Imus in the Morning

Recently Don Imus has come under attack for comments which he made on his nationally syndicated radio show last week. In a conversation Imus and his producer were having, discussing the appearance of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Imus referred to the women as “nappy-headed ho’s”. Now every African American group in the country is calling for the firing of Imus and for his show to be off the air. No doubt that what Imus said was insensitive, no doubt he may have gone too far, but a fireable offense, I think not.

Don Imus, if you are not familiar with his program makes the lowest comments possible about everyone on earth, family, friends anyone. It is part of the unique character of his show and no doubt any number of groups in this country could call for his dismissal because of comments he has made. I am not one to say that acting this way on the radio is wrong, hell I think its funny and an amazing amount of people do as well based on his ratings.

The main problem I have with this issue is the fact that all of a sudden when anything is said about an African American it is automatically exponentially worse than if said about any other ethnic group in America. Despite the fact that great strides and concessions have been made in the area of civil rights and also in amending for past wrongs, for some reason the African American community still feels slighted. It is the classic situation of a double standard. There are certain words that are “their words” that other ethnic groups cannot use. Apparently “nappy-headed” on that list as there is nothing racially motivated about the word “ho’s”. Never mind that two of Rutgers players are white, apparently they are not in the equation. The decision has to be made that certain words that are offensive are offensive no matter who uses them. Not just when a group who those words don’t belong to use them.

I believe it also must be looked at as to how the women of Rutgers basketball represent themselves in terms of appearance. The fact of the matter is that with collegiate sports at the Division I level these days, whether the players are white or black there seems to be an overwhelming prevalence of tattoos and clothes that are associated with the ghetto. I understand that this is how some of the athletes are used to dressing but I believe it comes down to representing the university that pays you to play and also the NCAA in a positive light. Based on what I see in the women’s NCAA tournament (which is very little) Rutgers team was very rough looking in comparison to the other teams (UNC, Duke, Tennessee). Not to say they are “nappy-headed ho’s” but, as they say first impressions are everything.

Imus has done nothing but apologize for his comments and no doubt has suffered already, in terms of pulbic image, embarassment and of course sponsors. It is not as if everyone is laughing it off and saying "Oh Imus." The fact is that despite apologies that appear to be heart felt and appearing on the Al Sharpton show only to be bated and harrased by the host, people still want blood. His apology is not enough for the people who claim that he "has set this country back many year". He didnt firebomb a church, he made a comment, simply words which he acknowledged were wrong and which he has attempted to atone for, not to mention receiving a two week suspension of his show.

To sum it up this is much ado about nothing in my eyes, the comment was made in jest in a joking fashion, Imus has never displayed racial overtones on his show. The calling for firing by some groups in my eyes is a call for publicity especially with Al Sharpton. If you can find me a problem that he has ever been the solution to as opposed to part of the problem I’d love to hear about it. The African American population of this country as well as all others need to look at the real issue at hand. That is certain words that are used and when this is decided that the words shouldn’t be used, all parties should abide, not just certain segments of the population should have to. Well, that’s what I think and now I’m probably a racist to.