Can we talk about Imus like adults?

I'm still trying to fully appreciate the request, just delivered to me, that I should produce a transcript that proves Imus was talking only about the black players and not about the white ones too.

 

It is very important to some people to preserve the right of white people to say anything they want about black people without consequence. Why that is, is an interesting question.

 

Did Wolverine go with them? He's my favorite.

 

To say this issue is only about race would be simplistic and wrong. To dismiss anyone who says it is, in part, about race is ludicrous.

 

Luggie, I think you're misinterpreting this a bit. I don't see these comments as criticism of the Rutgers players and, you're right, you can't blame them for saying yes to Oprah. But legitimate criticism can be made of the national media for the extent that it plays right into the plans of the Sharpton brigades by turning this into an immensely larger story of longer duration than it merited.

Honestly, what happened here: A moronic shock jock made one offensive idiotic comment on an irrelevant radio show--don't shock jocks make offensive idiotic comments every day, isn't that implicitly part of their job (hence, the "shock" part)? If Imus had chosen a different cruel offensive unacceptable insult, this would've been an insignificant story; or if it'd been an African-American dj making a similar crack about a womens' hoops team, we'd no longer be talking about it. It has become so huge simply because it was a crack with sufficient racial connotations to bring the Sharpton-styled racism-exploitation industry rushing in to fan the flames and turn it into something more for their own benefit.

As others have noted, the dismissal of the Duke case would seem like a bigger story in terms of the immensely greater actual impact that scandal had on people's lives in Durham and Duke. But they don't seem to be getting a call from Oprah, instead the media's still obsessed with Imus' comment more than a week later basically because Sharpton, Jackson, Inc. has told them they should be.

 

I was waiting for a rapper to come out and talk about this. Here's Snoop's response:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1556803/20070410/snoop_dogg.jhtml

 

It's also that same right to get that ass kicked. Imus and his stooge McGuirk, who incidentally has not been interviewed about this situation would never say what they said to an African American to their face. They know what the consequences would be and rightfully so.

 

It more than just ludicrous. What about mims, 50 cents, fat joe?

 

That's true.
But at the same time, it's a comedy show. Chappelle wouldn't do the same as well.

 

Clearly, from PMs and other conversations, there is a generation in this country that doesn't realize the history of code words and phrases that date to Don Imus' generation and earlier.

Honest question: Is it possible most young people do not think "nappy headed ho's" has racial undertones at best and racist underpinnings at worst?

 

This is not about a rap lyric. It's about an old white man degrading a predominately African American collegiate women's basketball team. What's sad is that young white men, who think its hip to say rap lyrics and call women names in the name of parody, are defending this jackass.

 

Snoop is spot on with his comments. Here is the money quote:

"It's a completely different scenario," said Snoop, barking over the phone from a hotel room in L.A. "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing sh--, that's trying to get a n---a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC [which announced Wednesday it would drop its simulcast of Imus' radio show] going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha----as say we in the same league as him."