Imus in the Hot Seat

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Apr 13 2007, 09:54 AM) [snapback]422599[/snapback]</div>

Yes, the understanding and accepting that Imus got once he said he was sorry for his comment.

The understanding and acceptance from Reverand big idiot and Reverand other big idiot... We need more of that...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Apr 13 2007, 11:38 AM) [snapback]422713[/snapback]</div>

There should be an excellent case for disbarring the prosecutor.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Apr 13 2007, 10:48 AM) [snapback]422669[/snapback]</div>

The process is going to have to be bigger than this incident.

If people choose to be very edgy, there will be similar incidents and more very heated debates.

I'd prefer the decency (that some throw that pejorative "censorship") to back off the edge.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Apr 13 2007, 11:43 AM) [snapback]422719[/snapback]</div>

Ever read the book Shakedown?

 

Now that Imus has been fired, I sort of wish that he hadn't. He has been made out to be the "victim" here, the cause celebre. What has been posted on this forum is representative of what I have heard ad nauseum on the talk shows, news, op-eds, etc, over the last few days. What an outrage- Imus was denied freedom of speech. Alright, let's all take a moment to feel sorry for the loudmouth bigot who no longer will be paid $10 million a year to spew his venom. Boo hoo.

What absolotuely no one is saying- and I am glad that a few people here at least have said- is that just because we are entitled to freedom of speech, we don't HAVE to use it to be hurtful. If I see a woman walking down the street with an unatractive child, I am totally within my constitutional rights to go up to her and say, "That is the ugliest kid I have ever seen. What did you do- screw an orangutan?" I know a few people on PC who might actually think that was funny. But no, I would not say that, because it would be hurtful. That has nothing to do with the First Amendment- it has everything to do with treating others as you would want to be treated, and toward promoting a civil society.

Imus' rude epithet is only the tip of the iceberg, and sympotamic of the state of our society today. I am old enough to remember when ethnic and racial jokes were totally acceptable, but over time we moved beyond that. But in recent times it seems everyone just wants to push the envelope of how outrageous can you be at insulting people. Every group is a target. Never mind the effect that it has on people. Who cares that young black girls have to grow up contending with the "nappy-headed hos" stereotype. Oh, isn't it funny when Ann Coulter calls John Edwards a faggot! So what if freely using "faggot" as an insult makes is more likely that my gay nephew might be beaten up? We all have to exercise our "freedom of speech", right?

I don't even hold Imus to blame for this. He was only clever enough to exploit the illness in society and make himself a millionaire from it. Do you listen to his program and laugh when you hear "nappy-headed hos", or when Imus describes blacks as having "cornrows and gold teeth" I would suggest then that you are part of the problem. So are all the politicians and celebrities who gladly appeared on Imus' program and availed themselves of his vast audience.

Just because we have freedom of speech doesn't mean that we always have to use it. If I am going to push the boundaries, I would rather do it in speaking truth to power and speaking out about what is wrong and injust; not jumping on the bandwagon and dumping on every group that has been the subject of ridicule from jerks like Imus.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ Apr 13 2007, 12:48 PM) [snapback]422793[/snapback]</div>

This is a little more eloquent of what I've been trying to say - express yourself responsibly.

 

I think we need to remember that Al Sharpton is pretty sharp, about as sharp as a bowling ball.
His involvement and kvetching have earned him the promotion to Director of Human Resources of CBS / MSNBC. Pretty sharp for a nappy headed-bowling ball. He moves up the ladder from self appointed media ho for the black community. Lets see if Al walks down the hall at CBS and starts firing all of the gangsta rappers on CBS's and MSNBC's payrolls. There has got to be at least one of those rappers on one of their music-labels.

Jesse Jackson is a dirtball.

The ratings sweeps are two weeks away, conveniently at the end of what would have been Imus' return from a two week suspension. A period where nielsen / arbitron calculate a ratings book that helps broadcasters determine how much advertisers pay them for commercial airtime (ad insertion into commercial breaks) Some of this could be by design?????

