It's still okay to bash gays and Arabs. The list grows ever shorter but these targets are still legit for the haters.

M.J. -- Get thee to the horse track !!!

Limbaugh will fight back and refuse to give any ground. It'll be a liberal conspiracy, according to him. The dittoheads will defend him to the death. As Imus was nominally a liberal, or at least an equal opportunity hater, he had no one to stand up for him.

I'm afraid I share your pessimism.

Hmmm...I certainly don't think we should see self-and group-identity in terms of what makes us better than the "other", but I don't think trying to erase difference is the answer. Difference is part of what makes America great and enriches the broader culture. IMHO, I think that ending racism and sexism will require learning to respect one another, rather than erasing or tolerating difference.

I have two comments to make, and I'll make them in to two separate posts.

1. Mazel tov, MJ, for a brilliant prediction!
I am impressed.

a bunch of guilty white folks...

and makes everyone fear speaking about race relations on any level...

Hasn't there actually been a lot of talk for the last week about race, and sexism?

And the guilty white folks were actually all the ones saying how much they forgive Imus for his remarks.

The real outrage, and really what moved this whole story, was the press conference at Rutgers. When the people actually offended  -- black women, not the white guys we've seen all week in The Situation Room -- got to speak.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

almost never. They are afraid to.

Let's be clear about why Imus got the deal he did (well deserved, IMHO) while other talkshow hosts will not meet the same fate. Imus ridiculed young Black women who are not celebrities, not politicians, not household names. A large proportion of the women athletes on this team are college freshman. The strong reaction against the Imus show slurs was due not solely to the language used, but also, and probably primarily, to the fact that these were college athletes, private citizens, many of them still minors.

While I appreciate people trying to link Imus's fate with a hoped-for fate for other "merchants of hate" in our culture, the Imus situation was easy for mainstream media to gain traction on due to the people he slandered.

The situation developed in this way because of the targets of the speech, not the speech itself. (If it were due to the language only, Imus would have been off the air a decade or more ago, as would a lot of other radio hosts.)

Remember, despite what they're saying, CBS made its tardy decision due to advertiser pullouts, not any freestanding moral position. CBS has no freestanding moral position other than to serve its investors, and the moment that Imus became a liability to its bottom line--rather than an asset--they pulled the plug on the old bigot.

Now let's hope people who have done far worse things to this country than Don Imus have to pay an equally serious price.

By Friday?

Mebbe if you make a prediction, it'll happen :-)

Viacom will have to come to grips with the images that it allows to be shown on BET. Robert Johnson, the Negro founder and former CEO of BET was given a pass on the images shown during his tenure. Johnson's excuse was that he had told the record companies that he would have no problem televising better images if the record companies wanted to make them. The billionaire entrpreneur was suggesting that if he had told the record companies that he wanted to see better video images on his station, he would have had no impact.
Reality shows and game shows targeting the 18-25 age group could have been used as a threat to replace the offending videos.
The rap artists will alter their acts to conform to what sells.
I really don't view this as censorship. I view it more as the marketplace in action. Imus will either find a place on satellite radio or another land based network. The hardcore rappers will find outlets for their mp3s online. The overall change in discourse initially will be minimal. Hopefully over time things will improve.

The feeding frenzy is certainly over the top, but the issue isn't fake at all. There has been very little discussion of race relations in the last couple of decades. Some thought that after Katrina that would change, but it did not. Many of us spend a lot of time worrying about the state of the world but very little worrying about what's going on a few miles down the road.

I think this analysis is wrong. We shouldn't draw attention to important issues (like the racism and sexism that continue to plague us as a nation) because it will give the Repubs a boost?? Come on.

Maybe it's because I have actually NEVER seen or heard him that I discount his importance. Yes he's an asshole, but I work all day and so what he says in the morning is a mystery to me.

No, I am not exstatic that someone I've barely heard of is off the air when I still see the pretensious and lethal Anne Coulter interviewed as a "pundit" and a legitimate "expert" on MSNBC and CNN (not to mention FOX)

This is much ado about nothing. It is a way for the right to say, "See? You get what you want because you make a big stink!"

BULLSHIT!

Jan Knaus

Come on, 6000 years of mankind, Cain killing Able, and somehow you think, you've done what no nation has been able to solve, hatred.

Get real and solve the problems you can deal with. Your never going to stop the tide from reaching the shore, and your never going to solve mankinds hatred for one race over another.
It'll take God to solve that problem.

You really want to help race relations solve poverty, solve lack of medical care, something that ALL the people, whatever race can find benefit from. Teach Love, something Sharpton and Jackson forgot. Scriptures that say "Love covers a multitude of sins," or "how many times should I forgive my brother 7 times and the Lord said not 7 times but 77 times." So Reverend Jackson, what do those scriptures mean? Sharpton what do you know about driving wedges and creating devisive issues? Causing contentions? And the Christ freely forgave you... and this is how you pay his undeserved kindness?

Forgiveness, I think that would go along ways in helping Race relations.

You can't even end the war, people killing one another. Americans murdering people on our own streets. Black on Black, but oh no, lets lynch the Jock. and now that you've torn down a weakened flesh, and sinful man (IMUS) maybe you'll start the song KUM BY JAH.

As your apparent moral indignation, not at your own sinful behavior, but lets throw stones at IMUS, because YOU evidently are not as bad as he.

