Words Don't Matter

Society is made up of all sorts of rules. Written and unwritten rules make up how we act all the time. The written rules are called laws and we abide by them without question. The unwritten rules are the ones that are less defined and are open for interpretation. Amongst one of those unwritten rules is intraracial racism. This act which happens amongst minority groups in America is sometimes considered hypocritical. Minority groups scream racism from the white man when they are disenfranchised but yet they facilitate a prejudices against themselves. Perhaps, the biggest example of this is within the Black community. "Light-skinned" blacks vs. "Dark-skinned" blacks has been the cause of a divide in the Black community for centuries. Unfortunately though, it wasn't until that divide resurfaced in America during slavery that it started to cause major problems within the group in the form of self-hatred.

Willie Lynch introduced the notion of turning blacks against themselves bassed on differences like skin tone. From reading his letter it is evident that Blacks come in different shades of color because of White supremacy. Intentional raping and breeding procedures took place during the mid-1700s to ensure skin color differences were perpetuated. "Light-skinned" vs. "Dark-skinned" was a major problem during slavery and post-Civil War when rights were assigned to skin tone. The new divide within our community seems to be one based on class. The Black majority and the Black Elite make up the two factions. Author Manning Marable describes the difference between the two in his book entitled, "How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: A Critical Reassessment." The divide between the two groups can be seen the most in the social issues arena. The Black majority is the group that struggles on a daily basis for land and education, who take pride in their African heritage and show that in their language and culture. The Black elites are quite the opposite and look to accumulate petty amounts of capital at the expense of thir Black brothers and sisters while accepting the statas quo of economic and political systems.

It seems that one issue is dividing the two groups farther apart recently and that's the the use of the word Nigger. After the Don Imus situation, the use of the word Nigger and Bitch by musical artists and the Black community all together was put under scrutiny. In my opinion, the Black majority is going to continue to use the words that are indicative of their environment. Black elitists will continue to preach at and look down on those Blacks they can't relate to. The words that people use shouldn't be under scrutiny, especially in the entertainment arena. I don't even know why rappers are being targeted by individuals like Oprah and Al Sharpton when the real issues are not over what people say but how they act and are raised. The ban on the word Nigger is stupid! Rappers are entertainers and say what people want to hear for entertainment. What they do cannot be compared to the Don Imus situation because he is not an entertainer. The thing that we need to be concerned with is the fact that, perhaps Don Imus was giving his audience what they want to hear.