The Double Standard on ‘Hoes’

Don Imus was fired by CBS and MSNBC for jokingly saying ‘nappy-headed hoes.’ But rapper Nicki Minaj can say that and the N-word and the Imus Firing Squad of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton says nothing.

Remember when Don Imus saw his cushy CBS Radio and MSNBC career go up in smoke in 2007 when he tried very early one morning to make one of his fake-misanthropic jokes about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being ‘nappy-headed hoes’? Black activists demanded his firing. Advertisers fled. The corporate suits, appalled and fearful of the terrible publicity, canned him.

But if you’re a black rapper, terms like this advance your career. The female rapper Nicki Minaj has a very hot new video called ‘Stupid Hoe.’ She uses that same term to snap at other women – ‘We ship platinum, them b–es are shipping wood / Them nappy headed hoes, but my kitchen good.’ (Don’t hurt your brain trying to make sense of it.) Minaj even threw the N-word in the lyrics: ‘How you gon’ be the stunt double to the nigga monkey?’

The video broke YouTube records by clocking up 4.8 million views in its first 24 hours on the site and 11 million over the weekend. But outrage from our elites? Hello? Anyone? So far, the silence is deafening from America’s major race-card players.