Offended By Don Imus? What's on Your iPod?

Michael David Smith,

I hope you understand that your entire past four days is branding you for life? The image coming through is not a good one.

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What image is that, oh dear troll?

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Lisa Olson?

Are you kidding me?
Apples and Oranges dude.

Just as many woman as men thought she had no damn business in the locker room after that game.
That was really not the best example of sexism you could come up with was it?
I assume because she wrote an article, you used her as an example, although an extreamly poor one.

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Michael is performing beautifully and making legit points unlike some others on and off the boards who give a new definition to hypopcrisy

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It's in juxtaposing things we wouldn't otherwise connect that we can see things in a newer--and hopefully better--light. Keep up the good work, MDS.

Re: your last paragraph. I've been a voice crying in the wilderness quoting John Stuart Mill on free speech: society is better if everybody can speak openly and we can freely assess what others are saying, even if that means foolish or offensive opinions are expressed. Says Mill:

"But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

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As a 47 year old mother, when hearing the rap songs state words as bitch, Ho, or glorify killing ,wapons, drugs, gangs, I make may children trun the music off; just as my mother did and her mother did her and so on. Music of the younger generation always affended the older generation.

I do not think that Snoop Dog is stupid enough to call a group of educated women nappy headed Hos on national airwaves.

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Adding to the hypocrisy of every aspect of this controversy is the NCAA and Rutgers old line about the precious "student-atheletes"...I suggest the readers research the recent history of the Rutgers Women's BB team, which includes several players arrested for very serious crimes, and the recruiting of female players with multiple arrest's, even while at other schools. THEY don't have a problem exploiting black women to make a profit for their schools,bringing unqualified "students" who are good at basketball at the exclusion of geniune students whom can't play basketball well...

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I haven't had the time to follow this whole Imus thing closely, but when defining Sharpton's role in all of this, I think you have to be careful because most people are going to link him exclusively to his leftist/socialist-leaning politics. But in this case it's not leftist politics undoing Imus, it's the consumerist culture that has become the backbone of American capitalism. The fact is that in insulting Rutgers women's basketball team the way he did (using racial and derogatory words), he insulted a large enough portion of the population for them to turn around and (threaten to) exert significant pressure on his broadcasters and, more importantly, their advertisers.

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Rappers are living proof that they didn't graduate from kindergarden.

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Yes, Mill makes an essential observation about freedom of speech but I think you've mistakenly applied it in this case. He was referring to government restrictions on speech, not private restrictions.

Had the FCC come in and silenced Imus, I would be shouting from the rooftops to stop them.

But this was a corporation making a decision about an employee based on the complaints from many of its customers and employees.

Look at it this way: You're at work participating in a large corporate meeting and a black female co-worker offers up her report. You follow her, saying, "Man, that's one rough chick, huh? I mean, can you believe that nappy-headed 'ho gave us those quarterly projections?" Would you be surprised, much less outraged, if your boss had you packing up your desk by close of business?

Words have value and consequences. But the tricky part is, the same words have different meanings depending on context. Sadly, many seemed to have lost the capacity for critical thinking and are incapable of making distinctions, lumping everything together in a giant PC stew.
Because of that, and because some of the PC Patrol "usual suspects" are the ones screaming loudest about Imus, there's been a backlash.

But I don't think this was about PC sensibilities. I honestly believe that mainstream America - women, in particular - heard Imus and said, "WHAT THE HELL?!???" I know I did and I'm not a chick who gets easily offended.

Imus' right to speech has in no way been abridged. He's free to say what he wants. But he has no inherent right to a receive a paycheck while doing it.

(For me, anyway, this a conversation, not a series of pronouncements. Answer me with a persuasive argument about why Imus is different than the example I offered and I'm open to changing my mind.)

