"Are black women wearing burqas?"

Related to yesterday's post, see today's Cincinnati Enquirer:
Racism, sexism fueled by society, business --

How deep is the bias? Just look at whom the media sought out when the Imus story broke.

Did they ring up the president or the women of Spelman College? Did they call Johnnetta Cole, Julianne Malveaux, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Callie Crossley, Vanessa Williams, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove, Shirley Franklin, Mae Jemison, Condoleezza Rice, Kathleen Cleaver, Pearl Cleage, Susan Taylor, Renita Weems, Jill Nelson, Sheryl Swoopes, or any of the legions of accomplished black women who could bring historical and political context to the harm of calling young women hos?

No. Black women were insulted, but the media rushed to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Are black women wearing burqas? Are they so invisible that they don't even get to speak first about their own pain?

If the press had to have a Sharpton or Jackson, why not their wives or daughters?

Instead, the public was distracted yet again by all the tired reasons why Sharpton's and Jackson's own flaws render them unfit to criticize Imus.

Fox's Sean Hannity, for example, repeatedly interrupted a black woman who was trying to speak about the harm of calling women bitches and hos, to press her on whether the worse name-calling was by Imus or some black rapper.

and...

The deeper truth is that both Imus and black misogynist rappers are just the voices we hear and the faces we see. But who is backing up and enriching such miscreants?

The answer is huge institutions such as CBS Radio, MSNBC, Viacom and Black Entertainment Television, which have executives, stockholders and advertisers who've gotten very rich by fostering uncivil dialogue and exploiting nasty rap lyrics.

It's not sentimental; it's cold, calculating business.

Just as slavery was business - the business founded on the vile proposition that persists to this day that black women are just nappy-headed hos who can be disrespected at any time by anybody.