Don Imus, Where does it all go from there?

[Slobrain]

I was listening to the young ladies on TV today complaining of Don Imus remark about (nappy headed hoes) I was thinking that if Don would have said (nappy headed wetback) nothing would have been done and he would still have his job. Not that its right either way.

But using the term nappy headed hoe has sparked a crap storm within the media and Al Sharpton kicking up crap as ussual as he always does.

Now, I do not think what Don said was very nice at all but why is it black comunity can say pretty much whatever they want about some one but the minute some one white says anything they get stormed by everyone like they are the next antichrist?

Rappers have always called women (hoes and bitches) but does anyone say anything to them? NO.....

Goes to show how racism really is in this country. Think about it!

A touchy subject to talk about!!!


SLO

[Enzo]

The difference here is that the black people can say something about itself. As a rule I do not hear blacks in public talking about "STraight haired whores" or "honky assholes."

I think bean-eating wetback would be more like the stereotype, but whatever.

I think it would depend. Was your wetback an individual or small group? Or was it a general referal to Mexicans? Imus has a history of offensive remarks, but this time he applied them to innocent college students who had achieved a national championship in their sport. Innocent in the sense that they did nothing to bring themselves into the crosshairs of derision. If they had been busted for drunk driving or caught in a college exam cheat, it might be a little different. But in this case, all they did was win a game. Imus started by criticizing their appearance, and went too far. If your wetback had crossed the border to save a choking border patrolman, we might not feel so good if Imus called him names.

If your mother appeared at a basketball game wearing jeans and heels, would you let the black player "get away with" calling her a white trash whore? I think you would be incensed.

I am no fan of Al SHarpton, he who hops on every bandwagon to free publicity, but these women were upset before he hopped in.

And as to rappers, the music industry HAS complained about the lyrics for a long time. People in the black community complain regularly about it. $$$ talks, so the record companies ignore it. You don't like the rap lyrics, call the record company and complain. It takes involvement to change anything.

[Slobrain]

Hey Enzo,
Good points on what you wrote. I would agree that Don did put his foot in his mouth about these young ladies who did nothing wrong to him. He does say some funky crap too sometimes. I guess what I was referring to was that some get away with saying anything but others get slammed quickly.

As far as the black community talking about whites, I grew up in an area that was about 70% black, 20% Hispanic and maybe 10% white. I used to listen to names like Honky, Craka, white devil, white MF on a daily basis because of my skin color. I had moved from a predominantly white area where we didn't have this kind of name calling to this other area back in the late 60's early 70's and stayed there until around mid 80's so I can say what is said from the area I lived in.

It was kind of hard to come in as a innocent kid to get put down with these sort of racial names back then. In 1990 I got a job in a warehouse with 90% black folk working there and boy did I really get the name calling at me because I was white and only one of two white guys that worked in there. Finally the other white guy got pissed off one day and said the N word and was fired that day but only after he was getting called all these bad racial names and nothing was ever done about that. management looked the other way all the time until that one fateful day.
I felt that was just plain wrong, I quit not too much longer after that as I felt in this mostly black oriented job that as a white boy I wasn't wanted in there.

Just seems like unfairness runs deep in this country sometimes :(

Just part of my experinece of life.

SLO

[steve]

I wonder why the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson haven't made a public denouncement of this:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=996716845

steve

[bob p]

I think its a waste of time to pay attention to any of this. Imus is a shock jock, someone who gets his ratings and makes a living by saying stupid things to polarize people. He's no different than Donald and Rosie. Everyone who's fallen to either side of these arguments has taken the bait.

Sure, what Imus said was stupid. But racial humor is used all the time in the media, and people get away with it all the time. Look at comedians like Mencia or Chapelle. They use all sorts of vicious derogatory racial slurs in their comedy, and they tell the viewers to fuck off if they don't like it, because comedy is supposed to be irreverant. The difference is that they use generalized stereotypes, and they're smart enough not to attack individual people. Imus and the Seinfeld Kramer guy made the mistake of attacking individuals -- people who were easily defensible. What a pair of dumbasses.

But then maybe Imus the millionaire is not a dumbass. Maybe the whole controversey was contrived in a Howard Stern-like fashion so that Imus could exit his contract with CBS and become a free agent -- so he could freely move to satellite radio. None of this really matters anyway -- who has Imus been replaced with on CBS? His wife does the show now. Who cashes the check? Imus. What's the difference? Nothing!

Everyone who's worried about this has been sucked into a big con.

[Enzo]

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