Posted on 04/11/2007 6:41:32 AM PDT by meg88
Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve 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.
You’ve 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 it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t 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.
It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
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, we’re 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 don’t 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 it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re 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. There’s 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
Here’s Jason Whitlock’s explanation of his firing, which happened after a blog interview:
“I told the blog that part of the reason I was leaving Page 2 was because I was uncomfortable with Page 2’s relationship with Scoop Jackson. Much of his writing is childish, anti-white and a caricature of a negative black stereotype. I didn’t say it in the blog interview, but it’s my belief that it is irresponsible for the World Wide Leader to publish much of what Scoop writes. Over the last year, I’ve shared these opinions with ESPN executives countless times. I said nothing in the blog interview that I hadn’t said privately.
“I told the blog that Lupica and Joe Valerio, the producer of “The Sports Reporters,” had become disenchanted with me because I would not join in the crusade to portray Barry Bonds as the baseball anti-Christ. I’m not a Bonds fan and don’t think all that much of his recent accomplishments. But a life spent competing in sports and writing about sports has made me uninterested in pretending that Bonds is the real villain in the steroids mess. And I have zero tolerance for when people try to censor my ability to state fair opinions.
“You might read this and think that I think I’ve been treated unfairly by ESPN. I don’t.
“This was inevitable. ESPN does not tolerate criticism. Sportswriters far more distinguished than yours truly — Tony Kornheiser, John Feinstein and T.J. Simers — have been banned/suspended for comments perceived to be detrimental to the World Wide Leader.”
Nailed it. Great article.
Kudos to Whitlock, this is exactly what needed to be said. Everyone on this thread should email him ASAP.
I’m glad to hear someone else considers Scoop Jackson a blight upon ESPN. Personally, I consider him and his writing a blight upon humanity, but I guess Whitlock couldn’t go that far.
Wow. For the first time ever I agree with Jason Whitlock. He drove me from watching The Sports Reporters when he was on....
They are - like Dan LeRetard.....
Why?
Carolyn
I notice him now occasionally turning up on the network though....
I like Ryan... he had a problem of his own with his comments on Mrs Jason Kidd (which comments I agreed with).
“I can’t believe Jason Whitlock wrote this.”
I was blown away too. Fatlock has written some awful sports columns over the years. But props to him. He is spot on this time.
Ryan’s problem is the same as Lupica’s.
They think anything in sports that doesn’t happen in either Boston or New York, doesn’t matter!
In the world of sports writing, they believe they are the elitist who know what is good for all of sports.
In reality, they aren’t jack!
KRS One, Chuck D, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common, Jurassic 5, X-Clan, De La Soul, dead prez, Wyclef Jean, Lupe Fiasco, etc. etc. would disagree.
Laura Ingraham read his full article on the air this morning, and I was very impressed with Whitlocks’s courage, vision and verbal aptitude.
Why is it that no college seems able to teach, or otherwise inculcate, something approaching proper speech for these "student athletes." Just between you and I, I sure would like to ax'em.
Also, I hate to show my age, but in my college athletic days, absurd hair-dos and heavy tattoos would have been frowned upon. Ir was impressed upon us that we "represented the school," wherever we went.
These young women did get themselves badly trashed by Don Imus. However, it is not such a hot idea to have them parading about making public statements.
................”they put up with more harassment by the male black students every day as they walk to classes.”
Why?
I guess you haven’t been around a group of “cool” black guys, singing out what they want to do to to the black girl passing by!
Carolyn
You make a good point about painting with too broad a brush, though I will point out that Woody Paige works out of Denver, and he is a typical, white guilt-ridden liberal.
On the other hand, there is a guy I’ve seen a few times from Dallas (Cowlishaw???), and he doesn’t seem to be as bad as the others.
I agree about Lupica. He is insufferable. Perhaps the worst is some guy out of L.A. named Plaschke, or something like that.
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