Obscenity is already banned. Imus can't say fuck. He can't say the n-word. But he can liken African Americans to apes.
First amendment protections are not absolute especially on the public airwaves.

Imus is not of particular interest to me. What he said was disgraceful. The 1st Amendment has nothing to do with whether he keeps his job or not only his employers' view of whether he makes them enough money to let this blow over.

However, the bigger issue is the this growing world in which Blacks can use any vulgar terms they like, not only on the radio, and CDs but the cartoon Boondocks used the "n" word as a regular feature. The notion that this can be kept segregated from Whites is absurd. It seems mightly unlikely that a generation of White children are going to listen to Hip Hop and the like and not take up the use of ho, bitch and "n".

This is a problem that Jesse Jackson is more forthright about than too many Whites. David Hinckely "The New York Daily News'" radio columnist has a long discussion of the issue in today's edition.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Daily Show did a hilarious segment on this issue.

Imus makes his living ridiculing people, he's reinforced by Bernard McGurk, one of his sidekicks. Imus' popularity has gone to his head in that he seems to feel he can say anything about anybody at anytime and do it with impunity. McGurk said the team was 'hard core hos" just before Imus made his comment. Why isn't McGurk on the hot seat?

Right wingnuts are campaigning to have Rosie O'Donnell lose her job on The View, Dan Rather lost his job due to perssure by wingnuts, now Imus is in another group's sights.

Jimmy (The Greek) Snyder was ejected from the public eye in 1988 when, on Martin Luther King's birthday, he said that blacks are better at sports because of slave plantation breeding techniques. "During the slave period, the slave owner would breed his big black with his big woman so that he would have a big black kid–that's where it all started."

But there was no outcry by fat people when
Al Franken wrote "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot." :)

Should people lose their jobs due to what they say? Listen to right wing radio, then get back to me.

I don't care whether his employers fire him. That's their business. But what pisses me off is the number of Washington and New York establishment media types and politicians who are willing to go on his show and yuck it up in his boys' locker room. People have the right to go on the air and say whatever shit they want. But no one has any obligation to participate in the shitfest. By continuing to support his show, Kearns-Goodwin, Russert et al. signal that they regard Imus's patter as within the bounds of acceptable discourse.

Humorists are, of course, given a longer leash to hurl insults and invective. In some cases, they are satirizing the hate speech itself. In other cases they are indulging in an equal opportunity breaking of taboos. But there is no satire in Imus's humor, and it is so one-sided, that it is clear that the jokes are more an expression of a suppressed racist urge - an expression that his fans apparently find liberatingly "incorrect".

From what I've read early on in the season the Rutgers women's basketball team coach, Vivian Stringer, locked the team out of their dressing room, took away their practice uniforms, and made them change in the bathrooms.

And the women put up with it!

Sounds like calling them "hos" might not be that out of line.

Freedom of Speech doesn't have anything to do with this, MJ isn't saying that the government should ban Imus, he's saying that his parent company should have some moral standards.

I'm confused ... How exactly is a coach using team-building techniques akin to prostitution?? The women followed the coaches discipline and training techniques, and as a result they won the national title. I don't see how that mkaes anyone a whore.

Ellen you are an ignorant slut.

Bigotry flies in every direction. Not even lawsuits have stopped it.

Intolerance of what is innocent and harmless tempts the innocent and harmless to join the ranks of the cynical and hating.

Once our felt social freedom to be innocent children is destroyed by the bigoted hatred, sarcasm, intimidation, snobbery, slights and attacks of those who are perpetuating the cycle, the innocent children learn to fight back or follow suit, and lose their innocence through revenge.

In the middle of all of this, that is why unconditional forgiveness for the past is the moral and spiritual equivalent of an unconditional cease fire. Then, someone takes advantage of it, and the hostilities begin again.

Like anything else that is hard to master, forgiveness takes repeated practice, and the art of self-control so crucial to cease-fires does too. Interestingly, a cease-fire and self-control are periods of stillness from confusion, passion, rage and violence until insight and focused productive action is possible. They are like prayerful meditation on a large scale. Isn't that what a peaceful neighborhood on a beautiful early morning is like? It is in a state of peace because busyness ceases and people rest and get perspective. We need to be able to do this while we are moving about and working and even talking. It requires repetitive practice, insight, and learning. It is hard to do, but possible. And learning to do this for ourselves would help others to have the room to do the same. Trying to make peace on this website is a microcosm or laboratory of this cycle of conflict.

