That's kind of deep. A radio host accidentally says "coon" when talking about Condoleezza Rice. (And if you look at the transcript, it really looks like an accident. It's not like some weird shock jock stunt) And he gets fired immediately. Wow.
But then that raises the obvious question: what happens to a working class African-American woman who ISN'T semi-married to the President when they get called "coon" for real? Is this about race, or class, or just power?
But then that raises the obvious question: what happens to a working class African-American woman who ISN'T semi-married to the President when they get called "coon" for real? Is this about race, or class, or just power?
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The original link expired but I found a replacement here.
7 comments:
I don't get how it could have been anything but deliberate. That word isn't even in the vocabulary of most folks, except that it's distantly recognized as a racial slur.
I suppose I'm a bit sheltered — language like that in my community would make one a social pariah. It just doesn't fly.
Did you look at the transcript? I guess it is possible that with tone and inflection he could have said "sorry" "sorry" in a kind of smirking way... but just reading it normally, it really does seem like an accident. He said he was trying to say "coup" which actually kind of fits.
unrelated comment/post:
there is a great arabic website called altareekh (history) done under the supervision of a great saudi shaykh called Muhammad bin Musa al-Shareef. They have a section on great men in history, entitled "rijal khalidoon" (immortal men). One of these men is Uthman bin Fodi, a great African leader and wali of Allah who established an Islamic caliphate/nation that lasted for more than a century in africa and spread islam in the 19th and 20th centuries. I listened to a short 15 minute audio lecture about him by above-mentioned shaykh, and now i found an article about him on that website.
here's the link, just in case you'd be interested in posting it for any readers you have who can read arabic.
http://altareekh.com/doc/article.php?sid=849
Oh you mean the one who waged Jihad in Northern Nigeria and is therefore partially responsible for the killings that go on in Nigeria over Religion? That one? How does that make him a "great African?" Next I'll read that Tipo Tib was a "great African" too.
I continue to have conversations with many about the fact that the only kind of oppression faced by Black wimmin isn't racism. For me the question is less whether the radio announcer/interviewer would have been fired if she wasn't powerful and wealthy, because obviously the answer it no, trust me. The question is how long are Black thinkers/politicos/visionaries going to ignore the existence of a Black middle-class and upper-class buffered by influence, money and/or credit who are positioned, in the case of the Condi's and Oprahs of the world to take their place as class oppressors and in the case of the smaller fry, to dominate working-class and poor people inside communities of Black people?
good question Dark.. I think this problem you speak of is a direct result of an idealized "blackness" based on some very poor assumptions. I remember when I went to Tuskegee back in the early 90's and I swore up and down that a place where 'we ran ish" would be next to heaven. I was sorely sorely disappointed. What I didn't know then, which I know now is the role class (of various kinds, ethnic,religious and economic) played in our enslavement by other Africans. Once you realize that "black identity" does not equate to justicem then the whole concept and purpose of black advancement or politics changes.
If you look at the situation of Garvey and the NAACP the purpose of the black middle class in America was quite clear: We want in on the game. It is wrong to cut us out of the game. Rather than The game needs to stop.
the NAACP leadership hated on Garvey because he appealed directly to the working class. A lot of people hate on Booker T. Washington but he too was concerned primarily with the working class of his time. You'll find that most of those who objected to Booker T. were those mad that his politics would deny them access to white middle class status'.
a very similar situation is playing out in South Africa, where the new monied black middle class there is advancing at a rapid clip while the masses are having many of the same problems they had pre-aparthied.
sondjata- at first he only spread islam by poetry and da'wa. his only jihad was in self defence when he was attacked and he won. its not his fault africans are now fighting over religion.
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