The Roots miniseries will be returning to TV hosted by four of the original cast members...hmmmmm

What say you all to theses ideas.....

skeptical in So Cal...
Dave

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Apr 13 2007, 12:45 PM) [snapback]422786[/snapback]</div>

Naw, I prefer my fiction to be marked as fiction.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020715/williams

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Apr 13 2007, 01:53 PM) [snapback]422806[/snapback]</div>

I'm all for poking fun at ourselves. And I'm not such a prude that I think that race, ethnicity, gender, etc. has no place in humor- as long as it's purpose isn't to victimize, and it isn't done out of meanness. Archie Bunker was groundbreaking in talking about racism and bigotry on television, and showing just how stupid it is.
I doubt that Sharpton and Jackson had much to do with Imus' firing. They might have served to publicize this incident, but it would have happened anyway. Imus could get away with his bigotry as long as he didn't take on a target that was unacceptable, but when he insulted the women's basketball team he went too far. I doubt that CBS or MSNBC pays much attention to Al Sharpton, but when Al Roker complains, they listen.
Imus victimized by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? I don't buy it. But I think that the black community is ill-served when these two publicity-hounds (I almost said "publicity-hos", but I didn't want to be fired from PriusChat) purport to be their spokesmen. That isn't my call to make, but I'd like to see other leaders in the black community step forward. Sharpton and Jackson are riding the wave of publicity, but I think you subscribe far too much power to them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Apr 13 2007, 01:07 PM) [snapback]422829[/snapback]</div>

You really believe it is fiction? How does he support his lifestyle?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Apr 13 2007, 01:19 PM) [snapback]422840[/snapback]</div>

Rainbow's End
Washington Post
April 14, 2002

SHAKEDOWN Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson
By Kenneth R. Timmerman

Regnery. 501 pp. $29.95

For more than three decades, since he burst onto the national scene claiming to have cradled the dying Martin Luther King Jr. in his arms, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has been one of the most polarizing figures in American political life. He has inspired the intense adoration of his millions of supporters -- the poor, the dispossessed and white liberals -- and the equally intense loathing of his enemies.
In those enemies, Jackson has been fortunate. With newspapers and even his rivals in the 1984 and '88 Democratic primaries showing an unusual deference to so controversial a public figure, Jackson's defenders could usually dismiss those who did dare to criticize him as right-wing extremists, thinly veiled racists or both. In the case of Kenneth Timmerman, author of the new biography Shakedown, the accusation may be right.

This is unfortunate, because Jackson is a ripe subject for a critical biography that goes beyond the fawning profiles and asks legitimate questions about his sometimes checkered past. A champion of civil rights at home, Jackson has embraced African dictators such as Liberia's Charles Taylor. He is well known for using the threat of black boycotts to force corporations to donate to his various organizations or to promote his friends to their boards. And the tangled finances of his Operation PUSH and other nonprofits have been the subject of numerous Justice Department probes.

Timmerman does tackle these points with meticulous research. But these fair targets of criticism get lost in more than 400 pages' worth of character assassination: Not only does Timmerman ignore Jackson's accomplishments; he uses McCarthyite rhetoric to try to portray Jackson as an unwitting tool of the Soviet KGB.

This book seems like it was written by someone who hasn't figured out that the Cold War is over and was indeed in its twilight by the time Jackson made his second run for president. Timmerman refers repeatedly to Jackson's "hard-left" agenda and "hard-left advisors." He makes much of the influence on Jackson of a foreign policy adviser, Hunter Pitts "Jack" O'Dell, "the genuine article, a hardened Communist Party cadre with roots in the Stalinist era." It was O'Dell's role, Timmerman writes, to "steer him [Jackson] toward supporting the goals and policies of America's most dangerous enemy, the Soviet Union."

Timmerman continues to see all foreign issues of the 1980s through the simplistic lens of American-Soviet rivalry. He criticizes Jackson's 1983 trip to Damascus to free a captured American airman because "Syria at that time was a key asset in the Soviet strategy to destabilize Israel . . . and reduce American presence throughout the Middle East." He criticizes Jackson's early embrace of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat because "the PLO was heavily financed and armed by the Soviet Union and was being used as a Soviet proxy in the Middle East." He labels the Israeli group Peace Now as "ultra leftist." And he dismisses the entire European anti-nuclear movement, which Jackson supported, as being manipulated by Moscow.

It is when Timmerman turns to Southern Africa that he shows himself to be most shockingly out of touch. He lauds the late Jonas Savimbi of Angola, who kept his nation locked in a vicious civil war for three decades, as "a freedom fighter." And, in a section that leaves him open to the charge of racism, Timmerman chides Jackson's push for American companies to divest from apartheid South Africa because "divestment was a key goal of the International Left and Soviet-sponsored front groups." He fails to mention that divestment was also a policy position of Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC).

Timmerman even manages, in several turns of tortured logic, to make Mandela responsible for his own imprisonment, saying he "stubbornly remained in prison" because he could not reduce "the influence of the Communists within the ANC leadership." Never once does Timmerman pause to note that a legalized system of white superiority that brutalized a black majority was morally abhorrent. Rather, he argues, "there were other equities at stake" more important than black rights, namely "the security cooperation between South Africa and the United States" and the importance of the South African Cape for "monitoring the comings and goings of Soviet warships."