Imagine trying to accomplish this with a classroom, a city, or two peoples at odds for generations? And yet, the only way is mastery of the self. Forgiveness is integral, and the bravery to face scoffers takes great effort.

Martin Luther King's spiritual marches while invoking the very spiritual teachings the persecutors applied selectively among themselves, were exercises in this kind of self-control.

I remember fondly the story of the Johns-Hopkins surgeon who wrote "Gifted Hands," Ben Carson, and his account of overcoming anger and rage to be able to become who he was truly capable of becoming.

He wasn't suggesting the government force Imus' firing. He was suggesting that decent corporatations would not employ such an indecent man. Public pressure is not government censorship. No one has a constitutionally guaranteed access a TV or radio show.

Were you this outraged when Clear Channel cut the Dixie Chicks?

I actually think some of those commenting, if sometimes less than artfully, on the widespread use of words like "ho" and "nigga" may be getting at something: firing Imus and framing him as a "racist" may not be getting at the heart of the problem here. Imus is getting nailed for using language that Chris Rock could use without thinking twice. I'm not making some kind of inane resentful critique of reverse discrimination here; I just wanted to agree with other posters that insulting category-based language has spread through our culture over the past 15 years as part of the arsenal of comedy. And since everyone is part standup comedian, that means we're all trying to use this language.

Just treating the problem as if it were one of a few racist broadcasters is misguided. What's happened is that an anti-PC aesthetic of language over the past 15 years has reinscribed supposedly ironic ethnic/gender/religious/sex-orientation slurs, along with bathroom humor, as part of our national culture. Frankly, this brand of humor is now producing diminishing returns. Perhaps Imus should be fired, but there also needs to be a broader social reexamination of whether calling people "chinks" is really all that hilarious.

Accumulating Peripherals

We need Imus. Get rid of Imus and racism doesn't go away. It just goes underground. Let Imus keep his job. He's really good at it and very entertaining. When he does indulge his racism, put him on the spot, call for his head, and send him over the Reverand Al's show for a whoopin'. The public pillary keeps racism on the front page and a topic of discussion and debate.

Otherwise people forget that racism still exists and stop questioning their own beliefs and prejudices.

I think we owe Imus a debt of gratitude for being an idiot in a very public way.

What good is doing something just to get a rise?

I have no respect for certain college sports programs or demeaning pop culture, but women's college basketball is neither a privileged operation on campus and often times the players are worthy role models.

The Coach's technique, as far as I could research, was to set a symbolic reference. A lot of coaching is about symbols. It was in response to a poor effort in a previous practice - not being worthy of the Rutgers uniform or locker room. The players were certainly not humiliated; they learned a lesson.

Your flippant remark only identified an ignorance of an issue and an air of insensitivity. Name calling is not a very mature comment in social discourse.

I kinda thought your original comment in this exchange was a snark Ellen.  I am a little puzzled by this latest one though.  Because of Title IX and the growth of NCAA women's sport's options, there are more women going to college on sports scholarships (in many different sports) and having a chance for a college education they might not have had in the past.  In the past almost all the sports scholarships went to male athletes...that has changed dramatically.

Michael Jackson released and album called HIStory that included a song "They Don't Care About Us". The song included the following words, Jew me, Sue me" and "Kick me, Kike me".
(Full lyrics)

http://www.asklyrics.com/display/Michael_Jackson/They_Don%60t_Care_About_Us_Lyrics/6378.htm

