Before we get into the nap of talk show host Don Imus’ hair (kind of curly, don’t you think?), let’s try to get some perspective on ethnic and gender humor.
His “joke” about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being “nappy-headed ‘hos” aside, Don Imus is not the biggest problem on the landscape when it comes to misogynistic, bigoted “hate speech.” The most dangerous voices of racism and sexism in the U.S. today are coming not from whites, but from within the black community, especially musicians.
I suggest that in this post-Civil Rights era, the opinions of one’s self carry more influence upon one’s behavior and opportunities than the opinions of one’s adversary (in this case, ignorant comic DJs and their corporate sponsors).
Imus’ chief error was to forget that one can say anything one wants about one’s own kind (whatever the “kind”), but an outsider has no such license. It is ultimately defeating in the struggle against bigotry that pop culture’s widespread use of the words “nigger,” “ho,” “bitch” and worse seduced Imus into thinking he can say anything on the air without consequence.
Imus was just parroting from this week’s top 5 rap songs on the Billboard Hot R & B / Rap charts:
#1 Robin Thicke – “I’m Lost without U”Baby you’re the perfect shape Baby you’re the perfect weight Treat me like my birthday
I want it this way
#3 Mims – “This is why I’m hot”
Another bitch another drop
16 bars, 24 pop
44 songs, nigga gimme what you got
#4 Lloyd – “You”
tha boy got dollars
So women come frequent like flight mileage
… Send a nigga a text message girl
#5 R. Kelly – “I’m a Flirt”
His “joke” about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being “nappy-headed ‘hos” aside, Don Imus is not the biggest problem on the landscape when it comes to misogynistic, bigoted “hate speech.” The most dangerous voices of racism and sexism in the U.S. today are coming not from whites, but from within the black community, especially musicians.
I suggest that in this post-Civil Rights era, the opinions of one’s self carry more influence upon one’s behavior and opportunities than the opinions of one’s adversary (in this case, ignorant comic DJs and their corporate sponsors).
Imus’ chief error was to forget that one can say anything one wants about one’s own kind (whatever the “kind”), but an outsider has no such license. It is ultimately defeating in the struggle against bigotry that pop culture’s widespread use of the words “nigger,” “ho,” “bitch” and worse seduced Imus into thinking he can say anything on the air without consequence.
Imus was just parroting from this week’s top 5 rap songs on the Billboard Hot R & B / Rap charts:
#1 Robin Thicke – “I’m Lost without U”Baby you’re the perfect shape Baby you’re the perfect weight Treat me like my birthday
I want it this way
#3 Mims – “This is why I’m hot”
Another bitch another drop
16 bars, 24 pop
44 songs, nigga gimme what you got
#4 Lloyd – “You”
tha boy got dollars
So women come frequent like flight mileage
… Send a nigga a text message girl
#5 R. Kelly – “I’m a Flirt”
When it come down to these ‘ho’s
I don’t love ‘em …
That’s why these niggas can’t stand em
I’ m a chick mag-a-net
And anything fine - I’m baggin’ it
I realize that any campaign to roll back the crude attitude of today’s pop music stands about the same chances as Britney and Justin getting back together as Mouseketeers. It just won’t happen. But someone somewhere must begin to deal with the impact of this negative self-image in the young African-American vernacular. Lest we be consigned to another generation of fatherless kids, diploma-less students, and cash-less communities.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
MSNBC jumped off the Imus bandwagon first, suspending him for two weeks after a passel of sponsors bailed, including Staples, General Motors, Sprint Nextel, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, PetMed Express, American Express and Bigelow Tea.
Altruistically, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said he felt the heat from co-workers in the hallways. His concern: “the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society.” Sounds honorable. Will Moonves apply this standard to other CBS enterprises (CBS and The CW television networks, cable’s Showtime and CSTV, local CBS television stations, CBS Paramount Network Television and CBS Television Distribution Group, CBS Outdoor, Simon & Schuster, CBS Interactive, and CBS Consumer Products)? Is America’s corporate media ready to take its responsibility for the shadow it casts across the land? That’s a lot to ask.