Much of the book deals with Jackson's early ties to a street gang in Chicago, the Black P Stone Nation, and the 1988 murder-for-hire conviction of Jackson's half-brother Noah Robinson. Shakedown is heavily footnoted, with many of the footnotes referring to news articles from the Chicago Tribune, critical newspaper columns, a 1975 Barbara Reynolds biography and the National Enquirer. But the author's citation of numerous Tribune articles and columns undercuts his repeated claim that Jackson has enjoyed a completely free media ride.

In his two presidential campaigns, Jackson garnered millions of votes, registered millions of new voters, and excited a generation of African Americans and white liberals with his unabashed populism. He became a force to be reckoned with within the Democratic Party. Now his position as the most outspoken black politician is being eclipsed by younger upstarts such as Al Sharpton. The proliferation of accomplished black office-holders such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice now calls into question Jackson's relevance. When a black actor and black actress have won Hollywood's highest award, it is fair to ask whether Jackson's time has passed.

A figure as compelling and divisive as Jesse Jackson deserves a real and dispassionate biography. This book shows mainly how he still brings out the worst in his enemies -- and how he attracts enemies of the worst kind.

Keith B. Richburg, Paris bureau chief for The Washington Post, is the author of "Out Of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Apr 13 2007, 10:43 AM) [snapback]422781[/snapback]</div>

Also, the Rutgers girls did not court trouble by throwing a raucous party with underage drinking, "exotic" dancers and rude and vulgar treatment of the opposite sex.

No, the Duke boys should not have been put though what they endured, but they are not exactly saints.

 

Comparing the Duke scandal with Imus' stupid comment shows a distinct detachment from reality. The two are not similar. On one hand, we have a three guys who were victimized by their local government. Their entire lives were almost ruined. They almost ended up convicted rapists because a knappy-headed ho lied and a run-away prosecutor overlooked the lack of physical evidence and changing stories by the accuser.

Imus makes a stupid comment, and a team of girls who otherwise would never have been remembered again instantly become heroes. Imus' comment did not threaten the freedom or reputation of those girls - the only person it put at risk was Imus himself.

Yes, it was a stupid, assinine comment, and it gave two race-baiting hypocrites the excuse needed to torch a rich white guy. You really think it was about the girls? The girls were a means to an end. The "end", in this case, being increased credibility amongst militant racists and increased donations.

Mr. Sharpton, how about an apology for calling Steven Pagones a racist and a rapist nearly twenty years ago? If nothing else, Mr. Pagones had the satisfaction of winning a defamation of character suit against Sharpton.

Mr. Jackson, how about an apology for insulting all the Jews of New York City?

Those who can support Jackson or Sharpton while claiming Imus' firing was justified are hypocrites.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beren @ Apr 14 2007, 07:35 AM) [snapback]423188[/snapback]</div>

Question: Why has the African-American community disowned Jackson and Sharpton and found someone else with a much better reputation? There can't be a shortage of better leaders.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Delta Flyer @ Apr 14 2007, 05:31 AM) [snapback]423195[/snapback]</div>

I think it comes from the same place that finds conservatives supporting Ann Coulter's right to be offensive, and liberal's tendency to not attack people like Rosie O'Donnell who is just as offensive on the left. But in any true minority community, the stakes are much higher than in the general political spectrum. So I understand the feeling that you don't want to attack the messenger if the message is good.

I am surprised that people here are equating Imus' statements ... which ventured beyond normal shock jock standards because it was directed at specific people ... and the actions of the prosecutor in the Duke rape case. Prosecutorial misconduct should be punished by far more than a disbarring; Niphong should go to jail if convicted.

I would be very happy if the n-word, other racial slurs, and those "7 Dirty Words" really were banned from the public airwaves. Along with the obscenity in the mornings like the LA shock jocks having women wake up their husbands with sexual activity while the phone line remains open. Since we have satellite radio, perhaps we can get back to a standard that we used to have which, ironically, respected minorities and women much more than our current more liberal standards.

 

Condoleezza Rice in an interview called Imus' slur "disgusting". Her cousin, civil rights attorney Connie Rice, published the LA Times editorial a few days ago that I believe was posted earlier in this thread.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Apr 14 2007, 01:23 PM) [snapback]423269[/snapback]</div>

I have to disagree with a small point in your post--Rosie O'Donnell is not even in the same league of offensiveness as Ann Coulter.

And while I hate racial slurs, I do love dirty words. However, I've got the decency to use them only in like company. I wish we could force others into decency, but that's a pitfall of a free-speech society.