the last week or so the biracial message boards have been abuzz about about kanye west's comments in a new essence magazine article. i first read about the controversy reading afrobella. as i understand it, he's quoted as saying: “If it wasn’t for race mixing there’d be no video girls . . . Me and most of our friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the hood they call ’em mutts.”
an absolutely ignorant and distasteful comment, i thought, when i read it. but what's the big deal? but the more i think about it, i realize it is a big deal. the language we use to describe each other and ourselves is incredibly important. it shapes the way we view each other and ourselves.
these days i am biracial or a mocha baby or sometimes mixed. i'm definitely no mutt.
a mutt is a dog not a woman. a woman deserves respect.
