Imus is NOT the problem...
By mbecker908 Posted in Culture — Comments (34) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Don Imus refers to the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team as "nappy headed hos" and the world comes to an end. Or close.
I want to be really clear about this. Imus was over the top. He had no business spouting that tripe. I have never listened to Imus, except for clips that occasionally make the news so my exposure to him is limited. In general, I think the market will take care of him, one way or the other.
But back to the issue at hand. Imus' story has eaten up hours and hours of news time over the last few days. He's been confronted and challenged by the dynamic duo of race hustlers, Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson. MSNBC & CBS are apparently "suspending" him for a couple of weeks and some of his sponsors have apparently bailed on his program.
So, let's put Imus in perspective. I'm not even going to comment, beyond this line, on just how disingenuous it is for Sharpton and Jackson to get a platform on this subject since I expect you probably know about Tawana Brawley, Crown Heights, and Jackson's greenmail campaign that extorts business to support his lifestyle. I am going to point out, thanks to Michelle Malkin yesterday, is what passes in popular culture for "music".
The Number One Billboard Rap Hit for the last fifteen weeks by somebody named "Mims", This is Why I'm Hot
This is why I'm hot
Catch me on the block
Every other day
Another bi**h another drop
16 bars, 24 pop
44 songs, ni**a gimme what you got…… We into big spinners
See my pimping never dragged
Find me wit' different women that you ni**as never had
For those who say they know me know I'm focused on ma cream
Player you come between you'd better focus on the beam
I keep it so mean the way you see me lean
And when I say I'm hot my ni**a dis is what I mean
You can click on the link to Michelle's column for more lyrics and the videos. Language and content warning.
The bottom line here is that "popular culture" has driven the whole ni**as and hos content, not just in rap "music" but in everyday conversation among young people and especially in the black community. Outrage? Well, there's Bill Cosby. And there's... nobody.
I need somebody to explain to me how it is a big deal for Imus to say what he said when the rap music genre promotes this filth every day, it's performers are regaled as "artists" and they make millions of dollars. Don't even say "first amendment" to me. If that was the case nobody would say squat to Imus. Don't try "racism" either. That line isn't even worth of discussion.
We have a problem here. The problem isn't Imus. The problem is a culture that applies a double standard that is so blatant that it is - or certainly should be - indefensible.
Seems a popular new meme that the people after Imus are silent on rap lyrics. That's just 100% false. It's true that they have never been able to gain any traction when doing so, but that isn't the same as saying they haven't spoken up about it.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. - Douglas Adams
Sharpton/Jackson make one statement in isolation about rap lyrics. They "talk" to the performers. They drop the subject.
Imus shoots off his mouth and they are 24x7 calling for him to be fired, contacting advertisers, pressuring his bosses.
They haven't done anything meaningful, nothing worthwhile and generally nothing to combat the virus that is "rap".
Why are they not at rap concerts pressuring the promoters? Why aren't they pressuring the studios? Because they issued a meaningless statement?
I recall some years ago when the song "Cop Killer" was a runaway #1 hit. The studio that recorded it was owned by Time (I think). Charlton Heston was a shareholder, he went to the annual meeting and during the Q&A, he rose and quietly read the lyrics to "Cop Killer". You could hear a pin drop. He then asked the Directors why they owned the studio that recorded that filth. They stammered and stuttered. And within three months they had spun off the studio.
Sharpton/Jackson and the so-called leadership in the Black Community are totally feckless on this issue. They have it within their power to make a difference here. All they've done is sell a generation (or two) down the river because they either don't give a damn about anything but their notoriety or they are cowards. There aren't any other choices.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
Why are they not at rap concerts pressuring the promoters? Why aren't they pressuring the studios? Because they issued a meaningless statement?
Although Sharpton has been focused primarily on the violent aspects of rap music, he has been holding/attending conferences, pushing for changes at the FCC, hardly just issuing meaningless statements.
Sharpton/Jackson and the so-called leadership in the Black Community are totally feckless on this issue. They have it within their power to make a difference here. All they've done is sell a generation (or two) down the river because they either don't give a damn about anything but their notoriety or they are cowards. There aren't any other choices.
