On Monday April 16, 2007 Oprah Winfrey did something that she has wanted to do for years. Oprah decided to have a talk show that directly discussed issues within the African American community. Some of the topics discussed were sexism, racism, and change. The show was titled After Imus:Now What? Some of the panelists Oprah invited to share their opinions were Stanley Crouch, a syndicated columnist for The New York Daily News; and two-time Grammy winner India Arie. The show was set up in a way in which the audience could voice their opinion through an open mic. The discussion about racism, sexism and change was done in a two part show with the second panel voicing their opinions and solutions on Tuesday April 17, 2007 in a show titled After Imus: The Hip Hop Community Responds.
During the first talk show columnists addressed CBS talk show host Don Imus comment about Rutgers University girls’ basketball team. On April 4, 2007 Imus called the women “nappy headed hoes." After that comment, controversy stirred up in the African American community. All the people of importance within the community started pointing fingers and laying blame on each other. According to Stanley Crouch the “Humanity of people is the only answer to this, because people are being dehumanized in popular culture. … When people saw who these women were, they saw how much of an insult it was." In the media African American women have been dehumanized for many years. Also by the hip hop community and other news media.
I conducted a little research of my own and interviewed African American women on the campus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. I asked the women how they felt about Don Imus? One of the comments struck as far from the norm. According to Chantal Dixon " He was making the comment in a jokingly manner, why is it when someone of another race makes a comment about African Americans everyone in the community blows everything out of proportion; but when some African American makes a comment no one says anything. It seems as if African Americans feel that they have the right to say racist things because of their past in America." Ms. Dixon's point of view is slightly understood by some in the community. As the show continued the discussion became more heated and many of the panelists started to agree that it was the hip hop community's fault for such language. Many wanted to blame the community because of similar and sometimes worse lyrics that rappers used in their songs.
On the second part of this discussion After Imus: The Hip Hop Community Responds Oprah invited some very notable figures in hip hop to respond to the panelist comments on previous show. Some of the panelists she invited were Dr. Ben Chavis, hip hop advisor and director of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network and Russell Simmons, CEO of Def Jam music group. Dr. Chavis acknowledged that some of the lyrics rappers used were downgrading to women and that after the show he was calling a meeting between some of a hip hop's biggest money makers. Dr. Chavis expressed that he was around during the Civil Rights Movement and the birth of Hip Hop and acknowledged that the problem would not be solved overnight. Russell Simmons tried to explain how these rappers were products of their environment (project housing, welfare, and low income school districts) and in order to fix the problem we needed fix its roots first by helping African Americans to get out of the poverty that they are in.
Many people including myself and the panelists were happy that Oprah decided to talk about such a controversial topic. By opening the topic up for discussion Oprah hoped that the show would be a gateway to solving some of the issues discussed. The topics discussed were so important that 79 year old Dr. Maya Angelou called in to voice her opinion about the situation. In the future maybe Oprah will bring us the results of the meeting that Dr. Ben Chavis promised would occur after the show. Maybe, after that town hall discussion as Oprah labeled it, many in the hip hop community will jump start the resolution by not making derogatory comments about women in their lyrics?
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