Fire Imus?

[skcin]

Imus grilled over racial comments

NEW YORK (AP) -- Don Imus had a hot seat on the other side of the microphone Monday, appearing on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show and enduring more criticism for his offensive comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Imus issued another apology for referring to members of the team as "nappy-headed hos." Sharpton called the comments "abominable" and "racist" and repeated his demand that Imus be fired.

"Our agenda is to be funny and sometimes we go too far. And this time we went way too far," Imus said on "The Al Sharpton Show."

The meeting prompted a series of testy exchanges, and Imus grew visibly frustrated at times. During one exchange, Imus said he can't win with "you people." Sharpton was clearly irritated by that remark.

In another encounter, Sharpton said, "If you walk away from this unscathed ..."

"How am I unscathed by this?" Imus interrupted. "Don't you think I'm humiliated?"

During commercial breaks, Sharpton walked out of the studio and said few words to Imus.

Earlier Monday, on his own radio show, Imus called himself "a good person" who made a bad mistake.

"Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it," he said. "And because the climate on this program has been what it's been for 30 years doesn't mean it's going to be what it's been for the next five years or whatever."

Imus said he was "embarrassed" by the remarks. He said he had made the comments in the course of "trying to be funny," but he was not trying to excuse them.

"I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person, but I said a bad thing. But these young women deserve to know it was not said with malice," he said.

He pointed to his involvement with the Imus Ranch, a cattle farm for children with cancer and blood disorders in Ribera, New Mexico. Ten percent of the children who come to the ranch are black, he added.

"I'm not a white man who doesn't know any African-Americans," he said.

On the radio show, Sharpton said that Imus' good deeds do not make up for what he said about the Rutgers team, which includes eight black women.

"This is not about whether you're a good man," Sharpton said. "What you said was racist."

Imus said he hoped to meet the players and their parents and coaches, and he said he was grateful that he was scheduled to appear on Sharpton's show.

"It's not going to be easy, but I'm not looking for it to be easy," Imus said Monday morning.

Imus made the now infamous remark during his show Wednesday.

The Rutgers team, which includes eight black women, had lost the day before in the NCAA women's championship game. Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGuirk about the game when the exchange began on "Imus in the Morning," which is broadcast to millions of people on more than 70 stations and MSNBC.

"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ..."

"Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said.

"That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.Imus also apologized on the air Friday, but his mea culpa has not quieted the uproar.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and about 50 people marched Monday outside Chicago's NBC tower to protest Imus' comments, and an NAACP official called for the broadcaster's ouster.

James E. Harris, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, demanded Sunday that Imus "resign or be terminated immediately."

Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for MSNBC, said the network considers Imus' comments "deplorable" and is reviewing the matter.

Karen Mateo, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio -- Imus' employer and the owner of his New York radio home, WFAN-AM -- said the company was "disappointed" in Imus' actions and characterized his comments as "completely inappropriate."

What he said was totally racist & inappropriate. If a TV talk show host had said that, the network would surely fire them. On the other hand - freedom of speech. Of course, even if they don't fire him, I'm sure many sponsers would flee. What do you guys think?

[strandinthewind]

I think what he said was hysterical and clearly meant in jest.

So, no, I think once he clarified it, that should be it.

Then again, I had a four foot tal, cast iron, black face lawn jockey in my yard at one point

Actually, I drove though most of the state of Louisiana with it in the front seat of my convertible with my top down and martini in hand -- good times.

On edit - it occurred to me that people may not know what a lawn jockey is - so go here http://www.lawnjock.com/ for an example of a caucasian one

[LukeA]

Originally Posted by skcin

What he said was totally racist & inappropriate. If a TV talk show host had said that, the network would surely fire them. On the other hand - freedom of speech. Of course, even if they don't fire him, I'm sure many sponsers would flee. What do you guys think?

Let him serve his two week suspension, and let that be it. He has apologized. No sponsor is going to "flee".

Don Imus is not a racist monster- he's appreciated and respected by a wide spectrum of public and/or political figures of all races, who are coming to his defense- a fact of which is undeniable. What he said was offensive, but anyone who is so short-triggered and shortsighted to demand his firing is either an opportunistic sensationalist or, at the very least, incredibly ignorant.

