Imus and Fox Non-sense

video from MediaMatters.org

Some people just don't get it! Context does matter, in fact, as any good linguist will tell you, context is everything to significance and meaning. If a white man calls a black man, "my nigger," those are fighting words, right?--unless they are very, very good friends and the irony is implicit. If a black man calls another black man "my nigger", weather they are friends or not, both black men are appropriating the language of racism and awknowledging their common history and community as " niggers," the objects of racism and exploitation. Context is everything. Rap is "racist" and mysoginist in that way...rap artists appropriate the language of racism and create a common language of suffering and exploitation. It may still be racist and mysoginist, but it is different because the context and history is different.

john fulbright