Richard O. Jones

Celebrated comic, actor, ex-gang member, and high school dropout D. L. Hughley recently joked on The Tonight Show that the remarks by Don Imus about the Rutgers girl's basketball team were wrong because the girls were not ho's. However, he added, they were indeed nappy-headed and the ugliest girls he (Hughley) had ever seen. (A video clip can be found on You Tube online.) The comedian could have easily gotten a laugh at Imus' expense. Nevertheless the 40-year-old sellout chose to further publicly embarrass the college girls. Hughley forwent the opportunity to encourage the girls with words of wisdom instead he regurgitated more verbal vomit on them. He chose to sabotage their spirit. Picking on weaker or defenseless people is called bullying and bullying often is the root cause of school massacres by picked on boys as frequent newspaper headlines prove; however, in bullied girls it leads to the silent erosion of their spirit.

In the December 2006 issue of Essence Magazine, hip-hop artist Kanye West said, "If it wasn't for race mixing, there'd be no video girls. [Me] and most of my friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the ‘hood they call ‘em mutts." The idea that dark skin girls are not good enough for the sleazy rap videos is racist; however, equally as racist is that the preferred light skin girls are referred to as mutts. Such ideology sabotages the feminine spirit and breeds calloused women.

According to recent studies most child abuse stems from women venting bottled-up rage. Most of the abuse on Black children is at the hands of spirit-sabotaged single mothers. For single mothers to raise healthy families they must first love themselves; however, Black women as a whole are made to feel inferior by the media, cosmetic companies, and from celebrity rappers and comics, which fuels depression until it explodes. Ponder the following statistics:

• Almost 70% of African American children are born into female, single parent households (2000 Census Report)
• African American families in known child abuse/neglect fatalities are more than twice the rate of other racial groups (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

Although many Black women wear the image of The Strong Black Woman they feel neglected and only God is their solace. The role of real men is to protect the women and children by providing a safe environment - not to create an unhealthy environment as the undisputable statistics above indicate.

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