Hate Radio

When I was in high school women played "half-court" basketball. Each team had 3 forwards on one side of the court and 3 guards on the other side of the court and no team member could cross the center line. Full court basketball was considered too strenuous for developing females. I remember being warned that too much exercise could cause my female organs to become displaced, preventing future child bearing.

Things have changed somewhat. Women today play full court basketball and no one, to my knowledge, has had her uterus fall out as a result. Women now go to college on basketball scholarships.

But some things never change. Strong female atheletes still frighten some men. How else do you explain Don Imus calling the Rutger women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos"?

Women playing basketball never has been, and never will be, a joke. Don Imus is not a "good man" as he describes himself. Good people don't spew hateful ideas on the public airways in the name of having fun. Sexism and racism are hurtful.

I'm not sorry he got fired.

I am sorry for the atheletes who were the innocent victims of his attack. They deserved better.



Incident

Countee Cullen


Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me. 

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.