It comes from the comparison of the hair of sub-Saharan Africans to wool, using the concept of the nap (the amount of fuzziness) of the material.
It is possible to use it as a neutral term, but it has a long tradition in American (and British) literature as a disparaging term, (since a person possessing such hair does not have the long, flowing tresses of a “beautiful” person), particularly in the expression “nappy headed.”
That threw me too, and I’m American. Why would girls go round with diapers on their heads? However, nappy does have other meanings:
Much as I like the vision of girls with heads of foaming beer, kinky-haired is what was meant here.
This Just In: CBS shit-canned Imus. (per CNN’s Wolff Blitzer)
In my experience, every Republican I know, plus countless non-political standup comics and the like on TV. I can’t think of any media figure who is mocked or criticized more often that Al Sharpton. It’s the magic of the GOP that every one of its adherents seems to honestly believe they’re some on some sort of personal crusade, bravely going out and fighting for Truth and Justice, even when they’re just sitting there repeating things we’ve all heard a million times before. Al Sharpton’s a hypocritical racist. Duh, Mr. Moto. Do you thing that pointing that out makes you insightful or something? Who in the world is an easier target than Al Sharpton? It’s a measure of people’s constant, repetitive, utterly tiresome need to “speak out against” Al Sharpton that half the posts in this thread are about him.
It would be a lot easier, incidentally, to shed my lingering impression of the GOP as the party of racism if it weren’t for folks like you (however tepidly you’ve done so) and Shodan and athelas (predictably, quite avidly) trying to defend assholes like this. So what if there are worse people out there? What the fuck does that have to do with anything?
I don’t pretend to have any special insight. I barely have common sense.
Yet if I can see that Sharpton is a racist clown, why in hell is he getting into meetings with Les Moonves and demanding that other people get fired?
I think Sharpton and Jackson are jerks. I think Imus is one too. IMO no particular race has a monopoly on bigotry.
I’ve rarely heard or seen that mentioned before this thread, but that was my first reaction to hearing Imus’ (and his producer’s) remarks.
Doggone media beasts, forcing those shy, quiet gentlemen…nope, I can’t do it.
It is weird to see certain people jump to defend Imus…because he is being attacked by Al Sharpton.
But that makes no sense. Sure, Al Sharpton is no prize himself. But so what? Al Sharpton has almost nothing to do with this. This is about Imus. Sure, this whole incident is overblown, but Imus was totally in the wrong here. He’s not being attacked because Al Sharpton is a bully, he’s being justifiably attacked and Al Sharpton is trying to grab some media exposure for himself. So pit Al Sharpton, but don’t defend Imus.
Should he get fired? I don’t care if he gets fired. Should he be lambasted for making a racist and sexist statement? Absolutely. All the more so because he didn’t make this racist and sexist statement because he’s a big racist, but because he’s an out-of-touch old man trying to stay edgy and provocative.
Now, let’s all haul ass to Lollapalooza!
No more guessing necessary here – CBS fires Don Imus
A shock jock insulted somebody? I’m appalled!
I am familiar with his scurilous lies, in the Tawana Brawley case. I was just reminded of a later incident, in which Sharpton made same remarks about white “interlopers” into a Harlem neighborhood-which lead to a riot (in which a building was burned down). Anybody know the specifics?
Al never apologized for that one either.
After reading more about this, I think McGuirk should be the one who should be in trouble, not Imus. McGuirk was the one who called the women “hos” and “jigaboos.” Imus agreed with the “ho” remark and added “nappy-headed,” but he was only responding to McGuirk’s comment. I feel sorry for Imus- he’s being criticized for someone else’s comments.
Bullshit. He called them “nappy-headed hos.”
Who gives a fuck if he was responding to someone else’s comments? If some guy i’m talking to happens to make a comment i find offensive, i’m not going to repeat and add to it. And if i do, then people have a right to assume that i’m speaking for myself. Why should Imus not be held accountable for the things that come out of his own mouth?
You make a good point. If anything, both Imus and McGuirk should have been the subject of criticism, not Imus alone.
And i’m surprised it took the dribbling idiocy of ralph124c so long to arrive in this thread.
If any problem can be blamed on Ted Kennedy or Al Sharpton, no matter how tangential the issue or how tenuous the link, you just know that ralph will be there, jerking off in front of his computer.
Of course, as usual, he and his ilk have nothing to say about the actual issue at hand—whether or not what Imus said was offensive. Once the name Sharpton comes up, the Pavlovian responses kick in and the slavering fool starts drooling all over the place. I’m sure if you try really hard, ralph, you can find a way to connect Ted Kennedy to all this.
Speaking of, I’m offended to see that his user name is The Flying Dutchman, as it besmirches the good name of the real Flying Dutchman.
That was the Crown Heights Riot. One person ended up getting murdered by rioters.
And now, thank God, Hillary is going to meet with the Rutgers basketballs players. Christ, could she be any more of a shameless panderer?
Holy Crap. I hadn’t heard about these. He should have been fired before this or his show should have died because decent guests refused to go on it.
Exactly. I said posted in another thread that I knew someone that worked with him and he’s a shitty human being. Horrible to be around.
He can’t answer that. If he actually tells it’s parody, that ruins the whole thing, dontcha know.
I’ve heard a clip where he was just going off about some minor thing an employee had done wrong, totally blowing it out of proportion, while his other employee was begging him to please just drop it. Anybody can have their bad moments. Evidently he’s raised millions for charity and that’s good. However, seeing a list of nasty racist comments made by nationally known media personality is a different animal.
Someone posted that he had promised to mend his ways after other complaints. Evidently he couldn’t. So he loses his job but he’s still filthy rich and will probably continue to make plenty of money in some other way. Boo Hoo, life is so cruel for Imus.