Once again, they have been active in trying to combat problems with rap music. Considering everything else on their plates, they have made pretty good efforts in lecturing on the subject and lobbying both record labels and the FCC for changes. Perhaps if people stopped trashing everything they do, they more people would be willing to listen to them when they speak up about rap music.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. - Douglas Adams
Generations of young people are self-destructing because, in large measure, of the climate created by rap. And you think these jerks have other things on their plates that are more important? Give me a break.
Sharpton and Jackson have been part of the problem for decades. They still are part of the problem.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
Surely you don't mean that cleaning up rap lyrics would solve poverty and crime? It seems to be more a symptom than the disease itself - I mean, why are those lyrics even popular?
Declaring rap music to be priority #1 seems akin to banning guns to reduce crime or censoring newspapers to calm political agitation. Or to give a recent example, Boston has been considering taking down payphones because so many drug deals are transacted at them.
It certainly would help.
Sharpton and Jackson are involved in nothing that doesn't project "victimhood" across the black community. They spend their days looking for "racist" comments and actions. And Jackson specifically spends his time greenmailing companies with threats of boycotts.
These idiots are supposed to be "leaders" in their community. They are leading their people into a ditch.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
Sharpton and Jackson take up a whole range of issues that effect black individuals and all black people. I'm pretty sure that if they thought rap music is the root of all that ails blacks today, they'de concentrate on it as much as you think they should. I'll agree that they don't always pursue what I think the best solution, and aren't always effective when they do have the right idea. But I wouldn't call them jerks for trying to do what they think they can when they think it is the right thing to do.
Obviously you have an axe to grind here. Plenty of people don't like their priorities and methods. There are legitimate arguments to be made, but calling them names and mischaracterizing what they have done isn't one of them.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. - Douglas Adams
Is take every opportunity to convince the world of "Black Victimhood" and how "Interloping crackers" are the greatest evils the world has ever seen.
That is what they have done and continue to do. That is why no one listens to them when they actually are right. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Sharpton and Jackson would be doing well to accomplish even that much working together...
There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.
I'm pretty sure that if they thought rap music is the root of all that ails blacks today, they'de concentrate on it as much as you think they should.
They're in business for themselves. Their only goal is to maintain their luxurious lifestyle and increase their influence (which Sharpton managed to do quite impressively over the past week). I find it hard to believe that anyone is naive enough to seriously believe these two leeches are in it for any noble reason.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
What do you call it when mullahs rile up the muslim street to the max concerning mohammed cartoons, and yet the cartoons in Iran show the US & Statue of Liberty as the great satan, and the cartoons of Ariel Sharon and President Bush drinking blood. They are so opposed to mohammed cartoons being so offensive and it is so much against their nature to offend. Yeah, right.
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
It actually does extend beyond just two people...
Mrs. Tucker, who once was the highest-ranking African American woman in Pennsylvania state government, focused a spotlight on rap music in 1993, calling it "pornographic fifth" and saying it was demeaning and offensive to black women.
<...>
She also bought stock in Sony, Time Warner and other companies so she could protest at shareholders meetings.
In 1993, she and the NCBW began a campaign against music companies that produced and distributed gangsta rap. The backlash against her was intense. She was sued by one record producer but prevailed; rap music fans telephoned her home with threats and obscenities. But she never gave in.
"One day, she invited the president of Time Warner [then a distributor of gangsta rap] to her office in Washington and showed him a photograph of her holding hands with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during a civil rights march in Alabama," William Tucker, her husband, told me recently. " She told him, 'I was willing to give my life then, and I'm willing to give my life now.' "
Not long afterward, Time Warner issued a statement saying that the company "will not engage in the promotion and distribution of music that glorifies violence, promotes racial hatred, denigrates women and encourages drug abuse."
In an impassioned plea, Battle, a Baptist preacher who heads the nation's premier center for black church scholarship, said gangsta rap denigrates all young blacks, especially black women.
