Linda Greene, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin and a founding member of the Black Women in Sports Foundation, said that Imus’s characterization of the Rutgers team resurrected “old stereotypes about African-American women that date from slavery, where stereotypes of promiscuity were generated to mask the systematic rape that was a concomitant of slavery.”
“In addition,” she said, “they also are consistent with the historical rejection of black women as beneficiaries of the feminine ideal.” ...
On the surface, Imus’s remarks were aimed at African-American women. But as Greene points out: “No woman who participates in sport, and no mother or father who encourages and supports that participation, can escape their animus. Beyond his bold and overt racism lie assumptions about the proper bounds of femininity, assumptions that Title IX and other civil rights legislation sought to shatter.”
Some thoughtful reflections on deeper meanings by a colleague.
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