White America, you don’t get it.

Today, CBS fired shock jock Don Imus. This was after MSNBC dropped their simulcast of his show yesterday. From many corners of White America, I hear an outcry about how unfair this is, how Imus’s “Nappy Headed ‘Hos” comment was innocent, complaints about how political correctness has gone overboard in America, claims that a minority could have gotten away with it. In the past week, I’ve been subjected to more excuses and cop outs for unjustifiable comments than there are hours in the day.

Hence the title. White America, you don’t get it.

Not everyone, mind you. There are some of you who have an understanding of history. An enlightened few know bake sales by college Republicans are manipulative and deceptive because they tell 1/10 of the story. For the most part, White America says: “What happened 200 years ago doesn’t affect me. All that matters is now.” They don’t get it. They don’t understand that if college Republicans were going to be accurate with their bake sale analogy, they’d bar minorities from buying for the first six hours of the bake sale, then give them discounts on the leftovers for the final half hour.

A startling number of people don’t get it. They choose not to get it.

And they are lost on this Imus case as well. It’s a microcosm of the mainstream conception of race in this country. But don’t take my word for it. Here is a comment from the Sportsline.com message board representative of the sentiment behind a significant number of other posts:

The biggest problem is that the black communtiy can use all the racial slurs they want against their own race, but if a different race uses a racial slur then it's wrong. Well I call Bullshit!! As long as the black community continues to call each other nigger, then I say that it's not a racist term. As long as Chris Rock and Dave Chappell and Tupac and Snoop Dog wants to use the term nigger in their performances than I don't feel sorry for them. You don't hear Hispanic people calling each other "Spic", you don't hear Asian people calling each other "Chink", you don't hear White people calling each other "Cracker". But the black community uses the term nigger loosely in their everyday language. Then when somebody else uses it here comes Al and Jessie tootin their horns and wanting to get some "Justice". Hey Al and Jessie - IF YOU SPENT HALF THE TIME TRYING TO TEACH YOUR OWN RACE TO QUIT CALLIING EACH OTHER NIGGER THAT YOU SPEND TRYING TO PERSECUTE WHITE PEOPLE FOR SAYING IT YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY GET SOMEWHERE!!!

Of course, this neglects the fundamental fact that a black person calling another black person a nigger is likely devoid of discriminatory intent. When a white person uses the term without knowing the person, it is most likely a slur. However that’s the way it is with everyone. A black person calling a Chinese person a “chink” will be the object of scorn, too.

But wait, it gets better.

I could not agree with thsi guy more. it's become a joke the double standard in this world with respect to what blacks can say about whites versus whites versus blacks. it's perfectly ok for a black sportscaster to say "slow white guy" but god forbid a white person said a black guy can jump higher, run faster etc. the expression white boy gets thrown around as though it doesn't mean anything. it's as though the white people of the present have to basically become the same as blacks did in the 50's and 60's by just sitting there and taking. it's a freaking joke. i mean there is a movie called "white man can't jump" but what if a movie came out called "black men can't take care of their 10 kids"? exactly....................

In the 1950s, a teenage boy named Emmett Till was brutally murdered and mutilated by a group of white men for whistling at a white woman. The men were acquitted, and then sold their testimony of how they killed the kid to the press. See? White America is suffering the exact same type of institutionalized racism at the hands of a majority right now.

What should we make of Chris Russo, afternoon drive host on WFAN, and a buddy of Don Imus? Mad Dog said that the Rutgers team had to accept Imus’s apology or else, “I hope they haven’t done anything or do anything they want to be forgiven for.” As if he could understand what’s it like to be singled out for no reason other than being a young African American woman. As if Imus’s comment was an isolated incident.

These idiots don’t get it. They’ll never get it.

