Can we talk about Imus like adults?

Whoever said Imus isn't racist ought to do their homework. Ask anyone who's ever worked for him. Ask any of the hundreds of NBC employees who were part of the dialogue with their bosses that led to NBC pulling the show. His pals who say they've never heard him be racist and sexist are either blind and dumb or disingenuous.
This is from Wilbon's column, courtesy of a 60 Minutes piece on Imus a few years back (Tom Anderson was Imus' producer):

Mike Wallace: "You've told Tom Anderson, the producer, in your car coming home that Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes.'"

Imus: "Well, I've . . . I never use that word."

Wallace: "Tom?"

Tom Anderson: "I'm right here."

Imus: "Did I use that word?

Anderson: "I recall you using that word."

Imus: "Oh, okay, well then I used that word, but I mean . . . of course that was an off-the-record conversation . . ."

Wallace: "The hell it was."

 

I appreciate the answer. Hopefully, this won' be locked.

 

Well-played, BT.

 

As long as we're going back into history.
Near the end of his life, Dr. King was beset on all sides by people who had never liked him in the first place, but who kept after him to "condemn" the Panthers and the Muslims and claimed he was a hypocrite if he didn't do it loudly enough. Some of these critics were black.
Just sayin'.
Oh, and another bojangler checked in.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3031317&page=1
Hope he checked with Whitlock first.

 

OK, I'm not going through all 19 pages (I have gone through a few, but I'm not going through them all) but I have to ask this question. Of the two college teams in the news this week, which one got the rawer deal:

The Duke lacrosse team or the Rutgers women's basketball team?

One team had something said about them that everyone knows was wrong but it was by a has-been radio guy that no one pays attention to any more.

The other basically had its team disbanded, the coach was forced to resign, bunch of players left the program, three went through a year of hell fighting criminal charges -- all because of something we now know didn't happen.

I'm not minimizing what the Rutgers women are going through, but whatever happened to "sticks and stones ..."? The idea that some of these girls are now "scarred," as some of them have said, is ridiculous. They're on scholarship at a pretty darn good school. I would think a lot of folks would like to be in their shoes regardless of what an idiot like Imus says.

 

WTF? ??? ??? ???

 

What's sad about the issue here is how people in my own newsroom have become apologists for Imus.
We're about as far removed from the scene as one can get, and maybe that explains the feelings. Over the past few days, though, there's been an ongoing discussion about how what he said wasn't that bad and how it's just Imus being Imus.
I've also heard how, "Now everyone in offices across the country is joking about it, calling each other 'nappy headed ho's.'
I've had a real problem with some of the comments being made in the office and even when I explain how it could be conceived as offensive it falls on deaf ears.

So, it's been an interesting past few days.
It seems most of the media seem to agree what he said was stupid, but for every 10 of us who found his comments horrible, 100 readers agreed with him. I'm sure of that.
Stringer and Rutgers maybe did take advantage of the spotlight at the press conference, but I agree with whoever said it's just her being the coach.
She wasn't addressing the issue for the media, but for her players and potential recruits.

 

Irrelevant. Two completely different situations. And while the charges were dropped, the Duke lacrosse team might have very well been Imus fans, given that the racial slurs still might have happened the night in question.

The Rutgers women did nothing to bring about this situation. But something happened at that house where the Dukies partied that night. Might not have been sexual assault, but something happened there. No one's disputed that the Dukies did hire strippers.

 

Wow. I hadn't even thought of this. And one has nothing to do with the other as far as situation or what they went through (just as I think wailing about gangsta rap has nothing to do with Don Imus being an ass). But it's an interesting question, to be sure, considering the Duke guys' legal exoneration happened today and yesterday. And in the middle of a thousand pissing matches, I welcome an interesting question.

To me, without question, the Duke guys. Yes, I know they hired strippers for their party; but assuming "something happened!" is the same logic as assuming that a women who is a stripper also sleeps around because of her profession. No need or reason to make that leap. And hiring strippers is not illegal, as far as I know. Yet, those dudes will always have to put on job applications that they were arrested for a crime. They will always be part of this massive scandal that put their names front and center in the media.

And while their behavior was certainly not wholesome or what the NCAA would prefer its athletes represent (welcome to college athletics), their names were prominent in a legal proceeding that will not be forgotten anytime soon. And with their elitist and memorable names (who names their kids "Reade" and "Colin"?), I know I'll always remember Colin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann . .and the guy with the normal name, David Evans.

Rutgers: no, they didn't ask for it. But the program has obviously been able to make this situation less of a negative, as the team was lauded for their demeanor at the press conference, and it frankly won't hurt recruting that, coming off a national runnerup finish, they have handled this situation with class. But Don Imus is the name that will be remembered from this, with "The Rutgers women's basketball team" lumped together as one entity that stood up and said, "Stick it, Crypt Keeper."

In the end, an undead radio idiot said something offensive about them, but - regardless of one apparently saying something about being "scarred for life" - the emotions of being part of this controversy will pass, and I doubt it will ever hurt them as individuals. Hell, they might well be seen as having helped start a quality national dialogue, but that's a best-case scenario.

The Duke guys? Skewered by public opinion and the press long ago. Rutgers basketball? Skewered mainly by people who choose to have their heads in the sand on this issue.

 

The Duke case is a high-profile example of what prosecutors (and cops) do every day.
I have a lot more sympathy for the 20+ people who've walked off Death Row in the past couple of years.
And, by all means, I think NBC News should fire Mike Nifong from his daily television show.