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The excerpt below is posted with the full knowledge and permission, even encouragement, of the author, who wants his essays to be read by as many people as possible. From The Hill's Pundits Blog: The Imus Affair is About Apartheid in Media
Brent Budowsky
First things first. Who wasn’t proud of those women from the Rutgers basketball team who showed such dignity, class, and respect in their response to the travesty committed against them?
I was reading a post by a white male liberal radio host, associated with an almost totally white liberal radio network, run by white males, owned by white males, writing on an almost totally white liberal blog about the Imus affair.
He was writing about the bigoted words of another white male host, televised on a cable network run by white males, owned by a national television network run by white males, which is owned by a global conglomerate run by white males.
His basic point, not worthy of great comment here, was that while he was oh-so-concerned with what Imus said, Imus must remain since this is all about freedom of speech.
He reminded me of Mike Dukakis, who, when asked during a debate how he would react if a criminal had pulverized his wife, gave a dissertation about constitutional law.
Sorry, pal, the Imus affair is not about free speech. If he wants to throw these bigoted hate words in the face of some glorious young women, he has the right to do so, on any street corner.
The issue here is whether a publicly owned media company, in a publicly regulated industry, with sponsors dependent on the public goodwill of their customers, with some serious standard of corporate responsiblity, should peddle this crap for profit on the public airwaves.
Let’s be clear: Media barons not only allow but encourage bigotry, anger, smear, derision and disrespect so long as it is good for business…
There is, far too often, a race-based apartheid, and a gender-based apartheid, that plagues both our mainstream media and our corporate conglomerates, at the ownership, management and host levels.
Even Air America — which I have urged repeatedly to build major alliances with African-American and Hispanic hosts, networks and audiences — is far too much white bread for my taste, which is significantly accountable for its troubles…
There is a political apartheid, too, even among Democrats…
On one side stand the insiders, far too often white and male, conservative, liberal or merely corporate. On the other side stand the rest of us, and at the center of the rest of us stand our heroes, the women of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, with their dignity and respect, which are a model for us all…
They are not the women Imus called them; they are the legacy of the woman who stands in the Harbor of New York.
Let’s be proud of the way they remind us all of what America is supposed to be, of the values of mutual respect and tolerance that embody the American idea…
The women of Rutgers will triumph in the end, not only on the court of sports, but in the court of public opinion, as a debate that should have been held in the hours after Lee surrendered to Grant might finally come center-stage again, in the greatest nation on earth, where tomorrow should always be better than today.
Brent Budowsky is a Contributing Editor to Fighting Dems News Service and a former aide to Senator Lloyd Bentsen and the House Democratic Leadership with Bill Alexander, then Chief Deputy Whip. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net. Click the title, above, to read more. Post a comment about this essay at The Hill’s Pundits Blog, and it may be read by your senators and congressman! Carolyn Kay MakeThemAccountable.com |
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