RE: DA BITCHES AND HOS

I just read that they fired Don Imus. Please God don't let him come to the West Coast because we've got enough mean talk from Tom Leykus (I have no idea how to spell his name but it's quite clear that he doesn't really like anyone). I'm wondering if they also fired the Executive Producer on Don's show because after all, he started it, and quite frankly his comments about the Jigaboos vs. the Wannabees were just as, if not more offensive, even if he did try to temper it by foisting it off as a Spike Lee reference.

But this is not really what I want to write about. It just put me in mind of something that's related - an experience that has stayed with me over the last few weeks which is absolutely related to the subject of bitches and hos.

Adi's younger brother (39 but still younger) was here visiting from Israel a few weeks back and we went up to Lake Tahoe. To get there we flew into Reno and then rented a car and drove up the mountain. At the airport we were standing in line for the rental car behind a guy who's buddy worked for Enterprise and was supposed to hook him up with a truck. He was there with his friend and two girls who wandered off while we waited on line.

He was a sweet man, late 20s early 30s wearing huge rings that led me to ask if he played football and indeed he had although some of them were bowl rings and some were from bowling championships. The bowling rings were as big as the football rings - bowl and bowling no size difference - who knew? So he gets up to the counter and his buddy basically threw him under the bus. Not only was there no truck waiting for him but there wasn't even a reservation. The car rental guy was able to wrangle him a full size car...

... which ended up being parked next to our car out in the airport rental car parking lot.

We had a ton of luggage and it took a while to get it all in, but not as long as it was going to take this guy and his friends who had so much luggage it was overflowing the trunk of that car. I climbed into the back seat with Adi's brother and sister-in-law while Adi finished packing our car and then tried to help our new friend with his packing puzzle.

At this point little bro spies the girls that are standing by that car, large curvaceous black women with elaborate hairdos and looooong curved fingernails, zipped into shiny tight lycra track suits and he got so excited you'd of thought it was Ofra Haza returned from the dead, but no, he starts pointing and YELLING, "The Beeetches! The Beetches!"

Frantically checking to make sure the windows were all the way up I tried to get him to stop by asking questions, like "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Stop yelling, PLEASE." He explained to me that these were the bitches and hos like on the videos and I explained in a high pitched emphatic whisper that they were not and that it wasn't at all cool to be screaming that word over and over. I pointed out that their friend who happened to be a defensive back might very well pull him out of our car, without opening the door, and make him apologize.

He was shocked that they might consider this hurtful because to him it was like he was seeing famous people, you know da bitches and hos featured in those videos on MTV. It did not occur to him that their feelings might be hurt because his cultural references about the United States are pretty much just what he sees on the media that's streamed around the world after being created here.

It was my own little Borat moment.

It's not that Israel is backward, it's just that you would never see these women in Jerusalem. Or even in Tel Aviv. Because of the language thing I didn't even want to try to explain it to him. Even if we spoke the same language I don't know if I could.

All week long I've been listening to people talk about this, some saying it's okay to talk about women, in particular black women, this way because it's the popular cultural parlance or because they have a first amendment right to do so, and others saying it's not okay ever and is indicative of an underlying racial hatred in our society.

Bottom line for me is this: It's mean and it's hurtful and it's not okay - even if you have no idea what you're saying. If you say it because you think you're being cool you should be prepared to suffer the consequences, there ain't nothin' cool about being mean.