The words were changed after pressure from ADL and other organizations. Apparently both the artist and corporation decided to make the change.
C Dorothy Height the head of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) was ridiculed by both artists and corporations when she attempted to addreess the negative impact of lyrics used in rap music.
There was a sense among the artists that was similar to an argument that Lenny Bruce made, that they were "taking back" the word and changing it's vile meaning. The artists were never able to demonstrate the battles that had been fought against hordes of White rascists who were trying to prevent them from using the word.
The artists also pointed to the clever ways that Richard Pryor used the word in his comedy routines. They overlooked the fact that after Pryor returned from a visit to Africa, he made the comment that he saw thousands of Black people, but no "niggers". He stopped
using the word in his comedy routine. Only by ignoring Pryor's full career could he continue to be used as an excuse for using the degrogatory term. Comedian Bernie Mac went through a similar transition. The result,a TV sitcom and movie career more lucrative than he could have achieved using profanity.
Bill Dana of "Jose Jimenez" fame realized the harm he was doing using his slow witted character to grab a few laughs.
Artists and radio talk show hosts are certainly responsible for the product they produce. The corporations who distribute the product also have responsibilities. The burden of Imus' outburst must be borne by his corporate enablers. Coroprations will only act if there is a threat of loss of corporate dollars via loss of viewers.
It will be interesting to see the final resolution.

Perhaps a little more thought should go into whether or not we wish to empower/support disparate groups who demand people be fired on what in many cases can be called nebulous charges, such as racism, anti-semitism, anti-christian, anti-Americanism, etc.

I have no dispute at all with you on this MJ, but I have one small point to make. The point is this, some people are just assholes and say the most idiotic, foolish, racist, sexist, you name it things simply because they are assholes. Granted, most of them say these things only to their buddy on the barstool next to them and so Imus's spewing his comment about the Rutgers athletes to millions is simply beyond the pale. I attended grad school at Rutgers and have been quite proud to point at the women's basketball team's success and Imus' filthy comments, whether racist or just assholish are sickening. All Rutgers alums should demand his head on a pike, but I digress.

I wanted to add that there are folks of his age and older mostly that continue to have one part of their persona in the present and for the most part they observe the conventions of the day by not saying the sort of racist things he said publicly. But it must be understood from the jump that behind closed doors these people still talk this way, still think this way and still act on those beliefs, thoughts, and utterings. So not only do Imus' comments reveal him to be one of those white guys who harbors ongoing racist beliefs and sentiments but also those who would be his pals are of the same ilk and I feel confident in saying so. These kind of folks privately continue to believe in white superiority, and everything that goes with it. I know this because I have been around these types in private and that's what goes on amongst them. When it does happen some of us actually speak up and object and they instantly quiet down, but you know once the "problem" liberals like me leave they go right back at it. That means, as far as I'm concerned, that people like Russert, the executives that fail to get rid of Imus, the guests on his show, those who make the decisions about whether or not to advertise on his show, etc... are all in tacit agreement that his comments are not so bad and they don't really understand all the fuss. After all, many of the same folks treat Rush Limbaugh despite copious instances and evidence as though he is not a racist, sexist, homophobic, bigot. Anyone giving tacit approval to such outrageous statements deserves the same ostracization as the initial offender in my opinion.

I say all this as a WASP male who is sickened by these types of people, their beliefs and their rank hypocrisy. So now, having thought it through while typing this post I guess I would have to put Imus in the category of Racist Asshole. Yeah, that's about right I think.

kent roberts while imus might need to be fired wheres the outrage over rush limpbaugh,he`s the worst of the worst.if he`s gone verterans will suffer from his loss because there is no one who will pick up the soldiers plight.i feel sorry for our troops their voice is gone,while i weep for those girls that had to endure that,some troops will get shafted because their voice is gone.

Clear Channel didn't just cut the Dixie Chicks. Some of their DJs held public events where their CDs were burned. They used their exclusive, monopolistic control of concert venues in a number of cities to damage their tour (and don't give us crap about how no one wanted to come, they were still selling records by the millions).

I have no problem with a particular station deciding not to play a particular artist. But owning eight or more stations per city and banning people from all eight is another matter.

I admit/confess that I have read neither this post nor the responses. Instead, I have channel-hopped like I did with Nicole Smith, trying to find someone who realizes what a non-story this bull-shit is.

I have never watched or listened to Imus, and when I have accidentally seen him on TV I have passed him by.

This level of coverage is ridiculous. There are important things going on. Forget about this ass-hole.

Ten soldiers died yesterday in Iraq. The Iraqis hate us an want us to leave. And real estate is wasted on this non-event?

Get a life!

