She's Not Heavy, She's My Ho
November 18, 2003
Something that is unique among a large segment of America's black population is the use of obscenities when addressing one another. It is odd that the same people who insist on referring to non-relatives as "sister" and "bro" are just as likely to call one another "nigger," "bitch" and "ho."
The same words that would provoke a blood bath if spoken by a white person or a Hispanic allegedly confirms a bond of friendship between the two parties when uttered by blacks.
Although "nigger" is a vile racial epithet, blacks will insist that it is perfectly acceptable so long as they alone bandy it about. How bizarre is that? In my entire life, I have never once heard a Jew refer to himself or his friends as "kikes," "sheenies" or "yids." I always understood that's what you had enemies for.
I do not believe that any Asian would take kindly to being called a "nip," a "chink" or a "slope," no matter what the race or the nationality of the name-caller. If one Italian called another a "wop" or a "dago," I guarantee a nose would be punched. Can you imagine a Puerto Rican calling a friend a "spic" or one Arab referring to his best friend as a "raghead"? No, neither can I.
What the heck is it with American blacks that they, and only they, of all the minorities, perpetuate the vile language of those who most despise them? What other group of Americans demeans its young women as whores with such regularity that their teenage girls refer to themselves and each other as bitches?
And it can't all be the fault of rap and hip hop music, and the crotch-grabbing comics of Def Comedy Jam, as trashy as all that stuff is. If Jesse Jackson really wanted to do something for someone besides himself, he would start hectoring his own people and quit lining his pockets by cashing in on white guilt and white gutlessness.
In spite of what people like Jackson, Waters, Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran, may contend to the contrary, the problem for blacks in this country isn't white people. Moreover, it's got nothing to do with what Rush Limbaugh says about a second-rate quarterback. It has nothing to do with whether or not Willie Randolph gets to be the next manager of the New York Yankees. And whether or not blacks are adequately represented in the world of NASCAR is equally inconsequential.
Instead, the question all these high profile blacks should be addressing is this: How it is that, on the one hand, no other minority so incessantly demands respect from everybody else, while at the same time exhibiting so little of it themselves?
©2003 Burt Prelutsky