[GODDESS6]

what he said was wrong, but i agree w/ jason (my grandparents had a lawn jockey) it was said in jest~ i happen to watch imus most mornings & i love that his show is somewhat unconventional & i love what he & his wife deidre i think her name is have done w/ the imus ranch & the sick children~ this morning when his show was on, he said after he aplogizes on TODAY he no longer wants to speak of it anymore & he will serve his suspension w/ dignity, but the media won't let it go~

[UnwindedDreams]

I'm so tired of this. What really got me mad was when some black guy came on Anderson Cooper and started saying if I was Imus, I would be fired cause I'm BLACK! And that Al Sharpton should be beat over the head with a stick. Let the Rutgers girls and coach deal w/ it. So no, he shouldn't be fired. It's ok when I'm called a cracker but not when he calls them what their hair style really is called. He said he was sorry and he meant it.

[Rickypt]

Well this thread is probably going to play out the same as the ching-chong thread. Basically a bunch of white people talking about how Imus' comment was funny, or meant in jest, or he's not really a racist, or how come white people can be made fun of but not black people. Undoubtedly someone will talk about how they are tired of "political correctness". In a more diverse discussion board, the conversation would go in a much different direction and probably be much more interesting.

I think the conversation is impossible to have without putting it into context; i.e., the state of race relations in the U.S., the power dynamics involved, the disproportionate impact of racially-based insults on people of color than on white people, etc.

As for the "punishment", I think a two-week suspension is lame. Either you believe his comments were unfitting of someone you want representing your station and you fire him, or you defend him and let him stay, or you don't really defend him but let him stay in the interest of freedom of speech. A "suspension" does absolutely nothing and I find it to be a pathetic way of handing this situation.

If I were in charge, I would have canned his ass. I wouldn't want to pay anyone who thinks that using racially and misogynistic terms to describe a successful women's sports team is good radio. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you have a right to be paid by others to spew your speech.

I'm rather glad that all of these events have happened recently because it really shows how far we have to go on fighting racism.

[Rickypt]

Originally Posted by UnwindedDreams

I'm so tired of this.

Don't you think black people are more tired of being the objects of racial insults?

[ryan8472]

Who gives a ****. Just put Imus on XM Radio instead.

[UnwindedDreams]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

Don't you think black people are more tired of being the objects of racial insults?

No. How come they can call each other the N word but we can't call them that. They can call me cracker or white boy. I think they could care less about what we say in the media, they all run to asshole Sharpton cause he's got a big mouth and they know that he can use it for publicity(uproar).

[UnwindedDreams]

Originally Posted by ryan8472

Who gives a ****. Just put Imus on XM Radio instead.

Exactly. Drop this **** already.

[Rickypt]

Great opinion piece today from SF Chronicle sports columnist Gwen Knapp:

Women need to raise voices on Imus insult

Gwen Knapp

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have made their plays against Don Imus. Now it's time for women to get into the game.

So far, Imus' incendiary comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team have burned him only because of the racially repulsive element. He was suspended Monday for calling the players "nappy-headed ho's" last week after the national championship game, in which Rutgers lost to Tennessee. Sharpton and Jackson called for his dismissal. People everywhere retched.

Imus said Monday, in another fruitless apology, that he had gone too far. One has to wonder, though, how many words he would take back if he could. Had he just said "ho's," stripping away the most blatant racism, would his career be in jeopardy now?

The misogyny in his remarks has been downplayed for a lot of reasons. For starters, there are no women with the brand of clout wielded by a Jackson or Sharpton. The two reverends do what women wouldn't dare. They scare people. They don't back down, because they're playing to win, not to be liked.

Alexis Gray-Lawson, a sophomore on the Cal basketball team, heard about the remarks from her teammates and then read more online. "It brings up so many issues of racism, and I thought we were done with that,'' she said. "It was kind of a slap in the face.''

As a women's basketball player, though, she wasn't surprised that Imus had insulted the femininity of the Rutgers team. She knew we weren't done with that.

Nobody has rebelled enough. The most prominent women in this country -- Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice -- work as insiders, walking the corridors of power rather than kicking down doors. They could take on Imus. They could react as if the Rutgers women were their little sisters, but then they'd risk losing public support in his audience. Worse, that would be considered shrill, strident, and so terribly, unforgivably unattractive.

Ultimately, that's what holds back women. It keeps them from standing up for themselves and for each other. Somebody might question their femininity.

