By now everyone has heard radio announcer Don Imus’ racist and sexist comments regarding the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team. People were appalled, disgusted, and disappointed.

You talked to your friends and family about how shocked you were that today, in 2007, people still think like that. Got up on your soapbox at work letting everyone know that you thought he should be fired, never allowed on the radio again. I would bet some of us even joked about being locked in a room with him for five minutes to show Imus some manners. After you voiced your opinion and let your anger be heard what did you do? You turned on the radio and hear your favorite Game song “Wouldn’t get far.�

My point? How can you expect America to take African American culture seriously if African Americans do not respect the culture themselves… ourselves. Although angered, I was not shocked when I heard Don Imus’ comments from a few days ago. America has a LONG way to go when it comes to racism. We live in a society where Paris Hilton can call producers niggers with no backlash from the community. We live in a country where Abercrombie & Fitch can settle out of court for a measly $40 million dollars for discriminated against minorities in 2005 and yet is still one of the highest selling clothing lines amongst the youth. The settlement was not even major news! Last week during my flag football game, I was told to “know my place boy,� emphatically by a white player on the other team. The sad thing about last weekend’s events is that the opposing team was half African American and not one of the black players felt the need to reprimand their teammate or apologize to me. Does America still think like Kramer, who we still can see on television at least three times a day?

Being almost twenty-five in America, I am no longer surprised by racism. I do however hold my family accountable for their actions. I demand that we stop calling each other niggers, bitches, and hoes.

This morning I heard Snoop Dog and Stuart Scott attempting to explain why it is acceptable for black men to call their friends niggers and black women call their friends bitches and hoes. I could not disagree more. On Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio (April 11, 2007) Stuart Scott tried to justify this unacceptable behavior by saying it was a way of turning a negative into a positive, a way of taking the power out of the word. Making these terms words of endearment. I would like Stu to go home and call his wife or mother a bitch or a hoe and see what type of loving reaction he receives and have him give them the same lame excuse to them on why it is acceptable. My father did not take part in sit-ins while in college for his son to call himself and his friends’ niggers. My mother did not get spit on for being the only black person living in her New York City building for me to call black women hoes and bitches. How can I possibly get mad at Michael Richards or Don Imus if I use the same language?

I went to Allegheny College, about an hour north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since my home is Alexandria, Virginia, I was not able to go home often. Easter was particularly hard because I was never able to go home during that weekend. I had a close friend who would take me home with him every Easter and considered him one of my best friends in college. Spending Easter with his family was a big deal to me. We would go over his grandmother’s house, eat, and have Easter egg hunts with kids, it was great! Our senior year of college we were hanging out in my apartment playing Madden before a night of drinking, obviously Redskins versus the Steelers. As Laveranues Coles caught a deep bomb for a touchdown my friend called his defensive back, “a stupid nigger.� I was shocked; I had been to this man’s grandmother’s house for the past two Easters! I calmly told my supposed friend that language like that was not acceptable in my home. His rebuttal was, “Come on Ian, you know we are cool, you guys say it in rap songs.� My response was had he ever heard me call anyone that word, he replied with an embarrassed no. Needless to say, I did not go to his home for Easter that year. The point of this story is what could I have said to him if I used that type of language? How can I hold someone accountable for something that I have no problem doing?

Hip Hop artists need to realize that the majority of their music is bought by suburban white youth. I do not knock Snoop Dog, 50 Cent, and others for trying to support and financially establish their families, I am happy for them. All I am trying to say is, Talib Kweli put it best when he said, “Where else in America can a black man get in front of a microphone and say whatever the hell he feels like? That is a lot of responsibility.