National Congress of Black Women, Inc.:
NCBW, through its Commission on Entertainment, leads the assault against "Gangsta Rap" and misogynistc lyrics that are directed towards African American youth and threaten the moral foundation of the family.
Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) and Rep. Cardiss Collins (D-Ill.) have held not one, not two, but four congressional hearings about the menace. The National Political Congress of Black Women has illegally barricaded the Nobody Beats the Wiz record-store chain because it sells the music. In fact, the NPCBW's head, C. Delores Tucker, believes if stopping gangsta rap requires "regulation by Congress, so be it."
Lee told an audience comprised largely of Ontario university students that people can vote with their pocketbooks to convince artists, record companies and media conglomerates like Viacom that the images in today's music videos or lyrics in gangsta rap are unacceptable.
"As African-Americans we let artists slide," Lee said in the Monday night speech. "(But) those days are over. I think that we have to start to hold people accountable."
ESSENCE Magazine, "the preeminent lifestyle magazine for today’s African-American woman":
We at ESSENCE have become increasingly concerned about the degrading ways in which Black women are portrayed and spoken about in popular media, particularly in popular urban music and music videos. Aware that these images may be having a negative impact on our children, we realized that, as Black women, it was up to us to take a stand.
Oprah also spent roughly one-third of her time discussing hip-hop music and her opinion of the debilitating effect of misogynistic and racist lyrics. She riveted the audience with historical anecdotes of slavery, Jim Crow and the civil-rights era and pointed out that the last word a lynched person heard was the N-word. She pointedly criticized blacks for taking hate speech, "setting it to a beat and dancing to it."
Jill Scott (Grammy award-winning singer):
Scott spoke Monday at the Essence Music Festival in Houston, Tex., at a panel called Who You Calling A Ho? Sisters, Take Back Our Sex!
The singer was especially incensed by the portrayal of black women in pop music lyrics and video, which she deemed "degrading."
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
Some of those people just talked, while others made real efforts, but the fact remains that they lost because rap has grown, with the speech even more negative. All the efforts mentioned above, put together, are just a fraction of the energy which has gone into criticizing Imus for a few words which he has apologized for.
I once heard a saying something like "Each generation, while condemning the prejudices of its parents, is blind to its own discrimination". Just as we look back at the past and say "How could people have let that happen?", future generations will look back at the 2000's and say "How could they have tolerated one class of people losing their jobs for saying certain words, while other classes of people got Academy awards for saying the same thing? How could 2007 society have allowed such massive discrimination on the basis of race, creed, gender, etc.?"
All the efforts mentioned above, put together, are just a fraction of the energy which has gone into criticizing Imus for a few words which he has apologized for.
This claim is utterly ridiculous.
Don Imus.
The people you cite would be VERY effective if they pointed out that Don Imus only said what hundreds of thousands of blacks say a hundred times a day in casual conversation, then stuck to their guns.
But I guess being branded an Uncle or Aunt Tom is not worth it. Just ask a certain Justice of the Supreme Court and Secretary of State the price they paid among their community members for getting off the plantation without permission or help from their self-appointed "leaders".
and what's worse they were aimed at young women, some almost girls, who are not public figures and who have done well in life. But your point is taken. The market will take care of him, and it will offensive song lyrics as well.
And not to threadjack, but I have been equally amused at the liberal white politicians and jouranists who have circled the wagons around Imus (I believe John Edwards, that paragon of hypocrisy, just called for "forgiveness"). These people have regularly appeared on this trainwreck of a broadcast, and apparently want to go back. They are just as hypocritical as Sharpton and Jackson.
The intellectualization of hip-hop really gained momentum because of Michael Eric Dyson, who wrote his tribute to Tupac Shakur and used to work for DePaul University before moving to the University of Pennsylvania. The strategy had two parts, both equally cynical:
Take a thug and glamorize him among whitebread, reformed-hippie intellectuals who are too afraid to call the music junk in public. And two, make an enormous moneymaking industry out of it.
