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
ping
I actually didn’t follow the Imus flap until it got so blown out of proportion. Yes, the remark was deplorable, but was Imus trying to be funny? Was he trying to imitate the hip hop slang or the rappers? I don’t know. But the some of the multi-culturist hate mongers want to have it both ways. They want us to recognize hip-hop as a productive culture, accept the hip-hop way of speaking as respectable and even teach the study of hip-hop in our colleges and universities (Duke even has a course in Hip-hop journalism and Hip-Hop Art), but don’t ever try to imitate it, unless you are Black.
They can’t have it both ways.
Thanks for the ping.
Clean, too?
You’re welcome. How are you? :)
It’s different saying the words NAPPY HEADED HO’s generically, like in a song...but calling actual young ladies these words is just plain wrong.
If someone refers to Jews as “kikes” I’m pissed. If someone called ME a Kike...I’d be furious. There is a difference. That being said, he’s apologized. What else do they want from him? It’s all over...except the money.
Excellent editorial by Whitlock.
But, Imus was right about one thing, the Rhoden guy is a total quota hire.
Some of these very low-rated MSNBC nighttime TV shows are already taking aim at “right-wing” radio, now that Imus has been successfully eliminated.
Why, of course they can. And have us pay for both those ways.
I know I’m beating the proverbial dead horse here, but J. Whitlock did hit the nail on the head. I do question, however, how much weight (no pun intended) this article would have carried if it had been written by *gasp* a white writer.
Kudos to you, Whitlock ~ I hope people - not just YOUR people - take notice and reflect accordingly. Imus was wrongfully terminated because of pressure and money. Was he wrong in saying what he said? Absolutely.
Here’s hoping that the old codger comes to his senses, stops and thinks (for once) before blowing his hot air, and gets a second chance with another affiliate. Even though his radio show is not my style, I hate to see a Legend (there, I said it) go out like this.
Late
Just saw him on ESPN this evening and he was making alot of sense.....need to see more of him and hear more of his thoughts!!
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