Jan Knaus

Sorry, Jan. Racism remains a huge problem in this country. Firing Don Imus might make the GOP and its cutouts in the media stop referring to Sen. Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama" as they now do, in an effort (which may well succeed) in defeating him by getting across the idea that he is a black Muslim.
I wish racism was a non-event in America. It isn't and has never been.
Fire the SOB.

This remark really isn't rascist. It's classist.

Imus has nothing against RICH black people.

He just took a cheap shot at some kids who happened to look the stereotype of POOR and BLACK.

that and the man just isn't funny.

MJ,

Your logic is thin here.  One of the big problems with American racism is that we are only willing to talk about some parts of it.  Racists like Imus think they have (or speak for people who have) a genuine grievance that cannot be mentioned in public.  I don't see anyone posting here saying, oh, why don't we figure out what is going on and try to fix it.

Instead it is all blame and punish.  Just like the last 150 years.  I guess it will work this time, won't it?

I hardly admire someone like Imus, but I also hardly accept the view that by shutting him down we will fix things.  Nothing will get fixed.  More people will say, "See, it is all one sided, you can say some things against some people, but don't dare say other things."

Until we can talk about this without having conniption fits, this society is not going to get one whit better.

Tonight David Gregory, that would be White House correspondent David Gregory, spent half an hour while sub-hosting Hardball, essentially whining about how he really likes being a regular on the Imus show and how were he and his other inside the beltway, elitist, white guy, punditainers going to keep good old Imus in his job.

It's the sickening insiderness of the Imus show that makes this story even more revolting.

This is indeed the 4th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the White House correspondent was obsessed with losing his gig on a radio show.

One could wish anyone was even really concerned about the racism but the reason no one is concerned about racism is the cozy inbred relationship between reporters and politicians and the corporations that own them. They don't care about race and they don't care about you. They care about their inner circle and they can't see beyond it. That's why we're in Iraq and that's why we're not getting out of Iraq. That's why there will be another Katrina of some kind inflicted on all those people they don't care about.

That basketball team is us folks. We're just here to amuse them.

On David Gregory.
This is the same rich white giant who happily boogied with Rove at the correspondents dinner last week.
And today Carville said he forgives Imus.
Don't you love it when these incredibly wealthy white guys think they have the standing to absolve anyone of the charge of racism.
It's like me forgiving someone for making an anti-Catholic slur. I have the standing, as anyone does, to condemn the slur. But, as a Jew, I can't offer absolution.
These guys are all in the same club. It's all fun and games. Racism. The war. This Presidency. All of it. Just fun. They are all in it together and Democrats play the game every bit as nicely as Repubs.

No, I am not recommending a national conversation on racism.  I am just suggesting that we need to eliminate ALL our phobias about discussing racism.

It is like the American Civil War.  The winners have defined it as a war to free the slaves.  However, this wasn't even the mission at the beginning.   The Emancipation Proclamation was delivered in 1863, well after the beginning of the war.

Southerners suggest that there was an economic grievance.  Historical evidence supports this assertion, all about tariffs.  However, to say this in American society is verboten (undoubtedly some smart ass will post a zero on this post because I mention this).

Mentioning the economic grievance doesn't erase the other issues, but it makes the whole event make more sense.  Self congratulatory winners do not wish to see any untoward motives on their own part, so pointing them out is not very satisfactory to them.

The result, though, is that these two regions of the country are unable to work together or make common cause after 140 years.

Verboten topics lead to bad results, including racism.  Racists are practicing bad practices.  They are not innately evil people.  Your own stubborn refusal to look into what is actually going on doesn't do anything but prolong the practice. 

You forgot sex.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public" [HL Mencken]

This has got nothing to do with North and South unless someone could enlighten me about regional differences within New Jersey. This is about upscale racism of the suburban variety. I doubt Imus has a big audience in the rural south. He's a phony rancher who appeals to guys who've never seen a farm.

My point exactly. I don't think about racism all that much. I was brought up in the south, and I can remember my father saying once that it was okay for me to go to school with negroes, but he was sure I could never LEARN anything from a negro teacher.

Fast forward to my own children. They have friends that they bring home, and once they arrive, some are black and some are white, and some are asian, and since my own children are adopted THEY are brown. Race somehow never comes up.

