Archive for April 12th, 2007
I’ve been watching this Imus thing quitely from a distance. Don Imus got fired from MSNBC yesterday. And now I just heard that he was fired from his radio show about an hour ago. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Imus called the Rutger’s women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy headed hos”. Not exactly the nicest thing to say to someone. Don Imus is a jackass. A COLOSSUL jackass. And made an idiotic comment as only a colossul jackass would. But he absoloutley has the right to be a jackass and make idiotic comments. What the hell happened to freedom of speech?
I have been thinking about all this since it came out last week. About how screwed up this situation is on so many levels. The freedom of speech thing is huge. It seems to me that freedom of speech is only ok for certain people. Mainly minorities. And before you start spitting fire my way for stating that, let me inform you that I myself am a minority (my family and origins start in Costa Rica). There is a clear double standard. I can easily see this. Imus says “nappy headed hos” on the radio. It was a mean thing to say. But I can tune in to a local hip-hop radio station and hear all that and then some. Yet nobody brings that up. Does that make sense to anyone? Explain that to me. The only way I can figure it is that Imus being a white guy (cracker, honkey, etc.) is forbidden from saying anything that can hurt the feelings of minorities. On the other hand if you are in the minority, it’s perfectly ok to say those words. Minorities can also use terms like “white trash” without fear of scrutiny.
An African-American can say “nigger”. A gay person can say “fag”. A hispanic person can say “vato”. A white person can say “I’m sorry”.
I love Chris Rock! Extremely funny guy. Love his stand up. Nothing he says offends me. Same for George Lopez. Another great comedian. Besides both being hillarious individuals, what do they have in common? I can think of 2 things. First, they both have some great white people jokes. Second they both make great jokes about their own races. Can you name a white comedian that does that today? Namely, making jokes about other races? The only one that comes to mind is Sarah Silverman. But she being a woman, is also considered a minority. And you can’t tell me Don Rickles or anyone else that is over 100 years old. I’m talking about this day and age. I see a double standard there.
Bottom line is that I feel we as a society have become extremely too sensitive. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Remember that? Words are only as powerful as we make them. And we are making them way too powerful I would love for us to live in a world where people took the high road every opportunity and refrained from using offensive racial slurs. Where everyone was considerate and polite before anything else. But that isn’t the world we live in. Maybe Mars, but not here.
For the record, I didn’t know anything about Rutger’s woman’s basketball until now. I’ve seen a couple of the basketball players in interviews on TV. They come across to me as well educated, articulate ladies. Not worthy of being called a “nappy headed ho” at all. So why did they get so offended? I’ve been called things that I wasn’t. And that didn’t phase me a bit namely because it wasn’t true. What they should have been offended by was when Rutger’s coach C. Vivian Stringer and player Essence Carson were being interviewed on the Today show by Meredith Viera, they kept putting up highlights of the Tennessee-Rutgers game. And each and every one of thos highlights showed Rutgers getting schooled by Tennesee. Insult to injury, baby.
By the way, did anyone even care about the Women’s NCAA basketball tournament? This Imus thing right now has given more media coverage to this “basketball” tournament than it has ever had. Maybe they should thank Imus? 
Too bad for Imus that there wasn’t more going on in the news when he stuck his foot in his mouth. A slow news day could have pushed this story away from the front page. He might have survived to slur another day. Like he practically did here.
I don’t think he should have gotten fired. Maybe had his head examed, but that’s about it. And looking at Imus, his hair looks kind of nappy to me. The irony…
-Dave Q.
