I am disturbed
by the use of the word “pimp” when used to describe a car, a house, someone’s
swag, or today… popcorn.
I LOVE a
good magazine article while I am on the treadmill. Nothing makes those three
miles go faster than reading about how to organize your thoughts, how to let
stress motivate you, or how to dress up your most comfortable pair of jeans.
Today I flipped to an article entitled “Pimp your popcorn” with a list of
different ingredients you can add to your snack to make it delicious.
For the
life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would use this word to describe
something positive.
A pimp is an agent (usually male) for prostitutes who
collects part of their earnings. This act is
called procuring or pandering. The pimp may receive
this money in return for advertising services, physical protection, or for
providing, and possibly monopolizing, a location where he or she (i.e. the prostitute)
may engage clients…
The
pimp-prostitute relationship can be abusive and possessive, with the pimp/madam
using techniques such as psychological intimidation, manipulation, starvation,
rape and/or gang rape, beating, confinement, threats of violence toward the
victim’s family, forced drug use and the shame from these acts. Pimps can be arrested and charged with
pandering and are legally known as procurers.
Via Wikipedia
In other
words, a pimp is someone who makes money from the rape and abuse of a woman or
several women. So why in the world are we replacing words like “cool”, “awesome”
or “rad” with the word PIMP?
Have we
become so numb to the misuse of others that we don’t realize what it is we are
saying? Or do we just tell ourselves, it’s only an expression and doesn't really mean anything?
Verses
like Matt 12:36 make me sick to my stomach. Knowing that I will have to give an
account for every idle word I have spoken makes me stop and realize that I say
A LOT. I don’t want the things I say to be meaningless and hurtful, but how
much do we actually think about what it is we are saying?
Be slow
to speak and quick to listen… James 1:19
Slow to
open our mouths for no reason other than to hear ourselves talk, and quick to
hear from those who are in need of serious healing and love.
Rapper Nelly tried to redefine the word
"pimp" by saying that it is an acronym for
"positive, intellectual, motivated person." This is who is
influencing young people right now… a motivated person?? Motivated to do what,
exactly?
I've heard this word used in conversation around me, but generally it's teenage boys
or guys who say it (not that this is any better). I think what bothered me the most today was the fact that a
woman wrote this magazine article, and it was published in a magazine written
FOR women.
I
realize this blog post won’t change the vocabulary of the publisher of a
magazine, but maybe it will help us all to stop and think about what we are
saying and why we are saying it…
