The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #100788   Message #2025880
Posted By: Azizi
15-Apr-07 - 08:24 AM
Thread Name: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
Either Imus or his producer described the Rutgers women's basketball team as "jigaboos" and said something about "jigaboos and wannabees like that Spike Lee movie "Do The Right Thing"."

Actually, the Spike Lee movie was "School Daze".

Here's a commentary about that movie:

"[Spike]Lee based his next film, School Daze (1988), on his four years at Morehouse College. Set on a college campus during homecoming weekend, it explores the conflict between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks. Those with light skin have money, expensive cars, and "good hair." The ones with darker skin are "less cool" and had "bad hair." Lee aimed to expose what he saw as a caste system existing within the black community. Lee began filming at Morehouse, but after three weeks the administration asked him to leave citing his negative portrayal of black colleges. Lee finished filming at Atlanta University. School Daze opened to mixed reviews but was a box office success, ultimately grossing $15 million. However, Lee's efforts to explore a complex social problem offended some, while others applauded."

http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/lee_s.htm

-snip-

In the context that Spike Lee used it-the light skinned Black students called the dark skinned students "jigaboos" and the light skinned students called the dark skinned students "wannabees"-that is want to be [Whites]". If I recall correctly, Lee had members of two different sororities exchanging these insults to each other.

While the African American sororities in Spike Lee's film were fictionalized, they are based on some historical and still to a much more limited extent present day truths.