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Well, firstly, the FCC can't say anything because this was cable t.v., and it is not their jurisdiction. When people buy cable they are "opting-in"so they know the content they will be getting.
The advertisers had been weighing in on Imus for decades: they were good with it. They caved in to pressure here, that's all. The millions of people who listen to Imus weighed in on him for decades: they were good with it. The network was good with it. His very notable guests were good with it. He has been saying things even worse than this, on a daily basis, for years. Smarter yet, he would have his coworkers say these things, he would feign outrage....see how it works?
I personally think Imus is unfunny, a pig, boring, and untalented. But this is a paid act, and I have no doubt he does not act or speak like this in real life. When Jackson made his "hymietown" remark, he was not acting, he was running for President, and he thought no one was listening. That was not an act. Many rappers who speak of black women in this manner live that lifestyle, and are often arrested for serious crimes. And they are honored, respected, and treated like honored citizens.
I think this country is full of hypocrites, who show fake moral outrage at things that they regularly indulge in privately. Everything is acted out in the media today. Some outrage-the protest Jesse Jackson led the other day had a whopping 50 people, and they were probaly hangers-on or compensated for their time.
Here's my cynical scenario..the Rutgers team "forgave" him..a little time passes, Sharpton et. al are paid off to come out and say they tihnk Imus has been punished enough, and he comes back, in a slightly more mature form, the advertisers come back, and everybody turns their attention to other important issues, such as what Anna Nicole's baby had for breakfast that day.

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Panger,
In "On Liberty," Mill does not only devote time to defending speech against restrictions from the government. He devotes as much (if not more) time to defending speech against restrictions/suppression from society, or from the majority. He sees threats to free speech not only in official repression, but in majority opinion and conventional social values.

It's not that Imus's constitutional right to free speech has been challenged--it hasn't. But free expression in our society can still be threatened when the majority calls for punishment for speech (in this case, a firing). The corporations employing Imus are well within their rights to fire him for his speech, but I tend to believe the best ways to fight speech we hate is, as MDS labels it, to debate it or ignore it.

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Well, Imus lost his job over a silly comment. It was the The "I can but you can't"syndrome that we have in this world. Don Imus will survive this and Al sharpton will always be on my last nerve.

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Peter Koenig, Imus was on FCC regulated radio when he made his comments. MSNBC broadcast his radio show on television, which is why the FCC has jurisdiction.

As for the comparison to rappers, if MSNBC, CNN, or FoxNews gave a rapper a national show, and the rapper made similar comments, most people would want that show canceled, too. Sharpton has been calling for boycotts of rappers for years. When one realizes that, even though they comprise more than 50% of our population, there have been only 35 female Senators (less than 1.5% of all Senators) total, and only 16 now, the importance of Imus' comments becomes obvious.

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You people are absolutely lacking in critical thinking skills. There is a huge difference in Imus' remarks and someone from the music industry. Imus made his remarks on a TV show that he tries to legitimize by featuring political candidtates, etc.

I think a lot of people are just looking for the chance to pounce on rapppers for their language, but they don't mind all of the senseless killing in movies and video games. If you are going to spread the outrage fairly, then don't give the video game, film, porn, internet, or ANY industry a free pass.

No one inhibited Imus' freedom of speech. His firing was a business decision. Nothing more. And for all of you who talk about Sharpton... Just because Sharpton takes up a cause, doesn't mean he is necessarily wrong about it, although he does kinda get on my nerves at times, too.

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Al Sharton is little more than an opportunist seeking to "play the race card" in order to justify his legitimacy. His hyperbolic invectives serve only to polarize our country's perception and attitude about race. Of course, being the egomaniacal person that he is, he awashes himself in his own self glorification. Don Imus showed Sharpton far too much respect and importance by begging to do his mea culpa on Sharpton's radio show.

Sharpton makes the claim to be the leader of Black America. If this is true, I hope it is because he appointed himself as the leader. He adds nothing to constructive debate that has always needed to take place about race in America. If anything, Sharpton only deepens the divide between blacks and whites. The more he pontificates about race relations the worse they become.

Sharpton is an unworthy messenger. His tawdry reputation for the truth undermines whatever credibility his message may have. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any reasonable person wanting Sharpton to speak for them. Moreover, the more we pay attention to this charlatan the more we enable him to exacerbate the very problem we need to solve

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Imus might be a loud, obnoxious, untalented, cowardly bully, but he's always been a popular one. No one (with any power) has ever given a hang. The producers? Hey, the guy brings in lots and lots of nice green stuff so if you don't like it, tough! They only started to "deal with it" when their sponsors started to pull out. In short, the real "hos" are the suits.

Believe it or not, Imus actually had one chance to redeem himself:

"Okay, girls. So you're offended because I called you a bunch of "nappy-headed hos". Big deal. Like I really care how you feel. The guy I was talking to on my show started it off with some nasty smack of his own. I notice you "ladies" haven't said anything about that. Why is that, I wonder? I'm always talking s***. You "ladies" have never said anything about that either. Why is that, I wonder? Maybe it's because you're all a bunch of whiny, loud-mouthed ******* who finally have an issue to scream about and you like the attention. I don't know. I don't care, either. It's your problem. Deal with it.

"You're offended? Good. I don't care. I'm an entertainer. I have a fan base. A fan base that DOES think I'm funny. That DOES like my comments. I play to that fan base, not to you. You don't like it? Deal with it.

"Spend your time learning to play basketball instead of trying to get me kicked off the air. Because the fact is that even if you are successful it won't matter. My fans will still be there, they'll still listen to me, and there'll be some station that will pick up my contract.

"Don't like it? Deal with it."

Now THAT would have been something to see. But of course, Imus is too much of a coward to actually make that kind of "apology."

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I've been following this Don Imus thing for as long as it has been going on now. And even me being a black man didn't think that he should have been fired,because we all that he is going to find another job and his mind frame is not going to change and because it goes against one thing this country stands for and thats freedom of speech.Even though I think he was wrong,that was is opinion an he is allowed that.But one thing that I'm sick of is how people try to bring rap into this and condone what he said because a few rappers say the word bitch and hoe in their lyrics.And its very funny how they single out rappers like their the only ones who uses those words and to those who single out rappers because they are black are no different than Don Imus.I've been around plenty of white people in my life and the way they act towards and speak to their white women is no differnt than how any other man speaks to other woman regardless of race.And when I listen to some of this rock an roll and other music that leans more towards the white culture,I hear the same thing an some times even worse.But the main point I'm tring to make is that this is a country with a lot of different people,with different veiws of life.And if you dont like what someone is saying or has to say all you have to do is simplely don't listin or turn the channel or walk away.

An o yes Don Imus you could have keeped your apology because we all no you didn't mean it,and beside you still got fired.

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Every time someone wishes to defend someone, they do it by bashing Al Sharpton. Fact is, Al Sharpton has nothing to do with this discussion.

But since everyone wants to focus on him:

First of all, no one appointed or elected Al Sharpton anything. Second, never has Al Sharpton DECLARED himsef spokesman for anything. You say that because it sounds good and it somwhow furthers your Sharpton-bashing. I really don't care one way or another about him. BUT, I am perceptive enough to realize that just because he uses his influence to bring things to light, doesn't mean his position is always wrong.

Question:
Do you think it was wrong for him to speak out about the guy who was sodomized with a broken broom handle by the NYPD? Or because he happened to be the one who spoke out do you actually support those actions just to spite him?

It doesn't matter who the messenger is. If something is unjust, it's unjust. Period.

I think some people are angry because there are people out there who are willing to absorb the blows and take the name-calling, threats, and harassment in order to hold some people responsible for their actions. No more free ticket. Deal with it.

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The U will be back:

Maybe you can tell me, because I haven't been able to figure it out as of yet, just what has Al Sharpton accomplished?
Don Imus is a non issue as far as I'm concerned...and so is Rush Limbaugh concerning the McNabb deal...for Christ's sake, I'll even go back as far as Jimmy the Greek..........WHY are their comments even relevant in a world where kids....black and white are being shot down by insane murderers?
Do the words of irrelevant people like them really cut so deep with Black folks?
Personally, I'd rather dislike someone for their open racism, them foolishly like them and have them saying those things behind my back.
Maybe Sharpton has, but I haven't see or heard myself, ever retracted that fiasco about Tawana Brawley which he was dead wrong about as he was with the Duke players....Looking at his HISTORY along with many others, not just him, one can't take him as anyting more then the white evanglists on TV lining their pockets with poorly informed individuals money.

What has Sharpton done that REALLY matters?
Enlighten me if you will.

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