That is why this Imus thing seems so lame to me. He is an old fart, and the people who listen to/ watch him are old farts.

Who cares?

Again! My children have friends of all races; my worst fear is that they or their friends will get blown up in Iraq in a mis-directed attempt at patriotism, manipulated by those who never had to have a physical fight in their lives, regardless of their race.

Jan Knaus

I don't see the analogy. It's comical in a pathetic way. Show after show of white guy victims outraged that poor Imus has come under attack. Not a black woman to be seen anywhere. There isn't going to be any serious discussion of either racism or sexism because the MSM has decided to treat this as an unserious story. They can't do a tit for tat face off because the black women didn't do anything wrong or say anything at all. They're stuck trying to blame rap singers for what Imus said about black women college students.

Either I am a very poor communicator or you are being intentionally dense.  I will assume the earlier.

The analogy is not with what Imus said.  The analogy is with hidden grievances that white guys cannot talk about in proper company without fear of being shunned.  You might call these grievances trivial, made up, mysterious, non-existent, or whatever.

It is, however, the suppressing of these grievances that keeps feeding the racism machine.

Since they cannot express themselves in socially appropriate ways, they move over to socially inappropriate ways.

If we were talking about why Palestinians act out against Israelis, you would have no trouble seeing what I am saying, at all.

Whites are not a monolithic group.  Consequently, there are many subgroups who are experiencing the same economic  indignities that their minority neighbors experience.  To them, the fact that minority status may help their neighbors get out of these indignities, but does nothing for themselves, INCREASES their sense of helplessness.  That racism follows on, especially when there is no socially appropriate way to even talk about it, should not surprise any of us.

Go ahead and put the zeros on. 

I guess Carville forgives his wife for lying us into a war as a member of WHIG also. Too bad for the 3,280 American military dead and all the Iraqis.

Tom

"Long sleeve or short sleeve" is in the movie Blood Diamond.

Tom

True. Plenty of liberals and conservatives both.

I almost never disagree 

with the formidable Mr. Berkowitz.  However, when he says

 I must, sadly, disagree with your characterization of Imus.

The anus has at least one useful purpose, as distinct from a certain class of "entertainer".

We must remember Le Pétomane, who reconciled these seeming  irreconcilables.  <grin>  (I doubt Imus is as talented). <re-grin>

aMike

Imus should definitely be fired! no question about it, but he is not the first and wont be the last person to make such a ridiculous flap,unfortunately...but I could care less about Imus and his predicament....but I do find a serious level of hypocrisy from the black community and particularly the black leadership in regards to this issue. Imus said he doesnt know where he got those words from.........well I do, ive listened to them being used throughout my adult life in the music that I grew up on....Hip Hop/Gansta Rap whateva you want to call it. So while the black community and black leadership are quick to jump up when some white guy makes racist comments, they often fail to adequately draw attention to and condemn the ills that continue to destroy black communities.

Its often hard to find fault in ones self...and I think this is a classic case of that inability...while black leaders run around condemning Imus and others of his ilk as they should, they fail to draw attention to the rampand use of the N word in black communities,the rampant use in its music and everyday speech........so as a black man I see this hypocrisy everyday, and I am always dismayed at the level of mobilization that follows from these relatively insignificant incidents, while I see black junior high school kids calling each other N words and hoes on the train.........and the shocking thing is that I often feel like I am the only black person who notices this and is disgusted by it.............that appears to me to be more of a problem then some white guy named Imus repeating what he heard from a rap song on a radio station

Since I don't watch tv, listen to this kinda crap radio, etc., I must defer to your judgment. However, a fistfull of rich whites acting as racists would just be a big stink with no point. Racism depends on the hoi polloi.

You are right and I should have taken a little time and done my own fact check. And I knew this. A common enemy does not make a friend.

Don't you love it when these incredibly wealthy white guys think they have the standing to absolve anyone of the charge of racism. It's like me forgiving someone for making an anti-Catholic slur.

You have standing despite the prejudice you just displayed.

I find antisemitism the most chilling of all prejudices and so I have often been "accused" of being a Jew.

Are we all vampires that we cannot see ourselves in a mirror?

Thundering from the pulpit against the sinner nearly always misses its target even if somehow the speaker has decent aim.