I can see a few sides to this. Imus is a bit of a repugnant figure (his public persona at least), so I can understand the rush for blood. Howard Stern had many of the same problems, he just covered by acting cute along side. The problem here is really in what precedent does this set? Will any college or pro athlete that says "honkey" or "cracker" or "N***" or anything else we can think of in a national interview, get kicked off the team? Are politicians still allowed to refer to Middle Eastern combatants (freedom fighters to some) as "Terrorists" and "Insurgents" do they get impeached for that?

Ok, so there's that side of the cube (and no I don't have six sides to show...), the Free Speach angle.

On the other hand if people are disgusted by a commercial broadcast's content they have every right to complain. They can tell the talent, producers, advertisers etc... just what they think and they can boycott. Some of all of this was done here and the stations that syndicated Imus responded by cancelling his show. Nothing illegal there.

So, this was a battle over a few folks that thought Imus crossed a line he couldn't come back from. Most were probably already tired of Imus' broadcast. I think I read "Three Strikes...etc."

Here's my question on this one...: If a relativly benign entertainer like Imus can have a 30+ year career destroyed over a few ill concieved comments made in (a poor attempt at) humor. Why is it that so many sources of broadcast talent hold on to people like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and even super left-wing crazies on the air. These people call for assasination, murder, gassing, imprisonment; they bash gays, choice for women and even ferret ownership all the time on the very same airwaves that Imus shared. Are we as an "outraged" group just scapegoating a lowly radio entertainer in place of the myriad hate-mogers that we just can't seem to squelch?

I for one would rather have a thousand Imuses..Howard Sterns..Jimmy Kimmels than even one Ann Coulter.

So, if we as (mostly) like minded people can crucify one off-base broadcaster so quickly for insulting a group of (even specific) people, can't we come together and take some sort of effective action against the Coulters of the air waves?

phil common

(looks at skin) I'm kind of pinkish-beige with brown spots here and there. The only way I am going to deal with "race relations" is to say that biologically, there's a human race.

Many years ago, I received a questionnaire for the US District Court's jury commissioner. It had a section in it, originally marked "voluntary" for race, which had a red tag citing new legislation making it mandatory, in the interest of avoiding discrimination.

I returned it, filling in "unknown" in the "race" blank. They sent it back, circled. I pointed out that I was under oath, I was adopted (although I knew both families), and any relatives I could trace lived in areas of Europe where the Mongols came raping for a while. If the Jury Commissioner would give me a Racial Classification Handbook, I'd be glad to follow it, but, not being an anthropologist and not having genetic definitions (and this was early in molecular genetics), I didn't know what I could swear to be true.

I certainly didn't want to be uncooperative, so I sent along some references in case they wanted to tell me which rules to use for racial classification. Since I had been doing research on another subject at the National Archives, it wasn't hard to look up the Record Groups for the racial laws of the Confederacy, and the Nazi Nuremberg Laws. Not to miss any opportunity to be helpful, I also sent along the phone number of the Embassy of South Africa, where apartheid still had its rules.

Further, I sent along an interview with the chief of the Ethnic Origins Branch at the Bureau of the Census, who said that for census purposes, "race" was whatever the subject thought was subjectively correct. I pointed out that I didn't make a point of thinking about it. If they wanted my blood type or anything else objective, I'd be happy to cooperate, but they couldn't make me think by their rules.

I was vaguely disappointed when the Jury Commissioner called and said "will you leave us alone if we leave you alone?"

I was disappointed, because I'll value learning from anybody in any culture, and I'll use medical information that comes from a genotype. Quite a few medical journals have concluded that "race" is simply a surrogate for socioeconomic group, and will ask for socioeconomic or educational factors, or specific genetic information, rather than the contrivance of race.

Sorry, I'm going to treat people as individuals, or members of voluntary organizations. Why "race"? Why not "beauty"? Why not "height"?

I will not play games based on what I consider a fantasy.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"I'd rather have Imus, Limbaugh, Savage and Coulter than political correctness."

Howard, you have me confused. I thought you agreed with me that NBC and CBS aren't obligated to have someone like Imus on their payrolls. Now that they've fired him you are saying political correctness (definition - please) is worse than Imus trashing college women and Coulter trashing 9/11 widows and using "faggot" when speaking of John Edwards?

I don't get it - big time

Tom

Just wanted to let you know, chuckie, you're dead-on right. There is a reason the vast majority of blacks vote Democratic and a majority of whites generally vote Republican. Out in America, many voters see the Democratic Party as the one supporting the aspirations of blacks to the detriment of whites. In a lot of places, opposing the firing of Imus, or at least showing insufficient outrage over his remarks, is frowned upon (can anyone say "politically incorrect?"). But with the secret ballot, voting is done in secret. If you're wondering why conservative Republicans did not jump up in support of Imus, well, I don't think they're too disappointed over all this.

Anyone figure out that story?

I read the NYT and WaPo and still don't know who pays Ms. Riza's salary, how much she makes in total (World Bank and State Department), or even, where she works.

Howard Stern saw Imus as a competitor. That certainly gives Imus some shockjock credibility.

Further, having politicians on the air doesn't make someone a serious, mainstream journalist. I doubt any one of us would call Bill O'Reilly a serious, mainstream journalist. O'Reilly is a political shockjock, more similar to Rush Limbaugh than Walter Cronkite.

Speaking of Bill-O, I find it interesting that this Imus thing happened about a week after Geraldo appeared on O'Reilly's show. That tirade stuck me as being far more racially charged than Imus's stupid 3-word joke. Where's the outrage over Bill-O?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/05/bill-oreillys-head-practically-explodes-as-he-screams-at-geraldo/