Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk Myself to Death: Imus Link Roundup

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Imus Link Roundup

It seems that almost everybody in the left blogosphere is talking about Don Imus. He insulted the members of the Rutgers women's basketball team last week after they lost the national championship to Tennessee (and go read the transcript at that link for the context--the insult he's being upbraided for is even worse in its full context). I have to admit that I've never really gotten the whole genre of shock jocks or Imus's place in that. He gets all the big-time political guests on: senators, members of Congress, and pretty much the whole Washington commentariat. He gets good ratings, and he's got a fair bit of clout when it comes to plugging political books, so that part of why they participate is obvious, but it still seems that they get slimed by the locker-room atmosphere. But is it just a bottom-line thing? Is nothing off-limits when you're whoring your latest book?

Hmmm. Maybe that's a rhetorical question. It's been interesting to see what some of the African-American reporters and commentators have had to say. In The New York Times, Gwen Ifill discusses the insult Imus leveled at her several years ago when she didn't accept his invitation to appear on the show. Eugene Robinson reflects on shock radio as a whole and then focuses more on the sexual aspects of Imus's insult, an aspect that seems to be getting somewhat short shrift. Even Al Roker calls for him to be fired. On The NewsHour yesterday, Clarence Page described an instance several years ago in which he made Imus pledge on the air not to do racist-tinged material anymore. He said he hasn't been asked back, and needless to say, Imus hasn't kept the pledge (at Slate, Timothy Noah has an archive of offensive statements Imus has made on the air over the years).

Although Imus initially tried to blow the whole controversy off, he quickly realized that it wasn't going away, so he's looking for ways to do penance. The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes describes the beginning of his mea culpa tour with an appearance on Al Sharpton's radio show. It's amazing how thin skinned the guy is.

At one point Imus chastised the participants in Sharpton's show for not supporting him when he was trying to educate his audience about sickle cell anemia.

[Brian] Monroe[, head of the National Association of Black Journalists and editor of Ebony and Jet magazines], took issue with that, saying Ebony magazine "has been writing and covering sickle cell anemia for decades . . . back when you were still doing radio spots for used cars."

Imus was outraged.

"Don't come on this radio program and insult me, because I'm not insulting you," he said, with, we regret to report, no indication that he saw how wildly ironic it was for him to make that comment on this particular show on this particular day.

"I'm not going to sit here and let you insult me!" he snarled.

"You can keep talking all you want," he said as Monroe continued. "You are not going to insult me. Don't insult me. I have not insulted you. Don't talk to me about doing used-car commercials."

And then, he added:

"I will bet you I have slept in a house with more black children who were not related to me than you have!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is that supposed to mean?" Sharpton wondered, naturally.

"I don't have to put up with a man getting in my face like this," Imus said, "because I didn't call him any names! . . . I didn't come here to get slapped around."

If not to get slapped around, then I'm not quite sure why he bothered showing up. But how many people would agree that being accused of doing used car commercials is far more insulting than being called a nappy-headed ho?

To underscore how high feelings ran on this, General JC Christian broke his own format to write a post that's not funny or ironic in the least.

1 Comments:

At 7:48 AM, April 11, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've never liked Imus. He's a shock jock, but guys like Stern seem to be shocking in an effort to be sexy and exciting, while Imus seems to be shocking in an effort simply to be shocking. I dunno -- maybe I'm simply projecting my own dislike of Imus onto him in the form of motivations.

But I do know that I'm not alone in my dislike of Imus. This article details his ratings decline over the last 10 years. He was a powerhouse in the 80s and the first part of the 90s, but he hasn't been relevant in 10 or 15 years ... except that the powerful keep lining up to share a microphone with him, for reasons that elude me. The best part of this whole situation would be if politicians and journalists would wake up to who Imus is and stop appearing on his show. If that happens, he gets cancelled within six months. Although I suspect that, given the way he keeps digging himself in deeper, he'll be gone long before six months is up no matter what his political-celebrity friends think of him.

The other thing that irks me about the Imus situation is the same thing that irks me whenever anyone makes one of these racist comments about African Americans. I hate that they make the rounds to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to do their mea culpas. The black community certainly deserves an apology, but those two (particularly Sharpton) have their own histories of racism and anti-semitism. As disgusting as Imus's remarks are, they are no worse than Jackson's statements about "Hymies is Hymietown" and his refusal to distance himself from Louis Farakhan, and Imus's statements pale in comparison to Sharpton's racist comments, which fueled an atmosphere in which Yankel Rosenbaum was murdered, and, four years later, fueled an atmosphere in which seven employees of Freddie's Fashion Mart were killed.

 

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