The statement Don Imus made recently about the Rutgers women's basketball team was thoroughly racist and sexist. He was trying to be funny.
He wasn't.
For me, the debate about whether or not Imus is a racist misses a much more important and sobering point.
To be sure, Imus sounded racist and sexist. His words certainly were. Words come from inside where we really live.
But, beyond this, and even more disturbing is the fact that Imus played to his audience and to the marketplace. His "shock jock" genre responded to a precise, scientific understanding of what those who listened enjoyed hearing.
Imus had made such comments before. This time he picked the wrong group to attack. The community responded, thankfully. Advertisers read the writing on the wall. The networks fired him. Thank God for capitalism! When all else fails, money still talks. At least occasionally, it says the right thing.
Imus is not the only one guilty of such foolish, mean-spirited, demeaning, racist pollution. But, he is the one we're talking about today.
Surely, we can do better as a nation, as a people, can't we?
As the controversy was boiling last week, I was reading Kurt Vonnegut's last book, A Man Without a Country, his brief autobiography.
Vonnegut describes a conversation he had with a young man named Joe who approached him with a simple request:
"Please tell me it will all be okay."
"Welcome to Earth, young man," I said. "It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, Joe, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of: #$%&^* it, Joe, you've got to be kind!" (page 107)
Maybe Imus understood my generation and its inherent, genetic racism and sexism. Maybe that's what his marketing folks knew and so counseled him to be what he was. Maybe his entire mission was to market to the low road running through our souls.
But, maybe, just maybe, we can face ourselves and simply decide to go a different way.
Maybe the younger generation--people the age of my daughters and younger--will show us the power and beauty of simple human kindness. I don't know.
But, I do know that we can do better.
14 comments:
Larry, I have to agree with you in that we can do better. We all have the responsibility to make sure that these comments are not said and if they are proper action is taken. Imus being fired is an appropriate punishment, I believe. However, I do not think that because older generations have a more "inherent" sense of racism that they should be excused. Younger generations deal with racism too, just in different forms than older generations. Regardless of one's amount of time spent on this earth we need to realize that racism is still an alive issue, and we all need to take steps to squash it. Imus should have had the decency to know what he was saying what not at all funny. However, what he said shows America that we are still having to deal with racism, that it is alive, not dead.
What struck me as I was watching Meet the Press yesterday was that I do hear the older generations trying to excuse it as what they were brought up with. The problem with that is if we allow racial/racist humor, the younger (especially White) generations hearing it don't have the context for it. They don't have the historical background to know where it comes from so they don't realize there is pain associated with it. By continuing to talk like that, the sickness of the racial garbage perpetuates itself in a generation we claim is more accepting of each other.
The other thing that struck me was when they said the reason the ads got pulled was because of the people (of color) in upper-level positions who spoke out. They said that kind of response wouldn't have happened 10 years ago because people of color weren't as prominent in those positions.
If people of color are speaking out and demanding that the ads be withdrawn from his show and if people of color refuse to be on his show because of his racist remarks, shouldn't that tell us something???
Why do people like Sharpton and Jackson give the hip-hop singers a break? I don't see them raising a fuss over their lyrics. Of course this doesn't excuse Imus.
Larry, I totally agree that we can and need to do better. I also believe what Imus said was wrong. The fact still remains that he is a shock jock. He is supposed to shock people, and bring up controversial issues that make us more aware of the flaws in our society. He has said things like this before because that is what he does. If he never said what he said there would be no huge debate and recognition of the race issue in America. We would be less aware of the vast divide that still separates white America from the rest of America. People need to hear shocking and controversial things so they do not forget to think critically.
