Posted on 04/14/2007 7:04:31 PM PDT by neverdem
A racial storm in America
Don Imus, the line-crossing talk-radio host who broadcast daily across America from his New York studio, has been fired for referring to a team of black women basketball players as “nappy-headed ho’s”. Imus, a former Marine with a gruff demeanour, had an unsentimental show or, as they might say in America, it featured “guy talk” (any Briton, by the way, who uses “guy” or “guys” deserves a glossectomy).
There was some banter and unsubtle opinions were aired. It was not out of control but it also wasn’t a sanitised PC affair. He’s quite amusing and articulate in a resolutely uncomplicated way and had a huge listenership generating vast advertising revenue. Consequently, he attracted significant political figures as guests, pretty much anyone bar the President, who, of course, is rarely free to speak in public unscripted lest he describe Condi Rice as “that Secretary of State ho” in a momentary lapse.
Nappy-head, it turns out (excuse my whiteyness), means a black person who has allowed their hair to grow naturally into a tightly curled afro. It’s a term that can be used self-referentially with pride or disparagingly about others. Being a racial thing, its power is in the mouth of the speaker. Or is it in the ear of the listener? It’s complicated, so, in the interests of a quiet life, don’t use it unless you are very confident or, in fact, a nappy-head.
Imus apologised, offered no excuses, was roundly vilified and endured the measured, disproportionate wrath of Al Sharpton when guesting on the black activist/pentecostal minister’s radio show to defend himself. What they said, Imus and his sports reporter buddy, about the basketball game, was quite funny. The two teams were physically different. It was college basketball and Rutgers were playing Tennessee. The Rutgers girls looked more intimidating, they were inked up (tattoos . . .) and were altogether more menacing-looking even in defeat. These white radio boys were sniggering about that.
Basically, had it been a football match and it had all kicked off in the tunnel after the game, you’d have backed the Rutgers girls. The banter in the studio started trying to incorporate some black street language to describe the game to comic effect. It wasn’t very clever but then it’s morning talk radio.
To get to the top in college basketball you have to be good, in a general sense, not just at basketball, and you have to make sacrifices. At least that’s what college basketball folk and their families say. The girls were upset and in their robust defence they have been referred to as fine “representatives of God”. What fun you could have with that on the air if you were allowed to. God has sent down a team of 6ft tall Amazonian tattooed basketball players to represent Him. No doubt the devil sent Don Imus.
This happens when things get Blown Up Out Of All Proportion. There are enough people with a keen ear for a lapse that anyone broadcasting anywhere ought to speak thoughtfully. If only because you may not know how much offence you’ve caused until the outcry afterwards. Imus didn’t say: “If I’ve offended anyone I apologise.” He knew he’d caused offence.
He also did not say that the language and lyrics of black American rap artists leave his kind of remark not just in the shade but on the dark side of the moon.
A few years ago, on C4’s Big Breakfast, Johnny Vaughan asked me which was my worst ever stand-up gig. In 1989, at a private party in a Basildon disco, I performed to unanimous indifference. After me was an older comic. He ventured “Are there any Pakis in?” then went down a storm with racist material. Johnny intervened: “You can’t say that.” I said: it’s a true story — he said Pakis, not me. He stepped in with the forceful jocularity of the practised live TV presenter: “You can’t say that word.”
Some time later, a group of young British Asians were sitting in front of me at a football match. Bizarrely, one of them wanted a picture of me as his mum was a Jonathan Creek fan. His mate sneered: “I ain’t taking a picture of him, he used the P-word on TV.” He had me down as a racist, which was unpleasant. I’d gone over some invisible line. Johnny Vaughan knew where the line was; I didn’t. I thought context was relevant. I was as naive as a newborn calf. I was a C-word.
Among friends, thankfully, you can draw your own line. Wesley and Donald, two friends of mine from Edmonton, were discussing Donald’s attempts to sell his house after the break-up of his marriage. Donald was talking about some people who’d said they’d buy and then went back on the deal they’d shaken on.
“White folks?” said Wesley. “Yeh, they was white,” replied Donald. “Can’t trust Whitey,” said Wesley. “Nope,” said Donald, “you sure can’t trust Whitey.”
This observation had a poignancy and surprising air of veracity about it as well as being amusing, given that Wesley and Donald are both white.
Generally speaking Whitey’s too dumb to know where the line is. He must tread carefully since it’s the only line on the whole map of the world that he didn’t draw.
Not the same thing at all, and even if it was, that wouldn't make it right. My best friend and I sling homosexual epithets at each other all the time. Are they still slurs? Yes. Would it be OK for a homosexual to kick my butt if he heard me use those words? Yes. Would my boss have the right to fire me if I talked like that on company time? OF COURSE. But your argument is a strawman because it ignores the distinctions between private and public, selected audience and random audience, and affection and indifference.
As it happens, nobody cared when Imus called black, male basketball players “breast beating pimps”.
I didn't care because I never listen to him. He really said that? That's only a little less bad, and only confirms what a jerk he is.
There is a single factor explanation for this trumped up tempest in a chamber pot orgy of wailing and victimization bathos that is now approaching self-parody. The politically correct and corrupt are divorced from the idea of confronting offensive stupidity with eternal truth and rationality, but prefer to hector with bullying threats, speech codes, and the implied corrective of the re-education camp. The latter is held out as the only approved penance to allow the sinner to reenter polite society. Today offenses against political correctness seem to be the last public sin. No longer do abortion, homosexuality, disloyalty to nation in a time of war, public display of vulgarity of the basest kind (unless aimed at an approved minority ala Imus) count as iniquities to be vigorously condemned. Instead, affronts to self-esteem are the worst sort of tort that CANNOT be tolerated in any context. (As long as you aren’t Christian, male, white or all three preferably)
Imus breathes in the same air as the rest of us, air that has been suffused with the smog of cultural decay from innumerable sources, most notably the patois of gansta rap, and he got a contact high from it, and we know how intoxication impairs your judgement. Imus is aware that the American culture is a stew of numerous ethnic influences, and we are generally free to sample from them as we wish. But he ran afoul of the rules established by the Politically Correct multiculturalists, who evermore are establishing a new regime of Balkenazation, not one based on racial segregation and racism, but on racial identity and speech codes. Only the anointed are allowed to sample certain items from that PC menu. Imus was not a made man just because he flashed liberal credentials.
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