MR. RAM: CELEBRATED THE WORST OF STEREOTYPES by Nat Irvin (Sunday, November 09, 2003, Winston-Salem Journal)
“Celebrating Their Achievements,” read the caption above the picture of three members of the 2003-04 Mr. Ram Homecoming Court, as they rode through downtown Winston-Salem during Winston-Salem State University’s homecoming parade. But when I saw the brightly colored picture prominently displayed in the Winston-Salem Journal, I cringed. These were not academic achievements, as one might have hoped. Instead Mr. Ram was dressed as a pimp, decked out in a full-length white fur coat, red leather suit and white hat. In 80-degree weather no less, waving to the crowd, looking for all the world like the Mack Daddy or Superfly, an escapee from one of the black exploitation films of the ’70s. The only thing missing was a bottle of hip-hopper Nelly’s Pimp Juice, which just last month went on store shelves in many urban communities, and the music of rapper 50 Cent screaming, “Ho make the pimp rich, I ain’t payin’ bitch.” Some will point fingers at the Journal for having selected from among the many images in the homecoming parade the one that perpetuated the worst of black stereotypes. But such criticism misses the point entirely.
A culture of violence What students should be asking themselves is much more fundamental: Why do they find it necessary to celebrate pimp culture, when it is the pimp who is directly associated with slapping, beating, denigrating, abusing and otherwise misusing their mothers or their sisters? And why did it not occur at least to someone within the group that they were representing a proud, historically black academic institution whose record of distinguished service to this community spans more than 100 years? I am well aware of that proud history, because I am a former vice chancellor of WSSU. Here is what I think. Black folks – and especially young black folks – don’t seem to recognize that they have an image problem, locally, statewide, nationally and globally, and far too many don’t give a good damn about it. Too many act as if they are running on an anti-intellectual self-destructive autopilot, and the fact that students attending a historically black university such as WSSU will celebrate the icon of the pimp is but one more illustration of how badly many are missing the mark. But it is more than that.
Selling the image The celebration of the pimp is pervading black culture beyond the colleges and schools. It was, after all, the NAACP that nominated hip-hopper Nelly for an “Image Award.” He is the now-infamous promoter of Pimp Juice, in communities near you. Columbia Pictures is set to release an 80-minute cartoon about a 9-year-old pimp, and pretty soon parents will be buying Li’l Pimp T-shirts for their kids. There is nothing redeemable about the image of the pimp. The pimp does not contribute to our community. He does not read. He does not invest. He is not married. He does not attend church. He does not support his family. He is unethical and uneducated, and he deals in the slavery of women Yet we black folks complain about the stereotypes associated with being black. We don’t seem to connect the dots of how the collective image of blacks is being distorted by the actions, words, music, language and culture. We don’t seem to see how this affects the opportunities for blacks everywhere. Oh, and should anyone call us out, that person risks being tagged as being anti-black, filled with self-hate – or, as they say, “playa hating.” And, God knows, if a white person has the temerity to suggest that something may be wrong with featuring a pimp as mascot, blacks would feign indignation to high heaven, inviting Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al, and who knows else to protest that somebody was being racist. I have heard the arguments made by some intellectuals that the celebration of the pimp is simply a metaphorical move by the younger generation to “pimp” the system, to use whatever skills they have to “get over” in a hostile, white-man world. Right! Such an explanation would be much more plausible if the students celebrating pimping were pimping physics, computer science, biotechnology, genetics and neuroscience. But from all measurable and meaningful statistics, too many black students are pimping when it comes to image, but are gimping when it comes to being competitive in the classroom. We are making too many excuses. Not enough black folks are willing to look at the heavy price that hip-hop culture is exacting from the overall image of the black community. And the silence is helping to quietly suffocate the intellectual and moral leadership that the next generation of students will need to be successful. Finally, I don’t know Mr. Ram, and as far as I know, the young man may well be an excellent student. But my complaint is not about Mr. Ram per se; it is really about the kinds of cultural statements we are making to ourselves, fashion and otherwise, that go unchallenged. Why is the black community virtually silent on these issues, when the stakes are so high? Why are we afraid to look in the mirror and see what is happening to our own community, to our own culture? Why are we afraid to see what we, and not others, are doing to ourselves? Why must we always point at others for what we ourselves are allowing to happen? I suspect some of the students at WSSU will take exception to my observations. Fine. But I challenge them – and anyone else – to do something much more important than focusing on me. Get a group of friends and family members together. Spend just one hour looking at BET and then analyze the images you see. Get on the Internet and look around the world and see what images you see of black people, and ask yourself what image you want to project. Not just here in America but to others living in South Africa, the Guangdong Province, Amman, Rotterdam, Accra, Santo Domingo, Salonika, Costa Rica. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but in this new electronic global economic village, perhaps we should say that a picture speaks 6 billion words. Is it the Pimp you seek, or is it something else?