Firing is a corporations right to decide to whom they extend paychecks.
Thus, firing and censorship are two vastly different concepts.
Ah, but it is the reasons behind the firings that are important.
If they had said "Look, this guy has been a problem for months/years, here's why, and this lack of good judgment is the last straw." fine...
But fire him just for making a racist remark? Hey, who "fires" the racist rappers for making racist remarks? Who "fires" the so-called "artists" for burning/desecrating flags? Who fires the racist school administrations for bending over backwards to accommodate various political/religious sects?
The answer is of course, no-one. There is a tremendous, mind-boggling double standard here. I call someone a Nazi or a Jew, etc. and I'm a racist because they find that personally offensive. An "artist" burns the flag and I'm supposed to allow it? Support it? I find that kind of behavior personally offensive to the point of having taken a swing at someone - my freedom of expression.
My problem with this whole situation is that the very people who espouse "celebrate diversity" and "embrace tolerance" are the very people who scream for vengeance at the first sign of someone who disagrees with them. What's his name expressed a "diverse" opinion (albeit crudely and inappropriately) - I'm sure it diverged from the players opinion of themselves and their effort. But the thin-skinned brigade swung into action and got its pound of flesh. We can all sleep well again.. ;-/
Imus has a long history. It’s not this one remark:
[edit] African Americans
“Nappy-headed hos” April 4, 2007 (about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, which had recently played in the national championship finals; the team has eight blacks and two whites)[1][2]
“Chest-thumping pimps.” (Description of the New York Knicks.)[1]
“William Cohen, the Mandingo deal.” (Former Defense Secretary Cohen’s wife is African-American.)[3]
“Wasn’t in a woodpile, was he?” (Responding to news that former black militant H. Rap Brown, later known as Abdullah Al-Amin, was found hiding in a shed after exchanging gunfire with police. Imus is alluding to the expression “nigger in the woodpile.”)[4]
“We all have 12-inch penises.” (When asked what he has in common with Nat Turner, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, New York Knicks basketball player Latrell Sprewell, and Al Sharpton.)[5]
“A cleaning lady.” (Reference to African American journalist Gwen Ifill. Imus has said he did not make that statement.)[6]
“Nigger jokes” (What Imus told a 60 Minutes employee that Imus’ program producer, Bernard McGuirk had been tapped to do on the radio show, as Imus later admitted saying when confronted by Mike Wallace in a 1997 interview)[7]
From a tape of the 60 Minutes program as it appeared in a transcript of “On the Media”, a program on National Public Radio:[8]
MIKE WALLACE: You told Tom ANDERSON, the producer, in your car coming home that Bernard McGuirk is there to do “nigger” jokes.
DON IMUS: Well I’ve n— I never use that word.
MIKE WALLACE: Tom?
TOM ANDERSON: I’m right here.
DON IMUS: Did I use that word?
TOM ANDERSON: I recall you using that word.
DON IMUS: Oh, okay, well then I used that word, but I mean— of course that was an off the record conversation— [LAUGHTER]
MIKE WALLACE: The hell it was!
Handicapped people
“Janet Reno’s having a press conference. Ms. Reno, of course, has Parkinson’s disease, has a noticeable tremor. [...] I don’t know how she gets that lipstick on [laughter] looking like a rodeo clown.” [9] Reno was U.S. Attorney General in the Clinton administration.
[edit] Homosexuals
“I didn’t know that Allan Bloom was coming in from the back end.”[9] (The homosexuality of Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind, became widely known after Bloom died.)
“The enormously attractive [NBC political correspondent] Chip Reid, I can say without being accused of being some limp-wristed ‘mo [homosexual].”[10]
[edit] Japanese
“Old Kabuki’s in a coma and the market’s going up. [...] How old is the boy? The battery’s running down on that boy.” (Referring to Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who died the next week.) [11]
[edit] Jews
“I remember when I first had [the Blind Boys of Alabama] on a few years ago, how the Jewish management at whatever, whoever we work for, CBS, or whatever it is, were bitching at me about it. [...] I tried to put it in terms that these money-grubbing bastards could understand.”[12]
“Boner-nosed … beanie-wearing Jewboy.” (Describing Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz, a frequent guest on Imus in the Morning.)[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversial_Don_Imus_quotes_on_women_and_minorities
Each company gets to make its own hiring/firing decisions.
Imus can go make his own rap album if he wants. In contrast, if he was *censored*, he'd be forbidden by the government from uttering the words.
He's not forbidden, though. He can go make his lowbrow rap album that idiots will buy (hey, they bought his ancient "I'm shocking people" radio schtick).
But he's not going to get a CBS Radio paycheck any longer.
...alas, perhaps the distinction between "firing" and "censorship" is too vast for some of today's kids to grasp.