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
I can’t believe Jason Whitlock wrote this.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Its too bad this guy isn’t on ESPN anymore. It would be a welcome contrast to the white commentators tripping all over themselves to show who is the most politically correct.
Good grief, I’m with you. I’m stunned to see this with Whitlock’s byline on it.
}:-)4
WEEI is talking about this column now. Dennis and Callahan believe there will be a Wish List on MSNBC’s CEO’s desk very soon.
Imus looks like more of an idiot as each day passes. The original comment he made was something you can hear in any comedy club in America every night of the week. But, the cry-baby Don Imus is out-doing himself each day with all of the grovelling. Even his biggest fans are not going to be able to maintain any respect for him after this spectacle.
The funniest aspect of all this is watching the ever lengthening parade of “civil rights” mouthpieces and liberal media-types getting their panties in a wad over this.
Now that the Anna Nicole story is finally petering out, the “news” networks need a new controversy to regurgitate for the next couple of weeks.
Imus to the rescue.
Homie Run!!
Pray for W and Our Troops
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the night guy hacked into “Big Sexy”’s computer and wrote this. Unless he’s jockeying to get back on the radio...
bookmark
Agreed. ESPN is terrified of anything controversial.
I guess that I’m totally un-PC.
All I see is a bunch of race-baiting pimps circling in blood infested waters over a non-event where Imus was egged on by Bernie.
I’ll bet that none of the Rutgers team would have ever known what was said except for the pimps making an event about it, and if they did hear about it, would have shrugged it off as they put up with more harassment by the male black students every day as they walk to classes.
But then I’m not PC!
John Gibson’s radio show last night was all about this topic. He played clips from the Media Matters guy saying Gibson, along with Glen Beck and of course Rush, have been saying racist things on the radio for a long time. What nonsense. I would like to hear one example of a racist thing Rush has ever said. I suppose they count it as bigotry if Rush dares to criticize Charlie Rangel or someone like that.
The powers that be at Rutgers are probably already discussing how to spend the money.
I’ve watched the various ESPN shows that features sportswriters debating various topics several times, and doing so has convinced me that sportswriters are even more leftwing and politically correct than their hard-news counterparts.
Its as though they feel the need to prove to their hard-news colleagues that while they may not be doing the important work of promoting Democrats and tearing down conservatives, they nonetheless hold all of the proper views and will prove it whenever they get the chance.
I don’t know. I think Whitlock is a pretty straight shooter. Anyone who gets fired from ESPN for calling out Scoop Jackson is OK in my book.
His article about the Black KKK (his criticism of NBA All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas) was also excellent.
Which ESPN completely ignored by the way.
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