Imus' repeated racial slurs are vile without a doubt. His appeal for absolution should be considered even if one suspects it is only to escape punishment.

What of the blatant racism of the Reverend Sharpton that resulted in deaths? Is that to be commended and glorified because he speaks for an abused and benighted group? Is Sharpton really qualitatively different than his brother-in-hate, David Duke?

It is indeed deplorable that Imus can speak such trash but it passes unnoticed in other venues.

Can we talk of hate directed against Muslims like some once did against us "Papists?"

But how about Elie Weisel denouncing the inclusion of the Roma in the Holocaust?

It is dangerous ground you tread, my friend, with an unbecoming bias of your own as I see it.

Best, Terry (fallen Papist)

Corvid

Well, if that type of language is libelous, there goes about 90 percent of rap music.

Corvid

At a time when virtually all of us work for "parent" companies that basically run our lives, both political parties and our government, such action would amount to censorship. I work for a company that doesn't permit its employees to participate in politics. For instance, we can't put up political yard signs or have political bumper stickers on our cars. How can they do this? I don't know. I can't imagine that it's legal, but neither I nor any of my fellow workers dare challenge it for fear of losing our jobs. I'd suggest we be very careful about what we advise "parent" companies to do. It would be better to ask listeners to tune Imus out, though I imagine with all this fuss, he'll be more popular than ever.

Yes. I can only conclude that there are issues of envy mixed up with latent guilt. Somehow there are people who feel deprived because they can't say "nigger" anytime they want to without getting some response that they don't enjoy. 

I clearly remember an era when just about any white person could say "nigger" just about anytime and anywhere they felt and would get the social approbation they sought. There were a lot of other words commonly used for the same purposes which were to reinforce a dominant social standing, denigrate others and to promote narrow mindedness and bigotry. It is infantile to ignore the impact and the context of the use of such words.

In cultures that practice some form of ritual magick (magic with a k distinguishes it from stage sleight-of-hand), you will find that most regard names as having immense power. Frequently, a person would have several names, one that was used day-to-day, one that could be used only by intimates, and one, the "true name", that could only be used in the most powerful ritual settings. In these belief systems, one who knew your true name had the power to control, and even kill you.

Many anthropologists still consider Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion to be the definitive work on beliefs associated with magick. Frazer discussed taboo words that could even have power over gods.

Some might call the idea that a word has such power primitive, but isn't that exactly the power issue with Imus? Is it an accident that we speak of the "N-word" as if it were another word starting with N, "nuclear weapon"?

Names can have power if one chooses to allow them to have power. The military has a very tough program called SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape), which, among other things, provides people at high risk of capture, such as aircrew and special operations troops, the experience of being a POW and how to resist the psychological pressure. While the exact SERE curriculum is classified, we know that trainees sign a waiver that allows such things as physical, but also mental abuse. There are safety monitors, but the simulated captors will seize on any sensitivity to ethnic or religious epithets, until one learns not to be affected by them. It has been reported that some people would rather be beaten and put into a cage than called some name.

Lenny Bruce, a genius at comedy but also an incredibly insightful man, met the problem of names head-on.

Are there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? "Are there any niggers here tonight?" I know there's one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let's see, there's two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kike. And there's another kike— that's two kikes and three niggers. And there's a spic. Right? Hmm? There's another spic. Ooh, there's a wop; there's a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there's three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there's one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kikes here, do I hear five kikes? I got five kikes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven niggers, six spics, five micks, four kikes, three guineas, and one wop. Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, "I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet," and if he'd just say "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" to every nigger he saw, "boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie," "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" 'til nigger didn't mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"A minority group has "arrived" only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it. [Carl Rowan]

This isn't about speech. It's about entertainment content produced and broadcast by CBS and MSNBC. If you worked in corporate communications at CBS, and you used those descriptions in an internal memo about the women's basketball final, you'd be fired. If you worked for CBS's Simon and Schuster's children's division and produced a book with this language, you'd be fired.

They tolerate this on this platform in this context because it's commercially successful to produce content for bigots. There are a lot of bigots out there. Imus has targeted them, and uses his political and media content to enable his racist content.