I worked at DePaul and I was amazed at the extent to which liberal intellectuals were ready to fall over at the drop of a hat for "hip hop culture" for an entire slate of reasons. But all of them were enormous hypocrites, because nobody I knew ever listened to a single hip-hop song and could only name any of the stars of the genre if they were pressed, because they'd read Michael Eric Dyson's book. It was a pure academic political roll-over to boost M.E.D. to intellectual rockstardom.
Garrison Keillor offered a lame and gasping critique of hip-hop one day several years ago on "The Prairie Home Companion" complaining in hoarse whispers how it glorified violence and crime, treated women like dirt and worse, etc. etc. and was therefore antithetical to almost everything liberals professed to believe in. He was never heard from again on the subject, to my knowledge.
A little later on, Lee Iacocca appeared in a television advertisment with Snoop Doggy Dogg hawking Chryslers. I don't know whether or not Iacocca is a big hip-hop fan in his private life, but he had no compunction about shilling with Snoop to sell DaimlerChryslers.
It seems to me that Imus made the cardinal mistake of "appropriating" hip-hop lyrics as a white man who is regularly seen wearing a cowboy hat. But Imus would never have done it if it hadn't been for the establishment of hip-hop as an intellectual subject by people like M.E.D. He fell into the classic trap of race relations in the postmodern age: only people who are viewed as "authentic" can say the words without being branded as racists.
Imus stepped on the mine inadvertently and now the "authentic" arbiters of the hip-hop culture are working to make sure that his legs are blown completely off.
I need somebody to explain to me how it is a big deal for Imus to say what he said when the rap music genre promotes this filth every day, it's performers are regaled as "artists" and they make millions of dollars. Don't even say "first amendment" to me. If that was the case nobody would say squat to Imus. Don't try "racism" either. That line isn't even worth of discussion.
Don't forget, he also said something about "all tatted up." Far from being racist, I think Imus was closer to just being an old f-rt, commenting on the way the girls' (women's, if you prefer) appearance.
One difference: Imus's comments were directed at and about specifically identifiable people, people he'd have never seen had they not been very good a playing basketball. They weren't generic, imaginary "hos;" he used the words against real people.
Whether it's a double standard or not, it's true that someone within a group has a lot more wiggle room when talking about other members, as opposed to someone from outside making the same comments.
Where the racism comes is in the constant barrage by racist black "leaders" who want to use the incident for their own tv face time and money raising efforts.
Flagstaff
Democrats on Iraq: "We don't want to win. We just want to quit."
and exactly right. I loved Imus when he was a drunk, coked up on the old WNBC, before he took his show to WFAN. Back then, he played songs and was just plain funny, lots of voice over stuff and just a great way to spend the commute.
That was the 70' and 80's, then he sobered up, (good for him!) and got all fuzzy and blury in his thinking. I love ya JD, but please retire, it's time to pass the torch.
Managing Editor
What's happened over the last twelve hours in this story is a kind of semantic shift and a perceptual redefinition of what actually happened. If you watch the tape, Imus was clearly making *a joke*. It wasn't a "remark", it wasn't a "comment" -- it was *a joke*.
But over the past twelve hours of pile-on, that joke has morphed into a "remark" which means that it's not something that was intended to be funny (which it was) and bombed horribly, but rather something that reflects on something deeper in Imus' character and requires that he be fired.
I think it was an awful joke on a number of levels, but I am absolutely beside myself over how people here, and at the Washington Post, and everywhere else apparently, have simply rewritten history to make what was a stupid and off-color joke into something deeper and more damning. Under cover of darkness, the Washington Post and others have changed his unfortunate attempt at hip-hop humor into something much more sinister than it was.
Well, his career is over. I guess Al Sharpton can take some credit for that in this coming election cycle. Joe Biden's going to have to find someone else to put him on the air.
Why I'm being so steadfast on this and seeming to split semantic hairs over something like this, especially since it would be so very, very easy for me to take pleasure in Imus' disgrace.
I have an excellent reason why it's important to make sure people keep their stories straight, and if you'd like to hear it, please feel free to email me.
