The New Lynching: Why I Must Defend Don Imus

American Thinker ^ | April 17, 2007 | Selwyn Duke

[neverdem]

So Don Imus has been fired from his radio show, and all is well in the world.  We all know about the maelstrom that developed around the aging shock jock, who has found out how loose lips sink ships, in this case his own.  But even though his is a vessel I never would have christened, I find a certain conclusion inescapable here.  I must defend Don Imus.

Lest I be misunderstood, I have no use for the man, nor any for the rest of his ilk.  I know him to be a poster boy for our cultural decay, a man who, along with innumerable fellow babblers, disgorges cultural effluent on a daily basis.  He has been a willing participant in the defining of deviancy downwards and I normally would not lament his departure.  Given my thorough condemnation of the man, in what way do I defend him?  

It's very simple: What really matters with respect to this issue has nothing to do with Imus.  This is because this has everything to do with race, but not in the way many think.  It isn't what was said that has the sultans of slime (read: reverends without congregations, et al.) so upset, but the color of the man who said it.

Let's place this in perspective.  We now have a society in which virtually no comment, no matter how salacious, sardonic, crude, rude or lewd, is out of bounds.  The only restriction is that politically incorrect people must confine themselves to politically correct comments; politically correct people can go further and utter some politically incorrect ones.  And shock jocks and music pox, otherwise known as rappers, regularly exercise their tongues in ways that would make the Marquis de Sade blush.  And these rappers, who, almost to a man, would be dead or in jail if quasi-literacy and incoherent, vulgar, hateful rambling weren't handsomely rewarded by our beating-a-chicken-under-the-moonlight culture, drive around in limousines, even though no amount of money can take the gutter out of the guttersnipe. 

Hw do you encapsulate a toxic culture operating 24/7 and beaming its poison to all corners of the Earth in a paragraph?  Perhaps it can be done, but it's beyond my capabilities.

Doesn't the journey toward a reclaimed culture begin with the draining of a single cesspool?  Of course we would have to start somewhere, but the problem is that an overall war against immorality is not the basis on which Imus has been punished. 

Moreover, Imus may be replaced with someone more politically correct, but he won't be replaced with someone better. 

And now we're inching closer to the point.  Anyone who wants to combat immorality across-the-board will find a staunch ally in me.  However, I will not, under any circumstances, be party to a process whereby a few politically incorrect instances of it are cherry-picked from a sea of immorality and the perpetrators punished harshly simply because they bear the wrong complexion.

The problem here is both simple and ominous: The firing of Imus further solidifies the precedent stating that, with respect to freedom of speech, the latitude one has is directly proportional to his epidermal melanin content.  Plainly speaking, a white person risks his career when saying things for which black people are regularly given a pass.  It's the new lynching. 

I said this solidifies the precedent because it's not even close to the first such occurrence.  Back in 1988, famous sportscaster Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder's career was ended when, while inebriated in a restaurant, he asserted that blacks were better athletes and posited a theory as to why this was so.  Contrast this with the case of Dusty Baker, a black man who, while manager of the Chicago Cubs, also said that minority athletes enjoyed some innate advantages in the athletic arena.  Although Baker did have to endure some criticism, his job was never in jeopardy (nor should it have been). 

Getting back to Don Imus, I'll point out that music pox and black comedians regularly trade in bigoted, misogynistic, hateful material that makes him look like Opie Taylor.  On Hannity & Colmes recently, they had as a guest a quite corpulent comic named Patrice O'Neal.  O'Neal, a black man, unabashedly used the word "cracker" (a racial epithet referring to whites that is the equivalent of "nigger") numerous times, while Sean Hannity just sat quietly and smiled.  Then there's the clip of black comedian Chris Rock (Michael Savage brought it to light on his show) wherein he talks about how he hates all "crackers" to the roar of an appreciative audience. 

"Oh, c'mon, Duke, that's just humor," you say?  Yeah, so was what Imus said.

Contrast this with how white commentators have been cowed into not even uttering the word "nigger" for illustrative purposes; instead, they obediently say "the ‘N-word.'"  It's something they dare not even whisper. . . .  To me, this one, solitary phenomenon perfectly epitomizes the neutering of the white male, as we genuflect at the altar of the race hustlers.  In fact, it's so preposterous it bears restatement: Blacks can use the word "cracker" to demean and express hatred, but whites cannot even utter the word "nigger" as an element of substantive commentary.  I guess this is the affirmative-action of the tongue.

