"Yo, Imus: I Am a Nappy Headed Ho."

A Washington Post - ABC News poll released on Monday reported that a narrow margin separates Americans on whether Don Imus should have been fired. When I read the report, I was thinking what you may be thinking - this topic is so old and with Virginia Tech's tragedy - why do I care any longer about Don Imus? I continued reading the report that said overall, 51 percent of Americans think Imus should have been fired, while 45 percent said he should have been kept on the payroll. It wasn't really a surprise when I read that more than seven in 10 blacks said he should have been fired, and among black women, 70 percent said Imus should have lost his show over his comments. After all, the insulting remarks were targeted at members of the black community. In the same poll, 55 percent of women thought Imus should hit the road, while 48 percent of men felt the firing was the right thing.

Then, I read another article on April 16th by USA Today saying this "is not a black thing." The article references a new book written by Cora Daniels, called Ghettonation. Daniels is 35 years old and is black. She is an award-winning journalist and author, and in her book, Daniels contends that the "ghetto-ization" of America has taken hold from coast to coast and not just among the black population. "Ghetto" is a mind set that celebrates the worst of human nature. It is now popular and fashionable in many youth subcultures to wear baggy clothes, freely use words like "mofo" and "ho" and have slacker attitudes. Millions of dollars are being made by companies online offering "pimp and ho" clothes and accessories to children. "Ghetto" styles, including gaudy jewelry and using the n-word, have caught on with teens and young adults who are not black, yet enjoy popular hip-hop artists like 50 Cent and Three 6 Mafia. That's not hard to understand since the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" won an Academy Award in 2006 for Best Achievement in Music Written for a Motion Picture.