Posted on 04/11/2007 6:41:32 AM PDT by meg88
Imus isnt the real bad guy
Thank you, Don Imus. Youve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
Youve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
Youve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like its 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
While were fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, Im sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cents or Snoop Doggs latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I aint saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they dont have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
Its embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes and we all laugh out loud.
Im no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didnt do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That shouldve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, its only the beginning. Its an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, were supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I dont listen or watch Imus show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that its cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that theyre suckers for pursuing education and that theyre selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and Ill get upset. Until then, he is what he is a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when youre not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. Theres no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity
Sharpton, Jaxhun, & the rest of the race pimps were set in Sep 2001 for the big splash with their agenda in South Africa with the UN Proceeding on “racism” and slavery that was headed toward reparations on a grand scale.....but it was somewhat derailed by the Israel matter, and then completely by 9-11. The race pimps here in the US have been on the back burner ever since, despite anything they can cook up.....business has been bad for a long time for them.
But things fell into place for them, finally, with a stupid but routine joking remark by Imus, who can be pointed to after the fact as being mostly a liberal......and NOW (this non-issue having been exploited so successfully, in fact beyond the wildest dreams of those pressing it) the way is cleared to go after any and all conservative talkers. Imus is no conquest for the left.....who are quite willing to sacrifice one who has been seemingly friendly to them, even though he has been abrasive and mostly irrelevant to them he is a feather in their cap since when the conservative talkers come under attack en masse they can point to Imus and claim HE was no conservative, so there is no bias in their current campaign to take conservative talkers down.
This will be in full swing before summer arrives.
When Imus does any of that, call me and Ill get upset.
Nails it.
Of course they did. I really don’t see how ESPN is managing to remain as the leader in sports news. I can’t imagine a more limp wristed group of pansies than the ones they have on the air and on their website. Every few days, another mindless article about gays in sports pops up. Then, a few days later, there will be yet another article about the lack of minorities in sports (the most recent was about the lack of blacks in baseball). When I see these things on their website, I have to ask, who the hell is this marketed to? Is there any sports fan in the country that wants to read their pathetic social commentary?
It was a stupid lame joke.
Meanwhile, there hasn’t been a rap album produced in the last ten years that doesn’t basically call them niggas and hos.
But they ain’t gettin all upset about that now, are they?
While watching the joke of the Rutgers news conference I was wondering what songs the girls had in their iPods.
Boy, does Jason Whitlock really hit it on the head!
What frustrates me as a sports fan is they go out of their way to say something nice about a player or team even when they clearly don’t deserve it.
He’s absolutely right, Mike Lupica is a tiny companion.
And this is the guy ESPN sacked because he once criticized whiny NYC weasel Mike Lupica. ESPN also continues to employ “writers” like Scoop Jackson, Screamin’ A. Smith and now Jemele Hill, who once declared that Tiger Woods wasn’t doing enough for the black cause (?!?!?).
It’s a sad commentary on the times that many think Whitlock is only “allowed” to criticize hip-hop culture because he is black himself - but let’s ignore the circumstances and thank him for his courage and lucidity.
Why did J Whit have a falling out with ESPN? Was he a little too conservative for their liberal northeastern tastes up there...
Powerful words that really ring true. When I think of an oppressed race I think of the Jews, who over the millenia have been marginalized, maltreated and subjugated by nearly every country they've migrated to. Yet their indomitable spirit and God-given abilities have always won out over oppression. The Jews have always risen to cultural equality and economic prosperity with every people of every nation, regardless of prejudices against them. They need no special laws to attain 'equality', because the natural law that declares "water rises to its own level" cannot be overridden by any amount of human hatred or ignorance, or by any nation's laws. The Jewish people should be an inspiration to blacks who still feel oppressed. In this generation at least, the black people of America are their own worst enemy, because as the author so articulately points out, they oppress themselves.
Nappy headed ho's? Thats it? THAT'S IT?
I haven't been following too closely, but I had heard about the suspension. I never heard what he said, but I assumed it was something REALLY bad, I mean, this guy is already AWFUL, he is nothing more than a big d*ck with a microphone, IMHO.
I am not impressed, Imus should be off the air for a lot of reasons, but really, this is pathetic. This is embarassing for us as a CULTURE. The hypocracy is stupifying.
I have no idea. Don’t read SI. I just know that when I see Lupica on TV I change the channel.
Really? I can. He's written about stuff like this in the past. Most recently slamming the NBA All-Star week at Las Vegas.
I dont always agree with Whitlock in fact about half the time I dont. He is an arrogant, self-promoting, egomaniac (am I repeating myself?) But a broke clock is correct twice a day.
Yes, someone else pointed that out. I was unaware of that. He is certainly right on this one so credit where credit is due.
Speaking of opportunism, the coverage of this is sickening. An army of talking heads don their velvet robes of self-righteous, politically correct piety, all the while thinking "Ratings bonanza, let's milk this for all it's worth."
The biggest story in the world for a week is that some radio clown said three stinking words.
I'm glad there's not a world war going on, that'd be something to talk about.
ESPN appears to have a dynamite team of businessmen that have really put the screws to sports leagues, and it helps that they are backed by ABC.
I agree with you, though. I think ESPN is far too self-important for my taste, but for better or for worse, it is a sports powerhouse.
The only sport that I can think of in recent memory that gave the figurative finger to ESPN was professional golf, and I’m not even sure that was the wisest move.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.