Speaking of the rotten fruits of our affirmative-action mentality, two of its worst products - and that takes in a lot of territory - Jesse Jackson and the bovine bloviator himself, Al Sharpton, were Imus' two main inquisitors.  That they apply a double standard that benefits themselves is bad enough, but that the media apply one that benefits them is far worse. 

If we are going to root out bigots, why aren't we applying the attention where it's most needed?  As to this, we can add to Jackson and Sharpton's sins their bigoted crucifixion of the recently exonerated and always innocent Duke lacrosse players.  Let's look at what Jackson said shortly after the false allegation was made:

". . . And the idea of white males fantasizing about black women is - is quite old, quite - and quite ugly, and now quite illegal."

And,

"That fantasy is as old as slave masters impregnating young slave girls."

Now, this seems curiously reminiscent of what was sometimes said a century ago about black men lusting after white women, something now viewed as a most egregious form of racial stereotyping.  But not only has the media not criticized the race hustler for this prejudiced remark, it has been disseminated so little that I actually had trouble finding the exact quotation  (you have no idea how long I spent searching for it).

Of course, this is just the latest from a man who is beneath contempt, a creature who has made a career out of using threats and intimidation to shake down corporations, all to enrich himself, his family and his cronies. 

Even more of a thug is Sharpton, a man who has incited riots that have caused immeasurable pain and suffering and more than just a few deaths - he has blood on his hands.  And this isn't the first time he has been party to false rape allegations.  In 1987 he perpetrated the Tawana Brawley hoax, an incident in which a 15-year-old girl fabricated rape allegations against six white men.  Sharpton was only too eager to drag the men's reputations through the mud, which included labeling Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones a racist and a rapist.  Sharpton never even apologized to Pagones, and to this day has not paid a price for his vicious slander.  Of course, he did disappear from public view for a spell, but like a jerk-in-the-box, he popped back up some years later as if nothing ever happened and now is a favored guest on many news shows.  (Shame on you, Bill O'Reilly, for giving this criminal a forum.) 

Now, contrast the above with "nappy-headed hos."  And the latter also pales in comparison to Jackson's and Sharpton's demonizing of the Duke boys.  Imus made a rude racial comment about some college students; the two guttersnipes participated in a lynching that might have changed some college students' lives inexorably.  Thus, can anyone really say the media have their priorities straight?    

Some would, it appears.  Dick Morris said recently that taking Imus to task may herald a new era, one of increased civility in public discourse.  Sure, Dick, if you believe that, your former employer, Bill Clinton, has some land to sell you in the Whitewater development.

Nothing will change, except that a further chill has been put on the tongue, especially when it's wielded by one bearing a politically incorrect complexion.  Yes, when you cut through all the posturing and sanctimony, it's obvious that what was played to perfection here is a now old game: Beat up on whitey. 

Contact Selwyn Duke

[dr_lew]

I must defend Don Imus.

A day late, and a dollar short.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Damn, he knocked that one out of the park!

[neverdem]

Did you read the whole article, or just the title?

[ThePythonicCow]

bump

[RunningWolf]

They fire Don Imus, and then give the mass murderer a day long special.

Where is all the outrage from jerks like Jesse Jackson. I guess as long as the killer did not say ‘nappy headed ho’ they don't react.

[familyop]

Lesser known men who get tired of harassment from harpies at work are often fired for telling them nothing more than to “please shut up.” Leftist icons like Imus should be fired for spouting racial hatred in public political opinion shows. So should anyone else.

So he was fired. Waaaaaaaaa! Men are fired every day for much less (often simply because they’re men), and no one helps them out.

[garylmoore]

You make some good points, have to agree with you on this. Love him or hate him, there are more perverted things said by their own race. Their own people have set a precedence.

[familyop]

"They fire Don Imus, and then give the mass murderer a day long special.

Where is all the outrage from jerks like Jesse Jackson. I guess as long as the killer did not say ‘nappy headed ho’ they don't react."

I would like to see an end to the circular, clucking, psychobabble about the murderer, too. If you can stop all of that, I'm with you. And get him fired from his job while you're at it.

[gotribe]

First, I really don't "get" Imus, so let me be politically correct and make sweeping generalities, so as not to be shunned at cocktail parties and hoisted by my MSM friends. Lest I be misunderstood, I have no use for the man, nor any for the rest of his ilk.

As we say, fixed it.

[Badeye]

Again, here’s hoping that come Monday, Don Imus is allowed to fall into the dustbin of history.

He’s gotten more name recognition since his firing then he ever had while on the air.

Why keep propping this pathetic hypocrite up? Let him fall silently...lest you inadvertently increase the odds of his regaining a platform from which to spew his crap.

Just my hope on this issue.