The capsule version is that I was confronted with a similarly baseless charge of racism in a past life and it would have become an absolute nightmare if it hadn't been for the fact that I kept accurate records of what actually transpired. I was hauled in front of a Dean and my supervisor by a faculty member who accused me of racism when in fact the exact opposite was true and I had been forbidden by an express order from my boss to do what he wished. That didn't stop him from trying to call me a racist and get me fired.
People need to stop buying into the media's redefinition of this event. Don Imus was in the middle of a joking conversation where he was trying to make a joke that happened to be a bad joke, and a joke that he'll never repeat, I'm sure.
But it was a joke, not a commentary or a remark. People need to keep that straight.
I don't retract it, but I agree with you that he was definitely trying to make a joke. I think he thought it was funny because he, like me, is an old f-rt, and he doesn't like seeing young women of any description decked out like what he said, the tattoos being the primary evidence. He seemed to throw in the descriptive phrase in an attempt to use hip words from another language. In any event, many a joke has been used to soften commentary. It may be that this time, the cigar was just a cigar.
I also don't think his intent was to insult anybody, but it did come out that way. A simple apology to the Rutgers team should have been sufficient, and the apology he gave appeared sincere to me.
No way should he have lost his job over it. OTOH, at least one person has speculated that it was a premeditated move to get the networks to break his contracts. Didn't look that way to me.
Democrats on Iraq: "We don't want to win. We just want to quit."
My SUVs park in the shade of AlGore's carbon toeprint.
Whether it be Michael Savage making mean spirited comments to a caller, or Don Imus making ignorant and racist statements, the management of MSNBC has the right to do whatever they want in response. Since MSNBC had already set a precedent by firing Savage, they had only one choice today, which was to fire Imus. And they did.
The only good thing that comes out of this controversy is many of Imus's liberal buddies, ie, Howard Fineman, Doris Goodman, and David Gregory, will have one less media outlet to spew their hatred of all things conservative.
Joe Biden. You forgot Joe Biden. I don't know how many times he's been a guest on Imus' program, but I know that it's more than a dozen...anybody have a number?
In fact, Joe's talking about it in his "Bush's Plan Is Doomed To Failure" article today in the Washington Post
Biden, who has appeared regularly on Don Imus' radio show, said he would condition future appearances on a change the tone of the program. He added that the attention Imus' racially charged remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team have received could have a positive effect on the discussions of race and gender in the public sphere.
...
As for Imus' remark regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team and the controversy that has ensued, Biden said he would not appear again on the program unless Imus "fundamentally alters the composition" of the show.
Smokin' Joe Biden has made his share of racially dubious comments in the past, too (especially regarding people who own convenience stores in Delaware) so I really wonder whether or not he's going to come to Imus' defense in the coming days, or wait until the two-week suspension blows over, or maybe just find another radio host to give him airtime and let Imus twist in the wind. I suspect the latter: with MSNBC pulling Imus simulcasts unequivocally and all of news about sponsors pulling the plug, Imus' days as a broadcaster are pretty much over.
CBS and Westwood One are holding out for a few more days but I think that's not going to last long.
How Imus' "last three words" have been Officially Characterized at this point: they were no longer the tail end of a bad joke, they were "racially charged remarks."
Imus dug his own grave, just as Howard Stern said, first by stepping into the minefield with a bad joke and then not insisting that he was being persecuted over a joke gone wrong.
Now they're "racially charged remarks" which has a completely different meaning and connotes that they were something other than a joke.
That means that Don Imus is doomed. Stick a fork in him.
With his TV gig now over for good, and his radio show in deep ratings decline, maybe Imus should rent time on internet radio. Then he can say any racist remark he wants without worrying about anyone hearing him.
Lets step back a minute from the cheap clarity provided by racial profiling(and I say that for both sides).
The same things were said (regarding the degredation and coursening of society) about the blues. Heck jazz and rock and roll were also blamed for social ills. Black people have been creating culture that has both confused, frustrated, inspired and attracted white folks attention for generations. One only wonders if some bespeckled blazer-wearing caucasion yuppie will be scanning the internet looking to download old 50 Cent songs in 20 years.
