ImusImusIMUS!!!
God, how I am sick of Imus. It's all Imus, all the time on the cable news channels. Which kind of indicates one important reason why those channels suck.
Couple of points:
1. I simply cannot believe that some people think it's o.k. to publicly ridicule people for their appearance. I mean JEBUS. What is this, grade school? Man, that sh*t hurts people, and it's not like it's even funny. I'm not exactly all PC or anything, but this is just common human decency. I would never go on tv and say "Egad, look at Don Imus, that nasty, dried up old m*therf*cker." I mean, it does not take a moral genius to figure out that this is not alright.
Actually, it reminded me a bit of when that sh*theel Limbaugh ridiculed Chelsea Clinton's appearance.
Look, it's not like murder or something, but it IS the kind of thing that deserves a punch in the nose. What kind of pathetic turd makes fun of young girls like that?
2. As for the racial part, I'm inclined to think that people may be being a little too hard on him given that the words 'ho' and 'nappy-headed' have virtually been "mainstreamed" by rap and black comedians. I'm not sure how hurtful such words really are, but I can say that one might reasonably conclude that the answer is "not very" on the basis of their prevalence.
On the other hand, it's a fairly common observation that there are some things you can say about yourself that others aren't allowed to say about you, and some words that are o.k. for one group to use, but not for others. But this sets the stage for more non-malevolent slip-ups. My friend Gera will sometimes say things to me like "Wassup nee-gro?" Now, although I've never asked, it doesn't seem permissible for me to return that exact same greeting--though I've come close to doing it sometimes just reflexively, without thinking. Not a perfectly parallel case, of course, but somewhere in the same ballpark. (Important background information: I am not black.)
3. Johnny Quest's point:
If people pay you money because you say rude and shocking things on the radio, you can't get upset if they stop giving you money because you said rude and shocking things. Profit by the sword, perish by the sword.
So there are no grounds for complaint if you get fired. Though Imus might reasonably object that he didn't mean any harm...though see 1.
4. My opinions became rather more anti-Imus, however, when I heard that he'd said something racially nasty about Gwen Ifill. Started to sound like a pattern. And the Ifill comment sounded way more likely-to-be-racist to me than the Rutgers comment.
And: who the heck would say something mean about Gwen Ifill, anyway?
But more importantly: who would waste time writing a post about this stuff?
God, how I am sick of Imus. It's all Imus, all the time on the cable news channels. Which kind of indicates one important reason why those channels suck.
Couple of points:
1. I simply cannot believe that some people think it's o.k. to publicly ridicule people for their appearance. I mean JEBUS. What is this, grade school? Man, that sh*t hurts people, and it's not like it's even funny. I'm not exactly all PC or anything, but this is just common human decency. I would never go on tv and say "Egad, look at Don Imus, that nasty, dried up old m*therf*cker." I mean, it does not take a moral genius to figure out that this is not alright.
Actually, it reminded me a bit of when that sh*theel Limbaugh ridiculed Chelsea Clinton's appearance.
Look, it's not like murder or something, but it IS the kind of thing that deserves a punch in the nose. What kind of pathetic turd makes fun of young girls like that?
2. As for the racial part, I'm inclined to think that people may be being a little too hard on him given that the words 'ho' and 'nappy-headed' have virtually been "mainstreamed" by rap and black comedians. I'm not sure how hurtful such words really are, but I can say that one might reasonably conclude that the answer is "not very" on the basis of their prevalence.
On the other hand, it's a fairly common observation that there are some things you can say about yourself that others aren't allowed to say about you, and some words that are o.k. for one group to use, but not for others. But this sets the stage for more non-malevolent slip-ups. My friend Gera will sometimes say things to me like "Wassup nee-gro?" Now, although I've never asked, it doesn't seem permissible for me to return that exact same greeting--though I've come close to doing it sometimes just reflexively, without thinking. Not a perfectly parallel case, of course, but somewhere in the same ballpark. (Important background information: I am not black.)
3. Johnny Quest's point:
If people pay you money because you say rude and shocking things on the radio, you can't get upset if they stop giving you money because you said rude and shocking things. Profit by the sword, perish by the sword.
So there are no grounds for complaint if you get fired. Though Imus might reasonably object that he didn't mean any harm...though see 1.
4. My opinions became rather more anti-Imus, however, when I heard that he'd said something racially nasty about Gwen Ifill. Started to sound like a pattern. And the Ifill comment sounded way more likely-to-be-racist to me than the Rutgers comment.
And: who the heck would say something mean about Gwen Ifill, anyway?
But more importantly: who would waste time writing a post about this stuff?
posted by Winston Smith at
3:53 PM
6 Comments:
I call bullshit. Imus is just another liberal racist.
Signed,
Anonymous
The last post wasn't posted by me. "I," whoever that is, isn't me.
Signed,
Not Tom Van Dyke
Whoever He Is
Or Isn't
Which isn't me
because I'm anonymous
My personal rule is you can make fun of someone for something that have voluntarily chosen, like dressing badly, joining the Republican party, dying their hair blue, etc. But you don't make fun of something that cannot be controlled, like race, skin color, etc.
And I, like you, don't understand why people want to be just plain mean, and why other people think mean is funny. Do these people no remember what it's like to be the subject of ridicule? Or have they lead such privileged lives that they've never been subjected to it themselves?
Michelle K
Well, now that Anna Nicole's baby's father has been named what on earth could our crack news media have to cover but the Imus scandal?
I think his punishment should have been to explain to the parents of the Rutgers basketball team what the punchline of his "joke" was. And if one or ten of them happen to have baseball bats with them, eh, those things happen.
It was not so long ago that being a "gentleman" was considered a conservative value. Apparently, somewhere in the bizarre reaction against "PC" they threw the baby out with the bathwater.
-mac
They?
No conservative would or could have endorsed John Kerry.
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