In this Imus issue there is also the misconception that racism is always this blatant. The fact that America only cries out after something so evidently racists shows most Americans do not see the racism that happens every day. All the news organizations love to give hours and hours to the Imus debate because that shows they care about the race issue. But what about the fact that minorities are discriminated against every day in ways that affect them far more than some shock jocks comments. Minorities frequently are given lower quality education, get paid less for the same work as whites, have a harder time getting work, have a harder time going to college, and many other things that are ongoing. These are the things we should cry out against. Comments from a shock jock last only moments compared to the structural forces that perpetuate racism in our society. America needs to use this heightened awareness of the race issue to fight for things bigger than getting a racist shock jock fired.
chris -- I think it takes discernment with Hip-Hop music, and it's hard to find a way to respond to it, because it is a vast genre.
There's a lot of uplifting (secular) Hip Hop out there that is very poetic about the plight of many low-income minorities in our communities and makes us aware of the struggle out there.
Then there's a lot of negative rap out there that is not positive. I'd call the "gansta rap" genre the predominant force in this direction, though it's expressed in other rap too. I think it's a problem to "attack" Hip Hop, because it is a very diverse genre with many different themes.
Regarding Imus, I think his comments reflect a sad state with racial harmony in our society. Even though racism isn't popular anymore, we've made it a joke. We can't seriously be racist anymore, but we can joke about, which I think still reflects a deep-seated problem in most people. While it is less overt today, it's still a demon -- even among my age group (college and 20's), I've still had encounters with people that tell me racism is alive.
Anonymous 9:38, thanks for the post. I agree with you about the everyday reality of racism, both carried in individual hearts and supported by entrenched, institutional systems. I also believe that we need to talk about, fight against and continually present these realities.
That said, I am arguing for human kindness in life as a place to start. We can do without Imus. And, as we do here, we can press for a conversation and more importantly for action on the everyday realities of life in the USA.
No matter if you were raised around racism or not it is wrong. making excuses for racism and how you were raised around it is a cop out. Imus was wrong for what he said and deserved to be fired. racism is not a concept of the past and we should not continue to overlook the problems that continue to come up in American society. Imus simply said what he thought, but he got caught but those kind of things are said all the time behind closed doors, but it is just as wrong.
I believe we can do better. As a society, we should take on the responsibility of resolving our past mistakes. If we all came together and decided to be different from our ancestors, we could achieve harmony among the races. Hopefully, the next generation can come up with a way for us to all live peacefully because we are not doing too well on our part. Racism has gone on long enough. We must take a stand now because if we do not, then who will teach our children how to step up? We can change our differences. We can look past our petiness, but we must all decide to do it in one voice. We all ahve to make the change.
I agree with your statement Larry. You are usually on target with racial issues and what it means to respect those of different races. Imus's statement was definitely way out of line but what most concerns me are the Imuses that are silent. To further illustrate, it is those who are in corporate positions, in our schools, and financial institutes that harbor racist thoughts and beliefs that continue to harm those of color. The suffering continues...
Imus should've been fired. But I also believe there's room on the pink slip for folks like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
This is not about Imus. He has been saying things like this for years. This is about being an election year and the Clinton Machine, the Democrat Party, and the liberal media, all one and the same, are intent on taking out conservative talk radio. Media Matters for America, who set the whole thing up is nothing more than a Democrat Party front organization. Imus was their first casualty but they have a long list to go. They will not be successful. Even though Imus is a liberal, he has been critical of Hillary, which explains why he had to be removed.
always gotta have our conspiracy theorists...
daniel gray, you say we can't "attack" Hip Hop because there is good and bad to it.
To quote you:
"There's a lot of uplifting (secular) Hip Hop out there that is very poetic about the plight of many low-income minorities in our communities and makes us aware of the struggle out there.
Then there's a lot of negative rap out there that is not positive. I'd call the "gansta rap" genre the predominant force in this direction, though it's expressed in other rap too. I think it's a problem to "attack" Hip Hop, because it is a very diverse genre with many different themes."
Now couldn't the same be said of Don Imus? He has done many very good things such as his ranch for kids with cancer, raising money for SIDS, building a facility to provide care to our wounded veterans, and on and on.
If we can't "attack" Hip Hop, how do you rationalize firing Imus?
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