of Mencia show early this morning. I was shocked and frankly appalled by his overtly racist and offensive comments towards African Americans. While I realize that Mencia is a comic, the voracity by which he attacked blacks was totally unacceptable to me and over ride any harsh feelings I ever had towards Don Imus. I will be writing his sponsors and asking how they can support these comments. First of all I would like to address the overall context of the words Nappy Headed Ho. I am going to be extremely politically incorrect about the word ho and say that there are women in the public eye everyday who exhibit the characteristics of the word:whore
(hôr, hōr) Pronunciation Key
n.
- A prostitute.
- A person considered sexually promiscuous.
- A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.
Most recently in the news we are all aware of or should be aware of the D.C. madam who pimped out college educated women to politicians allegedly for sex. This Madame is claiming that there are men- buyers in high level positions and sellers former prostitutes in high level positions who have sold their bodies for jobs and money. So far I have not heard these women referred to as hos, sluts, whores, or any other words that obviously apply to them. Not as recent we had the death of Anna Nicole who had at least five men claim to be the father of her baby, not one peep as to slut or ho as far as I know. Oh yeah there was one peep from Anne Coulter, who defended Imus’s right to freedom of speech but wondered why Anna Nicole Smith had never been referred to in that manner. Meanwhile we have half of non-black Hollywood engaging in extramarital affairs and everyone turns their heads and not one mention of anyone being a HO. As far as Mencia goes he said some pretty raw and wrong things about blacks which I will get to later but when I was watching the Wall Street Journal Report I often wondered why I had to watch Maria Bartolomow wearing dresses and shirts with cleavage not to her chest but all the down to her navel. I often wondered is this what it took to get an interview with Warren Buffet and the others, the promise to look down Maria dress and not one mention of the HO word from anyone. Meanwhile we have black women attempting to get a college education honestly, engaging in honest competition where no one has to question did you win because you slept with someone and they get called Ho’s . The only problem I see here is that black women are not ho’s and have never been known as ho’s. Black people are the ones you can depend on to represent their companies and their country without ending up creating some sort of embarrassment or scandal for the most part. I often think people are envious of just how straitlaced black women can be. As for dancers in hip hop videos they show just as equal too or just like or maybe even cover up more than belly dancers, hoola dancers, ballet dancers, and a host of all other types of dancers out there. Now I would just like to address Mencia’s comment’. The first one that was very disturbing to me was something to the effect that “white people must have built a great country because when slavery was over blacks did not go back to
Africa. The first thing I would like to inform Mr. Mencia of is that
Africa is not a country. It is a continent. African Americans were not allowed to retain languages, native customs, or even retention of what” country” they were from so they would never have been able to go back to where they came from. Second of all as many historians of various nationalities will tell you African American’s along with others participated in building this country. If you ever make it to the white house or the capital Mr. Mencia, you should make note of the fact that African Americans built those buildings – refer tot he texts of Randall Robinson. If you ever make it to Charleston or even read about Charleston you should know that many of the old building and houses were built by African American Artisans skilled in building and metallurgical work; some of it brought over from what ever country they were brought from. If you think about the cultivation of cotton and rice in South Carolina thank an African slave for it because they taught Caucasian Americans how to cultivate these crops in
South Carolina. Finally Mr. Mencia the next time you talk to a dark skinned white person you may want to consider that they very well could have a black ancestor that they have lost out on because their family passed them into being white to avoid oppression. In addition Mr. Mencia African Americans are not “Africans” they are African Americans, if you are not sure what that is, consider this;
Howard
University has a project called the DNA project. In this DNA project an African American can pay to have the African country their slave ancestors are from identified. Unfortunately, this DNA project is not working out for many African Americans because their DNA is not pointing them to African countries, but European ones. This is what an African American is. There are many many comments that you made towards African Americans that were extremely offensive, not only were they offensive but they were historically inaccurate. *****not edited
I think you may be a little extreme in the opposite direction… Mencia never mentioned anything about Africa being a country… Also… you say that African Americans were not allowed to retain their nationality or cultural identification… but they brought their metallurgical skills? Do you honestly believe that whites are envious of blacks because of how “straight laced” they are? I beg to differ… I don’t believe that black or white women have a bend towards deviance, I believe that both races have some guilty members… I do not think it was wise to respond so harshly to Mencia… The reason that shows like this are popular is to ease our tensions between races. As a college student right now I know that most black people remain grouped amongst themselves, and the black friends that I have typically share a lot of race jokes. Mencia is one of the many media forces pushing us toward a moment when racial sensitivity does not divide us any longer. I would recommend you save your breath on this issue anyway, with so many biracial relationships, we are all pretty much killing the concept of race anyway. Even most anthropologists are pushing to remove the concept of race from the US Census due to its scientific inaccuracy… One issue with Mencia… Horrible fact checking… He claims the word nappy come from just woke from a nap. It actually means tightly coiled in reference to hair, a feature predominant (not exclusive) in blacks, thus negating that whole section of his argument.
No Mencia did not call Africa a country he said, “white people must have made a great country because when slavery was over black people did not return to Africa; therefore implying that Africa was monolithic and all blacks had to do was be returned to the “continent” of Africa and everything was cool. I think through word play he implied that “Africa” was a country.
I agree I do not think that women or men are different in their approach to sexuality regardless of their race or nationality. I do beleive however society and the media has the tendency to demonize black women and men and with the Paris Hilton incident to some extent young white very affluent white women or need I say “American” women. However people of color, whether they are black or interracial still recieve the brunt of unfiar treatment in society in terms of harsher sentencing, wrong impressions and stereotypes.
AS for “racial” jokes my friends and I do not tell racial jokes at all about anyone and neither did the many generations of family memebers back. This was just not done especially due to our bonafide and certified multiracil heritage. As for what college students do I’ve beem to predominately black collges and predomintely white colleges and trust me blacks from predominately white colleges are different. From my observation they have serious problems interacting with the overall community; they therefore may tell racial jokes because of self hate. At HBCU’s you’ll rarely here a racial joke in general company. This is why many companies hire from HBCU’s becuase to put it frankly “they know how to act”.
As for Nappy It’s early in the morning and I have to take the flat irons and press my nappy head “HA” Anyway with all that was going on in terms of Anna Nicole Smith and others HO was the worng word to apply to any hard working athlete at any level.
I was also disturbed by Mencia’s comments after viewing his show this evening (5/15/07 @ 10:30pm). I found the one about “whites building this country….yadda yadda” especially offensive. I found them and the overall skit so disturbing that I searched for comments on it online and I found this blog. I just thought it was interesting that I wasn’t the only one who was thinking about this.
I was really shocked to see this episode. I rarely turn on the TV that late at night, preferring to work. However this was a night I turned on the TV and saw that Mencia would be on in an hour and because I had viewed a previous episode that was really funny I decided to wait the hour and watch the program. Boy was I slapped in the face; it was beyond an Imus moment for me. I was really shocked at the hostility as well as the inaccuracy of the skits. Some make us laugh because they are funny and relatable. However what’s been said about black people has really been strange lately. Ultimately, I get the feeling that these people are not responding to the blacks who are down on their luck but are harboring resentment towards the blacks who are really successful.