But again, advertisers were bolting from “Imus in the Morning.” Under those circumstances, the choice was easy and Trump-like: “You’re fired.” Commercial broadcasting is a business first.
CENSORSHIP
The nation’s leading media voices do a disservice to the word “censorship” when they bring it up in the Imus case. In nations around the world, journalists are disappearing in pursuit of government accountability. Laws repress and control the media in many parts of the planet. But here in the good old U.S. of A., you can pretty much watch, listen to or read anything material you want.
A corporate slap on the wrist, or even a firing from a multi-million dollar glamour job does not come close to censorship.
THE RETURN OF IMUS
No one is shedding any tears for Don Imus. He’s a shock jock with a legacy of racist, sexist, mean, stupid, outrageous quips, sketches, parodies, satire and rants. (He called PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill a “cleaning lady” when she joined the N.Y. Times. He called Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz a “beanie-wearing Jew boy.” On the occasion of Yasser Arafat’s funeral, he broad-brushed Palestinians as “animals.” Imus’ sports announcer called the U.S. women’s soccer team “juiced-up dykes.”) His 1974 comedy album on Bang Records: This Honky’s Nuts.
I realize that any campaign to roll back the crude attitude of today’s pop music stands about the same chances as Britney and Justin getting back together as Mouseketeers. It just won’t happen. But someone somewhere must begin to deal with the impact of this negative self-image in the young African-American vernacular. Lest we be consigned to another generation of fatherless kids, diploma-less students, and cash-less communities.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
MSNBC jumped off the Imus bandwagon first, suspending him for two weeks after a passel of sponsors bailed, including Staples, General Motors, Sprint Nextel, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, PetMed Express, American Express and Bigelow Tea.
Altruistically, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said he felt the heat from co-workers in the hallways. His concern: “the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society.” Sounds honorable. Will Moonves apply this standard to other CBS enterprises (CBS and The CW television networks, cable’s Showtime and CSTV, local CBS television stations, CBS Paramount Network Television and CBS Television Distribution Group, CBS Outdoor, Simon & Schuster, CBS Interactive, and CBS Consumer Products)? Is America’s corporate media ready to take its responsibility for the shadow it casts across the land? That’s a lot to ask.
But again, advertisers were bolting from “Imus in the Morning.” Under those circumstances, the choice was easy and Trump-like: “You’re fired.” Commercial broadcasting is a business first.
CENSORSHIP
The nation’s leading media voices do a disservice to the word “censorship” when they bring it up in the Imus case. In nations around the world, journalists are disappearing in pursuit of government accountability. Laws repress and control the media in many parts of the planet. But here in the good old U.S. of A., you can pretty much watch, listen to or read anything material you want.
A corporate slap on the wrist, or even a firing from a multi-million dollar glamour job does not come close to censorship.
THE RETURN OF IMUS
No one is shedding any tears for Don Imus. He’s a shock jock with a legacy of racist, sexist, mean, stupid, outrageous quips, sketches, parodies, satire and rants. (He called PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill a “cleaning lady” when she joined the N.Y. Times. He called Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz a “beanie-wearing Jew boy.” On the occasion of Yasser Arafat’s funeral, he broad-brushed Palestinians as “animals.” Imus’ sports announcer called the U.S. women’s soccer team “juiced-up dykes.”) His 1974 comedy album on Bang Records: This Honky’s Nuts.
Media analysts say his interview style and audience attract top newsmakers from politics, media and entertainment. He’s raised millions for charity. Taken together, this is called “good radio.” He was paid a handsome $10 mil a year for his national syndicated radio show and cable TV simulcast.
And can we expect prominent African-American “leaders” to carry this banner and not rest until rappers, comedians and programmers clean up their act and find other words for women and African-Americans? I’m not holding my breath.
