Imus

jack · Post by **jack** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:45 pm

did he go too far? double standard?

not defending him. he fucked up. probably got what he deserved. the rutgers girls seemed to take the high road. but media leeches like al sharpton and jesse jackson like to see themselves on TV and never miss a good self-serving opportunity.

i've heard much worse from snoop.

bz£ · Post by **bz£** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:09 pm

Double standard, didn't deserve firing for saying the same things he'd said every day for thirty years, jackson & sharpton are far more racist than he'll ever be, I've heard worse from Michael Irvin, the Rutgers girl that claimed she was "scarred for life" was taking the I-am-full-of-bullshit road, which runs parallel to let's-see-if-we-can-capitalize-on-this-for-money avenue, and in the end, CBS was looking for an excuse to drop Imus anyway or they wouldn't have done it.

Denyer · Post by **Denyer** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:44 am

he said something he shouldn't have said.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:16 am

Being one of Songfight's few people of color and I live with a Rutgers student, I feel like I should throw in my two cents.

Imus calling the Rutgers' team a bunch of nappy headed hos was uncalled for. You can dislike the team all you want but calling them that comes from a different uglier place. Imus shouldn't have said it. Does he deserve to be thrown off the radio? No. If you're gonna throw him off the radio then you've gotta go after Rush, Wendy Williams and a whole lot of others. Rev Jesse and Rev Al getting involved is par for the course. One of the girls saying she's scarred for life is bull. I've gotten called worse slurs than that in my life.

All in all, Imus fucked up. Life goes on. Scarlet Knights did great this year despite getting their asses handed to them by the Lady Vols. It isn't diminished. Again, life goes on.

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:38 am

The perfect response.

jack · Post by **jack** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:42 am

nancy grace perpetuates much more hate than don imus.

someone needs to shut that nappy headed ho up.

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:46 am

You are SO FIRED.

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:32 pm

WTF is a "nappy headed ho"?
To me a nappy is what you call a 'diaper' - and I just changed a particularly nasty one, so that expression conjures up quite an unpleasant image.
WTF, for that matter is an Imus? A new Apple product?

jack · Post by **jack** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:51 pm

google is your friend ray.

rone rivendale · Post by **rone rivendale** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:17 pm

Racism goes both ways. If Imus had been a young black (or even hispanic) guy he would have been just fine. People would have laughed at the statement and although some ppl would have been offended, it would have blown over. Because Imus is an old white guy, he got punished.

What he said was wrong, but he only got in trouble because of the color of his skin. Again, racism goes BOTH ways.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:18 pm

Caravan Ray wrote:WTF is a "nappy headed ho"?
To me a nappy is what you call a 'diaper' - and I just changed a particularly nasty one, so that expression conjures up quite an unpleasant image.

Nappy refers to hair that is tightly curled and course to the touch, sometimes referred to as Kinky.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:23 pm

[quote="Rone Rivendale"]Racism goes both ways. If Imus had been a young black (or even hispanic) guy he would have been just fine. People would have laughed at the statement and although some ppl would have been offended, it would have blown over. Because Imus is an old white guy, he got punished.[quote]

Please, oh please, don't turn this conversation to the old why can't white people say nigga and black people can conversation. I think that was covered on this board enough already. It was a dumb thing to say. If Wendy Williams would've said it, it would've blown over. Imus said it so it didn't. Either way, it's still a dumb thing to say.

j$ · Post by j$ » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:39 pm

Rone Rivendale wrote:Racism goes both ways. .

Warning: this is what racists say.

