Imus isn’t the real bad guy

[illbill]

COMMENTARY
Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call [phone] or send e-mail to [e-mail]. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com


Source: http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html

[sandnsea]

1. Jason Whitlock

For once, I gotta agree with counterpunch.

http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin02262007.html

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. thanks S&S.....

I wasn't at all familiar with Mr. Zirin's writing, but that was a great piece. Since the o.p. added no comment of his/her own, I'm assuming they agree with the editorial?

[illbill]

5. I fully agree with Jason Whitlock's editorial!

I fully agree with the editorial! I fail to see how people, who do not watch Imus, think this is racist. And if it does sound racist, they neglect to find out why people are racist in this day and age. Whites are not inherently racist from childbirth. It's from what they are exposed to. The major cause of modern racism against blacks is from what their own culture portrays to the World.

[Tarheel_Dem]

16. How sad.....n/t

[youthere]

2. k &R

[Missy M]

4. I have yet to figure out what hip hop has to do with....

what Imus and his side kick had to say about the Rutgers players. What a ridiculous column. The airwaves will be a better place with the likes of Imus gone.

[illbill]

6. It has everything to do with hiphop.

Blacks are contradicting hypocrites by being able to say things like this themselves, and profit off it through entertainment, while Imus makes an observational comment using black slang and gets riled about it. Black rappers/comedians say "hos" all the time. Those black entertainers affect everyone's vocabulary and worldview, not just blacks. Wake up. Please.

[Missy M]

7. I'm fully awake....

do you really believe Imus, a 62 year old man, is affected by the rappers. I don't think so, he has been spewing crap longer than they've been around. If he were a decent man he never would have said what he said about the Rutgers players, I believe he's old enough to know better. It has nothing to do with rap or black comedians. What he has to say about white's (read what he has to say about Senator Clinton) is just as bad and you can't blame that on rap. The Rutgers players are not public figures and did not deserve the vile comments, they were racist and sexist.

[left is right]

10. Ok, let's assume you have a valid point..

Start a campaign with the music corporations to silence Hip-Hoppers. And. if you can make these corporations believe that they well be losing AdBucks by retaining them. Then these corporations are just as free as MSNBC to cancel their contracts with the Hip-Hoppers. That's the way the free market is supposed to work.

Edited to repair the more glaring grammatical errors (because there is no spell-check equivalent for grammar).

[silverojo]

12. Racism existed long before hip-hop

The F-word is frequently used in hip-hop culture as well, but if anyone were to utter it on the air, they'd be fined as well as fired.

As for comedians, even someone as edgy as Carlos Mencia only gets away with using racist terms, because his comedy ATTACKS racism. Imus' comment was not attacking racism, but expressing his own racism.

Calling these girls "ho's" was completely uncalled for (no matter WHICH race used the word first), because "ho" means "whore", and these are hard-working A students...not Jerry Springer rejects. These girls aren't "whores", and don't deserve the name.

Saying that blacks bring on racism by the behavior of a minority of young punks is like saying that all whites are racist because the KKK and White Power movements are. You can't judge an entire race by the behavior of one of its segments.

You're the one who needs to wake up and smell reality. You can't slander a bunch of hard-working girls by calling them whores, use a racist term like "nappy-headed", and expect there to be no backlash.

[jobycom]

8. The same thing 9-11 had to do with Iraq, and Randolph Scott had to do with Sheriff Bart

Not a god damned thing. It's a way for racist apologists to do two things: defend Imus, and attack more black people.

[left is right]

9. Imus isn’t the real bad guy, BUT

I think his firing will serve as a good example to the other racist jerks, until we can take out a limbaugh or two

[wellst0nev0ter]

11. Never Mind The Fact That Sharpton And Jackson Have Been

condemning gangsta rap for years or the fact that 70 percent of those who purchase those albums are white then yeah, then it's a good article :eyes:

[oldgrowth]

13. What ??????????????

[ShortnFiery]

14. Imus is a bad guy. If anything he'll become more bitter in his retirement. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. Wow. That's incredibly powerful and opens up a window to new understanding.

I have found my own seperate peace as an hispanic, that I hope that all minorities in America can find for themselves. I had incredibly powerful role models with my parents and extended family in a latin American country, where anglo-Americans were a minority. So, I knew the power, intelligence, compassion and strength of my latin American culture. Because of that, I was strong and secure enough to handle the humor of Jose Jimenez and my father and I were both sadden when the Chicano culture in America asked him to put an end to his act.

Decades later comes Mencia, and it took a few shows to settle into what he was saying. It's more than humor he's giving us all a chance to see ourselves and the world from another perspective. He's thinking outside the box. Whoopie Goldberg does it too. I just hope that these incredibly talented and gifted entertainers aren't silenced because they are saying some powerful things, in humorous ways. and if they have the element of surprise on their side, it says something about our society, not about them.

[Wednesdays]

17. This is not an "either/or" situation

We can condemn both Imus and the hip-hoppers who use racist language!

[Leo 9]

18. Let me know when 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg or Young Jeezy get

a political commentary show on a major news network, and how long it lasts.

Until then, this equation does not compute.

[ShortnFiery]

19. but Imus is a proven (since the seventies) racist and sexist = one of the BAD guys. n/t

[qwlauren35]

20. ALMOST Fully Agree...

I don't know when we're going to wake up on this and stop perpetrating a stupid double-standard on who is allowed to be vulgar and offensive (black entertainers) and who is not (white entertainers).

However, I'm not sure I'd call Vivian Stringer a gold-digger, or an opportunist getting a free recruitment opportunity.

I think that's stretching things, but I didn't see her press conference.