Look for Imus on satellite radio or cable TV after a nice two-month vacation.
--------------------------------------------
LINKS
CNN: Imus has a history of offending, surviving
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/10/imus.show/index.html
1 comment:
In the case of dearly departed Don Imus, a few observations
come into focus. I saw the potential for a train wreck with
Imus a few years ago but was reluctant to bet that it would
happen with the growing culture of permissiveness and rationalization
permeating the news and entertainment industry.
The Imus radio and MSNBC telecasts have been borderline unacceptable
since I began viewing three years ago. I suspect a broad number of us
existing within the African American mileu had not logged a lot of
time being shocked by some of the comedic commentary on the Imus In The
Morning Show. As a student of International Relations, Political
Science, currrent events and a Vietnam fighter pilot Veteran,
I related to the show for "The Iman's" often interesting and inform-
ative interviews with top of the heap politicians, jouranlists
and news anchor folks the view points of whom educated
audiences might want to understand. To obtain the insights of
these people, one had to endure the Side Show of ubiquitous
imitations,impersonations and comedic routines designed to charicature
and defame a broad range of public figures.
For shock value, Imus and friends rendered a regular free-flow
of insults hurled willy nilly at anyone whose name popped up.
Producer Bernie McGurk and frequent guest Bo Deetle frequently
issued commentary that crossed the line of acceptability. The
canned ex-druggie sports commentator, Sid Rosenburg, was routinely
outrageous in his racist comments. It was he who grossed out even
Imus with his On Air suggestion that Serena and Venus might be more
suited for the front page of National Geogrphic magazine than Sports
Illustrated. Amuzingly, Imus, or Born Again side kick, Charles McChord
seemed to make a practice of feining an effort to halt the insults
when their proliferation was taking over the broadcast.
The three hour verbal anything-goes broadcast engendered a program
lifestyle of equal opportunity impromptu insults and racist jabbs.
No one was exempt, President Bush, Senator kerry, Senator Clinton
were equally dissed, perhaps the latter more than others; anyone
or organization was fair game. But in Race Matters, in this
country, there are lines of political correctness that can not
be routinely crossed without consequence. The primerose path
for Imus In The Morning was created by a permissive leadership in
the corporate board rooms at WFAN radio and MSNBC that permitted
capitalism to take a front seat to political correctness and
ethnic sensitivity. Profits over political and moral values.
Sadly, it was only after the big dollars of major advertisers
began to be disappear that top executives began to take action
against the perpetrators defiling human dignity and popularizing
outrageous racial insults. The Rutgers women's basketball was
merely the final straw that gave the activist mouthpieces enough
fuel to burn the Imus show down.
The appropriate focus at this point, to adequately counter the
charges of gross hypocricy among the so-called Black Community
leaders, should be pulling together a coalition of our top
professional athletes, hollywood actors, Oprah, B. Cosby, corporate
leaders et al to alter the mounting negative influence on our
minority youth being taken hostage by the hip-hop music industry
that is engaged in an insideous, inexorable eradication of the
values of decency,responsibility, morality, respect for women,
honesty and education. We are losing another generation of our
youth,lost in the distraction of pursuing an inconseqential figure
in the battle to free our community from itself.
The CBS 60 Minutes show Sunday night said it
all: Hip-Hop millionaire rappers are inculcating a vulue system
in their music that makes reporting crimes, or providing information
to the police (SNITCHING) about crimes committed in the black community
an infraction punishable by death. A radical distortion of the Hear No Evil, See No
Evil, Speak No Evil mantra we Boomers heard as children. When some
of the superstar rappers were asked why they couldn't alter the
Snitching message to lessen the devastating impact of crimes against
our black brothers and sister, mothers and fathers, the answer was
simply that CD music profits would decline if the message in the
streets were to be reversed. Capitalism at its best- America What A Country. Free at last, Free at last, oh my Lordy, What we goin'
do wit dis freedom now?
Peace and love,
Brother Bee Man
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