The Scarlet Knights next ran over Arizona State to make the Final Four, then the Lady Tigers of LSU in the national semifinal game (sigh) to make the title game on April 3rd. So you've got to figure that from the night of April 1st all the way through the Tennessee game, and even after they lost, the players from Rutgers must've been feeling pretty good. Cloud nine, maybe. Probably the greatest season in the history of their team, though I admit my knowledge of Rutgers women's basketball lore is thin at best. With so many of their players only freshmen, there were good feelings all around about the present and future of the team. Life is good, right?
On the morning of April 4, a 66-year-old white man with a nationally syndicated radio/TV show called them "nappy-headed hos", and all hell broke loose.
Before I get to what I think, let's browse a little and see what some other people are saying. Here is Jemele Hill's article on espn.com. The only part I'd comment on is this:
"In case you're wondering, I would have been equally outraged if Imus were black, Asian, Latino, Portuguese or Italian. The ethnicity or skin color of the perpetrator matters none." (my italics)
I disagree. The ethnicity or skin color shouldn't matter, but it does. Should has nothing to do with it. An old white guy called black college girls "nappy-headed hos". One of his lackeys (also white) used the term "jigaboos vs. wannabees". Another lackey (also white)--who had already been fired from the show for outlandishly vile comments (Yes, they apparently thought it was okay to bring him back. Genius)--said the girls looked like the Toronto Raptors. He's the same guy who said that Serena Williams would fit better in National Geographic than Playboy.
Even though Jemele Hill is a black woman saying that the ethnicity doesn't matter, I have to think that there are a lot of black people around the country watching and reading about this, seeing a two week suspension, and thinking that these white guys are skating away from repercussions again.
Here's the New York Times story:
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Today he said that the phrases he used “originated in the black community. ... I may be a white man, but I know that these young women and young black women all through that society are demeaned and degraded by their own black men and that they are called that name.”
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That's gutlessly passing the buck, and undoes a lot of the supposed fence-mending he did with his rambling apologies. Origins are irrelevant in this case. Hip hop is irrelevant in this case. What black men do is irrelevant. What is relevant is what YOU, DON IMUS said trying to be funny. As David Aldridge said on Mr. Tony's show this morning, "What was the joke? What exactly did he think was funny?"
Here is the Lisa de Moraes column in the Washington Post.
"Yesterday's activities included issuing his longest "apology" to date on his radio show while (you saw this one coming) chatting up the number of minority kids who come to his camp for cancer patients in New Mexico."
There has been, and probably will be, a very long line of friends and allies of Imus coming to his defense and pointing out all the good things he has done for the less fortunate and all the money he has raised for various charitable causes. I'm sure it's all 100% true. It's also 100% irrelevant.
I picked a random blog to look at by googling [Don Imus offensive history]. I came up with this.
"The problem for Imus is that he is white and insulted blacks. The reverse is acceptable. His transgression is not. Black hip hop music, videos and humor has degraded all standards to the bottom. Language or epithets commonly used by black entertainers are far worse than used by Imus."
Aside from also passing the buck to black entertainers for saying worse things, he's wrong in saying, "The reverse is acceptable." It's not acceptable for black people to say insulting things about white people. It doesn't cause as much outrage for a variety of historical reasons, but that doesn't make it acceptable.
Now on to what I think:
The best part of this whole story from a very, very selfish point of view is that it introduced me to Heather Zurich:
I think she's cute.
I've heard some people say that Imus and crew have said a lot of stuff way worse than this and got away with it. This tells me that his show has been cruel, vulgar, and pretty low for a long time. And got away with it for a long time.
Here's a difference: these are all young college girls probably age 18-21. They're not politicians. Not pro athletes. Not journalists or reporters. Not infamous criminals. Not anything at that level. This isn't a level playing field. They can't fight back the way other targets can. They can't hold a press conference every day and blast Don Imus. They don't have radio shows or nationally prominent blogs or columns. And they certainly didn't do anything to deserve being attacked, apparently other than playing against Tennesse in the national title game. Imus and his lackeys going after them is like a crocodile going after kittens.
My favorite quote so far:
"I would like to speak to him personally and ... ask him, after you've met me personally, do you still feel in this category that I'm still a 'ho' as a woman and as a black, African-American woman at that?" said Kia Vaughn, a sophomore center. "I achieve a lot, and unless they have given this name of 'ho' a new definition, then that is not what I am."
To me, Bernard McGuirk saying "jigaboos vs. wannabees" is even worse than what Imus said, and I don't care if he was quoting a Spike Lee movie or not. "Jigaboo" is a terrible word and is certainly not fit to be used on radio, TV or anything remotely resembling polite company. Of course, nobody ever said that the Imus show was anywhere near "polite company", did they?
The "this is free speech, deal with it" argument has surfaced some in reasoning why Imus should not be fired. Yes, this is free speech. No, nothing illegal has taken place. But as often occurs, the First Amendment is being incorrectly applied. I haven't heard anyone say that he should go to jail. But I'm willing to bet that the radio station could fire him right now and not face any legal liability. What he did may not have been "wrong" in the legal sense of the word. But in the moral sense, it was absolutely wrong. People are screaming about it, and they should scream. He's being roasted over the fire, and he should be. He does have the legal right to say what he wants. But no one has the legal right to say the kinds of things he said and reasonably expect to keep his job. Some people out there need to stop adhering to the notion that just because no actual crime has been committed, that nothing wrong has really taken place.
That's about all for now. I'm heading to bed. Next time, maybe I'll talk about Colin Cowherd deciding to randomly shut down people's blogs.
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