The Culture of Disrespect:

From The Message To The Conversation
Why Black America's Self-Examination Needs To Go Beyond Hip-Hop And Get Real
By Bryan Monroe

This whole thing started with three words.

“Nappy-Headed Hos.”

We were outraged when a 66-year-old White man used the public airwaves to carelessly hurl that insult at the women of Rutgers University’s basketball team. America rose up, confronted his sponsors and his networks, and he was fired. And he should have been.

But, in the midst of the Imus storm, it was amazing how fast the conversations in the media shifted from the vile and awful things that came out of his mouth to the vile and awful things that sometimes come out of the mouths of rappers, entertainers and everyday people. “The rappers made me do it,” we were asked to believe.

But we know better.

We know that while there are elements of today’s music that celebrate the deprecation of Black women, there are also elements that celebrate the beauty and power and grace of Black women.

We know that just as we see some young people on the streets or in the clubs or at the barbecues using words that drag us down, there are many other young people on the playground or the college quad or the coffee shop who embrace words that lift us up.

Nevertheless, we also know that, across Black America, we do have issues. We have allowed parts of our culture to go downhill. We have become numb to the words some use to describe our Brothers and Sisters. And some of us don’t really care. click here for full article