You'll notice that I felt at liberty to use the word "nigger" above.  It is how the power of words is used that is what is important. Power is derived from the cultural and social milieu within which the words are used (see Frazer). Shaping the social milieu is a valid concern.

Imus has derived wealth from his status within the current social milieu. If he has run afoul of the culture and society within which his current status has been derived then either he should change or the culture will change or his status within the culture will change. The reason he has run afoul is because of the way he used the power of the words not the fact that he uttered those words. He was using that power for personal gain from the denigration of others. Others that did not deserve to be denigrated (as generally agreed).

Suppression of speech can be an act to address the power emanating from the  context of the use of certain words and can have a legitimate use under certain strict conditions within a culture that is acting to uphold existential cultural values.

Instilling any characteristic within individuals can be problematic unless a rigorous and tested regime is applied, for example you may consider military training. To make it the responsibility of those being harmed by the callous use of the enormous power of the spoken word, by those with the status and power in our society, to achieve some trans formative cultural change seems harsh.

SeeDee

I'll bet if Imus and his particular brand of 'comedy' were to disappear tomorrow PERMANENTLY, fewer people than imagined would even miss him.

I've tried to remember (although, admittedly, not a listener)if I've ever heard of a single, profound, memorable quote from his many years in broadcasting.

So where is the loss if he goes?

the hypothesis that it's OK to hear a word from the in-group, but not from outside it

 That is the hypothesis that I was trying to distinguish as a straw man from the more pertinent hypothesis that the use of power to cause unjustifiable harm compounded with aggrandizement should be suppressed notwithstanding whether the power implemented involves speech.

I would agree that speech is in a very special category, nevertheless the First Amendment and its antecedent cultural values do not give the use of speech a free pass to harm others.

Who shall stand against Imus but for the true freedom of speech and dignity, not requiring state suppression of speech but acquainting the good Mr. Imus with the consequences of his own choices?

This idea of some abstract "true freedom of speech" is more than problematic particularly in as much as it is inherently contradictory. What is speech, beyond an uttering of sounds that is? Chomsky may be right or not, nevertheless it is hard to imagine speech without some cultural context. It is the context that is important not the elements that compose speech. I believe that it is fantasy that some virtuous quality of "true" freedom will be sufficient to be adequate in addressing the consequences of hate speech used as Imus has.

I too resist an application of state power in this case however. Suppression arising from a social consensus is what I suggest. 

(signing off for now, I'll return in about 14 hours) 

[At the meeting with Imus] we just hope to come to some type of understanding of what the remarks really entailed, his reasons why they were said. And we’d just like to express our great hurt. Essence Carson, Rutgers Team Captain

They, too, seem puzzled.

(Not replying; outdenting, only)

Ever notice all adults in Peanuts are cut off at the knees?  When I was the age of the young women on the Rutgers team, the adult world was just about that relevant to me.

This isn't political content. This is entertainment content. The corporation is the agency suffering here, because it loses very valuable content. I think it's reprehensible that your employer owns your off-hours.

CBS and MSNBC would not permit their airwaves and cable space to distribute, say, child pornography. That's not a speech restriction on their performers. That's their stock in trade, and they dictate that content, as regulated by the FCC. As Sharpton pointed out, the FCC fined Janet Jackson and whatever network televised her wardrobe malfunction. Why is CBS not being sanctioned here? he asks.

The Seventh Circuit, in its most recent decision defining “profane” under section 1464, stated that the term is “construable as denoting certain of those personally reviling epithets naturally tending to provoke violent resentment or denoting language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance.”35

35 Tallman v. United States, 465 F.2d 282, 286 (7th Cir. 1972). In United States v Simpson, 561 F.2d 53 (7th Cir. 1977), the court called into question the nuisance rationale for the regulation of offensive speech set forth in Tallman, suggesting that it might not survive cases such as Cohen v California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). Id. at 58 & n.7. But the Supreme Court's Pacifica decision subsequently upheld an indecency finding that "rested entirely on a nuisance rationale." 438 U.S. at 750. See also 12 Am. Jur. 2d Blasphemy and Profanity 9 (citing Tallman standard in connection with section 1464).

In my view, neither of these cases should have FCC intervention. But it seems to me that Jackson's was much less offensive, and was punished.

Answer at bottom of thread to avoid the ziggeraut problem.