Posted on 04/13/2007 7:51:33 AM PDT by Havok
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.
The bigots win again.
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 or Young Jeezy’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 $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
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.com
This was posted at least twice yesterday.
This person is right on the money.
LOL!! Just like the troublemaker kid in school that makes the whole class suffer!
Jason is a voice in the wilderness!!! He needs to be heard by more people.
Bumpitttt
Al and Jesse: Two-Face Crew.
One of the few on ESPN’s “Sports Reporters” that I enjoyed listening to. I wondered what happened to him.
Check out these comments by Snoop Dogg:
According to MTV, Snoop Dogg said that rappers “are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about ho’s that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing sh—, that’s trying to get a n-—a for his money. These are two separate things.”
First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls,” Snoop Dogg told MTV. “We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha——as say we in the same league as him.”
Snoop Dogg, 35, also told MTV that Imus should be kicked “off the air forever.”
Entire article:
http://www.koat.com/entertainment/11814452/detail.html
If Snoopy wasn’t rich and famous he would be behind bars with his his skinny a$$ served up as prime almost-woman meat on a daily basis. He’s skipped on some serious charges already with more to come.
Race-baiting poverty pimps.
Anyone know why Whitlock is “banned from ESPN”? Colin Cowherd had Whitlock on this morning, then found out afterward that Whitlock was supposedly “banned from being on ESPN”.
Hadn’t heard that before.
Biggest mistake Imus made was agreeing to go on the race baiting Sharpton’s radio show.
What a moron. It was like throwing 1000 gallons of gasoline on the fire.
Decent? I’d call it piercing!
“Biggest mistake Imus made was agreeing to go on the race baiting Sharpton’s radio show.”
While on the show, did you hear Imus say something like, “I can’t please you people.”
Immediately, Sharpton said, “You PEOPLE??”
Of course, Sharpton wanted to make something of it, assuming Imus meant “black people.”
Imus had to re-state it to say “you people” meant Sharpton and the female who, I believe, was on the phone.
ARGH!
“While on the show, did you hear Imus say something like, “I can’t please you people.”
Immediately, Sharpton said, “You PEOPLE??”
Yes I’ve heard that a few times before. I’ve heard other DJ’s called on it before, it’s a typical knee-jerk in the middle of arguments which makes me laugh because it sounds like someone is insulted for being addressed as part of the human race. Seems to me, it’s been used for about 30 years now.
Spot on. Thank you, Havok.
And yet in spite of the fact that I read quite a few threads on FR yesterday, I still missed this one. Thank goodness for double-post errors.
“...sounds like someone is insulted for being addressed as part of the human race.”
LOL!
Thank you for posting this.
I wasn’t here yesterday and can’t find articles that I don’t know are there.
You’re a gem! =)
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