That's exactly why Imus and his producer went too far. Most of their conversation dwelled on comparing the "cute" Tennessee players to the more rugged Rutgers team. For the record, both rosters contain a majority of African American players, so the radio exchange wasn't as simple as black and white. It was about who could "pass" as part of mainstream culture.

Discussing that in racial terms is a known taboo. Applying the standards to powerful women is almost a reflex, particularly in the sports world. If Imus felt safe that day, it's because he thought he was only splitting women into two camps.

The best thing women can do now is emphasize that they don't want to be divided. If they're competing, it's not for acceptance, and when they play basketball, they're not conducting a simultaneous beauty pageant.

Gray-Lawson thinks the Tennessee women should be offended by the remarks, too, because casting them as the pretty team demeans their national title. "When men play, people will talk about them being aggressive going to the basket,'' she said. "Women just want the same respect.''

She is a wise young woman. She knows that Imus and his ilk, for all their claims of boldness, expect her to conform, conform, conform.

"Everybody wants to look like the glamour girl, and the thing about basketball is it's a release from all of that," she said. "Or it should be a release from all that, all the worries you go through your entire life like that, to the point where you're able to be just yourself. When you're not able to be yourself, I think that kind of changes the game for a lot of women. And when you have to look a certain way to play basketball, you can't be yourself."

It's a relief to hear a young woman speak that way, and sad to realize that a lot of us give up on those ideals. We get tired of fighting. We want to fit in. We let men be gentlemen and fight for us, and they usually deliver. But we have to do more.

I admit I didn't want to deal with this issue at first. Among other things, I didn't want to type the words "nappy-headed ho's" and have them appear under my column mug. I didn't care to bring more attention to Imus, either.

But the whole thing festered, and then I remembered the way I felt when an Imus sidekick said something almost as ugly about tennis' Williams sisters a few years ago. I was disgusted, but I let it go. A lot of people did.

The Rutgers remark seemed to be a product of that apathy. We have allowed our culture to become so coarse that what once passed for satire had morphed into a verbal assault on eight college students.

Gray-Lawson expressed things perfectly when she said: "I don't know how anyone can talk that way about someone else's child. It's just cruel."

She's right. This goes beyond a racial or gender issue. It's a matter of decency that needs to be attacked from all angles. The National Organization for Women joined the fray, but individual women with star power have stayed silent. They need to get off the bench and start taking their shots.

E-mail Gwen Knapp at gknapp@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...PGMDP5OAQ1.DTL

[sara1998]

Originally Posted by ryan8472

Who gives a ****. Just put Imus on XM Radio instead.

Seriously. No one ever came to defend me in Jr. High when I was the white minority in a 90% black school. No one took up for the little white girl who was left to fend for herself. Racism goes both ways.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

Don't you think black people are more tired of being the objects of racial insults?

They use the same terminology to refer to themselves. So, I say do as I say and not as I do is utter BS. They are their worse enemy in that regard - well that and the violence that has plagued the black community for years.

So, what is the answer? How do we as a society solve that? I think there is a way through education. Welfare in its current form certainly is not working

ANyway - same old rehash I guess of prior threads.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by sara1998

Seriously. No one ever came to defend me in Jr. High when I was the white minority in a 90% black school. No one took up for the little white girl who was left to fend for herself. Racism goes both ways.

Careful - you will be branded as anti-black and a racist for that comment. White people can never make any factual comment that slights blacks - don't you know that silly.

Again, I fully realize the system in palce is not working, but how to solve this issue, I have know clue. Personally, I think you have to be willing to help yourself. Welfare is a helping tool, not a permanent residence. Many people get off of it and get out of the ghetto. So, I guess they should be used as a model for what works. But, this idea that the govt. owes you a lifelong paycheck and you never have to work is crap.

Note - I fully get that not all welfare rec. are life longers and/or multi-generational rec. I am not talking about those people and believe me they exist and it is not just the black people, though there seem to be a lot of them that fit that mold from what I have seen. I am talking solely about the ones who refuse to work. Please make that distiction in any reply.

[skcin]

I started the thread before they announced his suspension. I think it's appropriate. I did literally gasp when I read what he had said, but he explained himself, apologized & is taking his suspension without argument. So, what's done is done & if people don't want to listen to him anymore, then don't.