Justincombustion · Post by **Justincombustion** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:46 pm

I can't beleive he was making fun of their hair! Pot, kettle...his head is nappy! Except certain pics they put up of him with his gray mullet. I expect him to put on some Oakley Blades and get into a '78 Z-28.

jack · Post by **jack** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:56 pm

i may be wrong, but didn't his producer/sidekick first insult the Rutgers girls, and Imus just kind of repeated what he said?

again, not defending Imus at all. just thinking his "response" to the producer's remarks were a dumb, knee-jerk, stream of consiousness reaction, as stupid as it was to say. i never really felt Imus had any malice towards the Rutgers girls, as he has repeatedly stated.

unlike many rap artists, where malice certainly seems intended when insults are tossed around. or maybe that's just part of the "culture" i'm ignorant to, due to the color of my skin....

in today's society, being a "victim" often leads to civil litigation, and while i'm not saying that's the case here, taking your cause to the airways ad nauseum and throwing al sharpton and jesse jackson behind it (and yes, i would call them both racist) doesn't help diffuse the situation, it only inflames it with their bullshit rhetoric and holier than thou attitude.

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:35 am

Yes, jack, my understanding is something like that; his sidekick mentioned nappy-headed and Imus added "hos" to the end, in concurrence. I don't know why they said that about a team that was so successful. I think if the guy has that kind of dumb, knee-jerk reaction, well--maybe it's indicative of some bias he has inside himself. If his sidekick had called them something worse maybe Imus would have repeated that too. A term so widely used to denigrate black people would have made me, and did make quite a few people, turn their heads in shock. Imus did not.

I dunno what you'd point to as racist about Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson's epithet about NYC in `81 aside. But again whatever they do or don't do doesn't excuse anything about Imus.

I found this page linked from Daily Kos: <a href="http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/04 ... tz.html</a>

Pointing to rap, or what might've been if someone else had said it, is immaterial to the matter. Context, context, context. I don't love that Quentin Tarantino has people dropping the N-word, including himself, in his films, but that is doubtlessly a different context than Michael Richards calling some black hecklers the same during some stand-up in a tirade. I just saw this story in the AP: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_ ... WM0F">With Imus gone, critics turning to rap</a>. <a href="http://www.takeourmusicforward.com/stat ... l">Here</a> is an open letter from Al Sharpton, published nearly a year ago, about rap music. I shall quote from it.

Two-thirds of rap consumers are young White people -- mostly male -- a generation that has learned through rap images to identify Black male culture with a culture of violence. This generation has also learned through rap music and videos that to be a “real man” means using, abusing, and discarding women as insignificant sex objects. (...) Gangsta rap represents the same old chains that we have been trying to break free from for the past 400 years. Damaging stereotypes diminish the self-esteem of young people all over America. Rap is one of many outlets that reflect narrow racist and misogynist stereotypes, and its power increases with every #1 single.

Rap isn't given a free pass, especially not by politicians (who appear on Imus' show.) Remember when Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott of Pepsi after they hired Ludacris for their ad campaign? Remember Lieberman and Tipper Gore and the PMRC? The outrage over Ice-T's "Cop Killer"?

The Rutgers team, FWIW, I don't think publicly commented for days. Sharpton took the mantle upon himself, as did bloggers and so forth. The team did appear on Oprah days after Imus had apologized, but that comment wasn't the sole discussion during their visit. I mean, again, they were a successful team. But your argument about being a victim doesn't really make sense to me on a broader sense... it'd be great if everyone would instantly forgive and forget, but maybe people feel like it's something that should be discussed. We aren't all in agreement here and we're a pretty small community. Certainly a hundred million Americans aren't in agreement. Imus's apology didn't come until a day or two ago, officially, to the team, which they accepted. So we'll see what happens from here on out, now that he's been fired and apologized and they've accepted the apology.

I dunno. The term wasn't suitable or appropriate, and Imus either didn't think the term was suitable either or he was fighting for his radio show and caved to public pressure and said he didn't. Hypocrisy doesn't make an argument wrong, by the way. If I say smoking is bad and you shouldn't, but I smoke, that doesn't mean smoking is OK. Smoking is still bad and you still shouldn't smoke. I disagree that to go after this guy you have to after dozens of others. It doesn't matter what anyone else said, it matters what this dude said.