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04/14/2007: "America - The Land of Plenty --- Plenty of Hate"

America is a land of hate. Our insides began to show this week when Don Imus was fired by CBS radio for his disgusting, mean and low class remarks about the Rutgers' women basketball team --- calling them "nappy-headed-hos." What we saw when our guts began to seep out was ugly. It smelled a putrid stench.

But It Is Not an All White Problem

As vicious and wrong as he was in those few words, Imus would not have those words in his vocabulary; he would not use those words were it not for blacks themselves. Rappers use the term in award-winning music and many blacks use the word frequently. The word "hos" is not a white word. It's not even in our vocabulary. I myself have never used the word. I'm not sure I've ever used the white version of the word --- the one, by the way, that's considered correct usage. I think it is a word that is sexist and degrading --- no matter which version you use.

The Urban Dictionary gives you an idea of black usage of words.

Many of those who called for Imus' head are themselves hate mongers. Jesse Jackson referring to New York as "Hemi Town" and Al Sharpton, the non-degreed man who calls himself "reverend" are well known racists. Things like actor Michael Richards using racial slurs onstage during his act and then apologizing is becoming the norm.

You can't turn on the radio without hearing hate. It's full of right wing commentators and entertainers spewing hate against the so-called left. Then you will read in the press the left spewing hate to the right --- calling it the vast right wing conspiracy.

You hear and read unkind remarks about women, Jews, blacks, gays, and lesbians --- anyone who isn't just like the person doing the spewing.

When did we become so full of hate? Have Christians always been so full of spite and anger toward non-Christians? Have we always detested people who are not like us? What gives any of us the right to set in judgment of anyone else? And why do we condemn people based solely on things over which they have no control such as their sex, sexual orientation or race?

And by the way, let us not forget that many of the fine people fighting and dying for our country are black and female. They are fighting so the rest of us have our rights --- including our right to free speech. How dare any of us degrade them!

The women at Rutgers showed more class and more smart than all the Imus' in the world. And we are fortunate to have many young women just like them in our military and in business and sports and in many other places. These young women are our future. They don't deserve what they got from this old man.

But the truth is, he didn't know better. He is from a generation that is passing. He's not keeping up. The world will pass him by if he can't change.

Times Are Changing

Women were no more than property in years past. We didn't even get the vote in America until 1920. Our grandmothers and great great grandmothers fought for every little thing that today we take for granted. We women today are standing on their shoulders.

Blacks and women are on the verge of commanding real power for the first time in our history. Old white men --- the old guards--- are scared. They're trying to stop the train of victory but they can't. It's rolling too fast and too sure.

All that we women have fought for is now within our reach. Female children can now be conceived without men. Our next president is more than likely going to be either a woman or a black. When either of those things happens, the ultimate glass ceiling will be gone forever. The old white men and their rule will be relics.

So they leash out.

But ah --- what about the mouth of Rosie O'Donnell? No doubt about it, her mouth spews hate too. It's everywhere. It's thick and ever present. Let her say what she wants. We do have freedom of speech. Just don't let her spew hate like Imus did. That's over the line.

The White Glove Girls

I grew up in a time when girls and women were second class citizens just like blacks. Science and math teachers paid no attention to us. When we raised our hands the teachers didn't acknowledge us. We were the white gloves girls.

But we were also the first generation of women to overcome. We fought for our place. We became professionals. We detested and destroyed those who tried to stop us. And that's why young women today don't have to fight so hard. That's also why Imus' hate words hit so hard. Young women today are not used to them. And they shouldn't ever have to be. My generation fought too hard to put this type of hate speech and thought behind us.

We have a woman as Speaker of the House for the first time in history. We're on the verge of having a woman president in this country. Women hold more power than ever before. In addition, there are more females in college now than males. Moreover, they make better grades and are far superior students.

So to degrade these fine women athletes at Rutgers was unacceptable. Yes, I'm a woman. I'm a former athlete. I'm a member of the Women's Sports Foundation. I've fought for women’s rights. I've marched for the ERA until I almost gave out. I've marched with the Barrigan Brothers. I've marched for civil rights. I've given speeches and written millions of words in newspapers and magazines --- all to fight for the inherent right of women and the oppressed.

The Fight to Be a Grown Woman

When my mother was in her sixties and a young man called her a girl I got up in his face, grabbed him by the tie, pulled the tie hard around his neck and told him never, never call my mother a girl again. "She's a woman!" That man, to my knowledge, never called a grown woman a girl again.

Mother just stood there with a stunned look on her face. She was used to me doing this sort of thing but she never totally understood why I made a big issue about it. What, she wondered, was wrong with being called a girl. She didn't even know!

In reading old magazines as I do frequently, women were always called girls just as black men were called boys. Women were treated as children. Women had to mind their husbands.

Well, that was then. This is now.

And We Fought On

I once wrote a newspaper column that evoked hate mail from both the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ. Mother asked me why I wrote these things. "You're the only person I know who could cause the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church to agree on anything. You're going to get yourself killed", she admonished me.

But my generation would not shut up and we are still fighting. We didn't like the crap that kept us down then and we don't like it now. We don't want it to return. We won't allow it to return.

Martin Luther King said it best when he said,

". . . I've been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!"

We women and blacks and other oppressed people have been to the mountaintop. We too have seen it. And we won't be pushed back! Old white men be damned. Any man who degrades women be damned --- black or white. Jews, blacks, women, homosexuals --- all of us --- we have been to the mountaintop.

It's time for the racists and bigots and hate mongers to shut up. Their time has passed.

I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. I'm an individualist who believes that each individual is responsible for himself. I understand that people hate what they fear and fear what they don't understand. So I believe that understanding is the key that will open the door to ridding us of this awful hate that is pervading this country. We must have a dialogue. And I believe it's begun. If the Imus affair opened the door to dialogue, then it's served a useful purpose.

We Must Fight On . . .

We must go further. We must stop the hateful and degrading words in Rap music. Read these lyrics to a current Rap song that won Hollywood's Academy Award in 2006 for Best Original Song! It's disgusting. Neither Sharpton nor Jackson objected. The double standard lives on.

And, oh yes, we are also a society of class bias. Like our British brothers and sisters, we bash other classes. We are not a classless society. That's another issue we need to address. We will never be classless. Perhaps we shouldn't be. I don't know. But I do know we should respect each other. And no one should have total power over another group of people simply because of their class.

We need to examine ourselves. Imus said he was a good person who said a bad thing. Perhaps. But one bad thing can make a legacy. What will our legacy be?

Test to see if you are prejudiced.