And I can tell you this, the major market for rap music and "black culture".....WHITE BOYS! I know far too many priveleged white guys that bounce to rap(any variety) in their cars, and spin it at parties. White people may not write music about the same things, but I don't think they hold some moral purity just because they don't sing about their flaws. They sleep around just as much, do drugs just as much, and treat the opposing gender like crap just as much, but most of the time, they have the resources or moral escapism to get away with it more often. Which is secretly why they have always liked the music! Course, then some turn around and quietly bemoan the moral depravity of the black community....so pathetic.
Frankly, I think the black community could have just laughed off these comments, they were the silly mutterings of an old white guy trying like hell to stay alive on the air and sell ad space. The Rutger's women don't deserve the joke in my mind, but since it's so untrue, why not lead a collective laugh at Imus expense? It's not the first time a white guy tried to drop some "urban" language to sound cool and shock a few people. Sharpton's response should have been more confident and classy. Perhaps he should have channeled a little Louis Armstrong, who when asked to define jazz responded "Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know."
"The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing." - Ralph Ellison
Reading your post, I mean. You have really bought into the whole Race/class warfare thing, haven't you?
"Blacks did this, blacks did that, blacks invented these and white boys are all just as depraved and just as morally disgusting but white boys have the resources and connections to escape the consequences..."
Great. Just great of you to share this with us.
There are those who look on Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima as some of the greatest evils ever perpetrated by man. I look on them and thank the perpetrators for saving millions.
We agree that:
A)Rap/Hip-Hop music glorifies misogyny
B)Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson are no MLK's
C)Whites are equal, if not greater, consumers of Rap/Hip-Hop
D)Imus has become a sacraficial lamb, being condemed for using a vernacular that has become part of American culture, that only 'certain' members are authorized to use
Can we agree on this also:
A)To blame the social constructs in our society that glorify degradation of any group of people on Rap/Hip-Hop/Blacks is simplistic and illogical
B)The reason no one has paid attention to the other Black leaders out there is because those leaders have very little power in society and it is not profitable for big business to censor money-making music
C)It is not right for ANYONE, no matter what COLOR, CLASS or RELIGION to degrade/dehumanize any other person/group of people
It is time to stop pussy-footing around. There are plenty of us, white, black, whatever, that are tired of the double-standard of hate and vulgarity. I don't care who you are, what color you are, where you grew up. Calling a woman a b*tch, ho, and writing a graphic song about how you are going to do everything you see in a porno to her and her friends, throw her away and go to the next ho, rape her with a knife, spit in her face and kick her to the curb is disgusting, vulgar, and it gives black people a bad name and this is why:
None of the black people that I go to school with, work with, live by or have contact with in my daily life talk, look or act like 50-Cent, Tupac, Biggie or Snoop. They are 'normal' people, living 'normal' lives. They are not drug-dealers, pimps or gang-bangers. Stereo-typical images such as gangsta-rappers promote racism. Whites, asians and any other 'color' who have little contact with blacks get the wrong idea and justify their prejudiced beliefs. These images innundate our youth (of all cultures) and shape how women think of themselves and how men think of women, all with negative consequences.
You cannot compare blues/motown to hip/hop. There is a difference between the innuendo past artists use and the out-right, graphic nonsense that today's 'artists' embrace. Simply saying that these young artists are singing about what they know and that represents the 'culture' they come from is fine, but lets do something about it. The more they sing about it, the more youngsters in poor communities feel validated (in the wrong ways) and the more this type of behavior continues.
There also has to be a change in how we educate and care for the poor in this country so that the SES gap closes.
than we do about deeds.
2/3rds of black children are born out of wedlock. A huge number of black men are in prison. Public schools routinely fail to teach black students (and others) how to read, write and speak well. Poverty levels are much higher in the black population.
One could go on for a long time....
Meanwhile, black "leaders" and the entire media are agog that someone white called someone black a bad name.
Makes for good newspaper sales, but that's the only benefit.
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher