Don Imus in the news
Friday, April 13, 2007
I do not usually comment on newsworthy items, but this one is getting everyone a bit fired up. Here are a few of my thoughts and a few I've stolen from my dad:
1) Ok, Don Imus "shock jock" was inappropriate on the radio. Let's talk about where he got that phrase he used. I can almost guarantee you that Don Imus, as a 60+ year old WHITE man does not run in circles where the term "Nappy Haired Ho" is used with regularity. So my question is, where did he get this term? My guess is: RAP music, or interviews with Rappers, or Snoop Dogg coming to him in his dreams. All of which take terms such as this and turn them into what popular culture today deems as ok to say in public. I think if he had just used the term "Smelly Pirate Hookers", this wouldn't have turned into such a racial issue.
2) CBS and NBC who have profited off of Don Imus for something like 20 years are a bunch of low profile spineless idiots. We should all boycott CBS anyway. I mean what would we be missing out on anyway Two Men and a...Is that show still on?
3) Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson are media whores. They are using Imus as a scapegoat instead of addressing the real issue: Rap Music. They are playing these women as martyrs who due to 3 measly words, have lost everything, including their basketball season, their game, and even their lives. What Al and Jessie instead should be doing is turning their attention to the real devil known as rap music. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about hip hop, but there is so much more to this culture that pushes the envelope of what is acceptable. And it has become so main stream that it makes it seem ok for the average person to use the terms that they use in the music.
For more reading, here is a great article written earlier this week by Jason Whitlock a columnist for the Kansas City Star.
Labels: Opinions
By AllBeehive Friday, April 13, 2007
2 Comments:
I think I have to respectfully disagree, at least with point one. I think Imus does run in circles where this kind of language is used regularly. His producer, who gave the set-up line of "hard-core hos", seems pretty comfortable with racist, homophobic, misogynistic language. It seems more likely that he would pick-up speech like that from the backrooms of comedy clubs and writer's rooms than from Rap. I liked Eugene Robinson's take in the Washington Post. This column that predates the Rutger's mess is also pretty damning.
I'll agree with points two and three though.
Woo hoo, controversy. Of course you can disagree. And beyond where he actually picked up that phrase, and deciding it was ok to use on the air...I still don't think he should have been fired for it. It's something you would expect to hear on an SNL skit.
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