It’s the same people who piss on and on about how Affirmative Action is somehow a great enemy of the American Way, about how minorities are screwing them out of a college education at a top university. Don’t believe me? Here’s another one:

Of course there is (a double standard). I really dont want to come off as racist but dam I see the same one way street that many other Americans see.That is to be White has become more of a handicapp to society than any other race.WE are the only ones that are held accountable for what we say weather we ment malice or humor.White men can't say what they want without reprocautions while the black man has free will to say and do as they please.Pure double standards.Example Chris Rock vs Dennis Richrads.Chris Rock gets his own TV sitcome while Richards is still looking for work for reacting out of humor to a heckler in his audience while on stage.One makes racist comments out of humor often while one made it once.Can we guess on wich one only made it once?I call for BULL_HIT

Being white is a handicap? In so many of the comments from people lashing out in response to this controversy, the voice comes from a hopelessly shallow world view: We all agree that we want an even playing field. Since minorities aren’t legally oppressed any more, why should they get any advantages? White America has, by and large, chosen the easy way out of equating legislative reality with practical reality. What happens when the question changes, though, from “What are minorities denied?” to “What special privileges do the White Majority enjoy?” White Privilege is a powerful concept, but excuse me for being cynical enough to think that White America will never accept that it exists.

It’s not just the Imus situation that has White America on the defensive. They bitch and bitch about how the Duke case shows just how out of control minorities are in this country and how much under attack white people are. They forget that just a few years ago, a group of Latino young men were released from prison after having their youth stolen from them by a bunch of racist cops who pinned the raping of a Central Park jogger on them; cops who still insist on those young men’s guilt despite the massive evidence provided to exonerate them.

The Duke players were rich, so they were able to fight back, and the worst they suffered was embarrassment. The Central Park jogger kids lost a large chunk of their lives and were likely changed forever. But hey, white people are the ones getting screwed right?

There’s an outcry for that Duke case because their reputations were ruined. Yet I wonder how many people who support those young men who established a record of repeated boorish behavior both on and off campus also support of Adam "Pac-Man" Jones’s suspension despite the fact he has yet to be charged with any crime. If our legal system was guilt by stupidity, than the boorish, racist (yes, remember the email that came out in the days following the allegations) and idiotic Duke players would be doing 25 years. Why is Pac- Man Jones a thug, and they’re not, despite showing very similar behavior traits?

It isn’t difficult to figure out.

White people who wear non mainstream hairstyles get scoffed at. Black people get arrested. It happened to my father. Malcolm Gladwell has described a similar incident happening to him.

White America complains that they shouldn’t be punished for behavior that rappers do all the time. (Funny how no one ever brings this up about rock stars, most of whom are white.) They say this when 95% of those people don’t know the general cultural context for rap music, don’t know the circumstances. Does this mean that all rappers are justified in saying whatever they wish, however they wish? No. But I’d bet a good number of people complaining couldn’t discern a positive rap track from a derogatory one.

They don’t get that if anyone, white or black, addressed the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “Nappy Headed ‘Hos”, they’d have gotten in trouble. They don’t understand that when you single out a group of young women, and call them black prostitutes with no provocation whatsoever, you’re going to get punished. Why is this wrong? If I walked into your house and called your mother a pale faced slut, wouldn’t you throw me out?

But how often does that happen? It doesn’t, because I know better than to use a derogatory slur in public. A black person using the term “nigger” and a white person using it is different. If you can’t see that, then you just don’t get it. But because I’m not a hateful, spiteful person, I’ll say thankfully you never will.

For you to understand it, you’d have to bear the weight of 300 years of oppression. You’d have to know what it’s like to walk into a pharmacy, have an eight year old white girl say, “Afro,” and then have her friend stare at you in absolute terror that you were going to beat them, shoot them, or whatever. You’d have to be followed by someone as you browse a store, because they think you’re going to steal something.

It’s not just the African-American experience that illustrates you don’t get what being a minority in this country means. For you to understand, you’d have to know what it’s like to have people suspect you of being an illegal immigrant who can’t speak the language. You’d have to know what it’s like to have it be assumed you’re a terrorist everywhere you walk, to have to worry about being escorted off airplanes because people are afraid of you. You’d have to weather “Do you eat dogs for dinner?” jokes that aren’t jokes. You’d have to grow up outside of the status quo, relegated to “other”.

But, White America, you don’t have these problems. Because in the end, when you walk down the street, into a store or get on a plane, nobody thinks anything of it, even though the vast majority of thieves, rapists, and murderers are people who look just like you, precisely because you are the majority. The truth doesn’t matter, though, because the vast majority of people believe minorities are more likely to hurt them than other whites.

So stop whining about the double standards. Stop complaining about how “difficult” you have it because you can’t crack jokes in public about minorities. The fact that you are bitching says one thing loud and clear:

You don’t get it. And you never will.