i have yet to read an article by a don imus attacker/hiphop defender where the author didnt come off as a flaiming hypocrite.

comments?

i thought my boy whitlock nailed it with his article last week:http://sports.aol.com/whitlock/_a/time-for-jackson-sharpton-to-step-down/20070411111509990001


but dude from rollingstone really articulated the hypocricy well:http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/14197433/the_low_post_the_imus_sanction

his conclusion, i think, is the best part. i'll elaborate more on his article in a few days, after i give everyone an opportunity not to post.

I’m calling for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the president and vice president of Black America, to step down.
lol...since when did they hold that spot? lol@whitlock's black america. Those knuckleheads run on their own agendas and whitlock is damn near a decade late on this. Muthafvckas took them off there pedestal awhile ago.

Sharpton is a fucking idiot. Dude once flew across the country to Riverside, CA to protest a police shooting before all the facts came about. As long as the camera is in his grill, fuck the consequences.

As for Imus, I'm a firm believer of public humiliation. If you fire the dude, he becomes a martyr. If you allow the Rutgers women on to the show to brutally "roast" him live on the airwaves, people will talk about it for a very long time. And I'm not talking jokes, here. I'm talking some serious fucking trash talk. Everywhere he goes, he'll be asked about the day some "nappy hos" bitched him on live radio.

That's a fate worse than termination.

I was actually pretty pleased that we were somehow able to remain "Imus free" here for so long while the whole nation was swept up in this, lol.

Basically, I think he got what he deserved in the end. By that, I don't mean that I think his comments alone were "firing worthy" but I think his botched apology is what got him canned (the disingenous nature of it), and the flight of his advertisers that followed.

I'm with Whitlock on this. If Imus would have come out right away and said something like, "You know what, I feel really bad about this. I'm a 70+ year old white man and I don't have a lot of exposure to African American people and their culture. All I know is what I see on tv, hear in music, or overhear on the street. I know now that what I thought was an acceptable joke was actually quite offensive, and for that I sincerely apologize", I think he would have been fine.

I don't agree with the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and others that called for his firing because of his comments. I think people should be allowed to say whatever they want to on the radio/tv, and let people decide to listen to them or not. If what they have to say is that offensive/wrong, then advertisers will bail and they will get fired anyways.

Which is what sort of happened to Imus in all actuality.

p.s. and if Howard Stern would have said the exact same thing that Imus did, nobody would have said a peep

I don't view this as hypocrisy at all. It's simply a case of the mainstream rejecting the extreme. If he wants to play "shock jock" and make comments like that he's going to risk narrowing his audience.

Ludacris may have hos in different area codes but he also got dumped by pepsi. You just can't be all things to all people.

Also, his apology is a joke. I don't care how it's phrased or who he said it to. This is what Imus does, a conscious part of his schtick and he's made a career out of it. I don't believe for a second that he regrets anything but the consequences for himself.





p.s. and if Howard Stern would have said the exact same thing that Imus did, nobody would have said a peep

That's probably true but that's mostly just the difference between being on the public airwaves and being on private, subscription radio. A big part of why Stern made the move to satellite was increasing blowback over things he said on the air.

glen: i appologize for bringing the blight of the imus issue to the board. im very impressed that its been able to stay 99% imus free.

gutz: who do you think the most prominent black activists are today? imo, sharpton and jackson are head and shoulders above everyone else.

denny: im not defending imus. im not his fan, and to be honest, i wasnt familiar with the term "nappy haired" before. if people think what he said was so bad, i definitly am in no position to say otherwise.

geerussel: stepping up to the plate, cool. if you say pepsi pulled support, thats fine. and i'll even mention that sharpton wrote a letter to the hiphop summit explaining that its not ok to dispariage women, or each other. but do you not think that a huge amount of hiphop is worse than what don imus said? and wouldnt you also say that hiphop is also much more relevant than don imus?

glen: i appologize for bringing the blight of the imus issue to the board. im very impressed that its been able to stay 99% imus free.

gutz: who do you think the most prominent black activists are today? imo, sharpton and jackson are head and shoulders above everyone else.

denny: im not defending imus. im not his fan, and to be honest, i wasnt familiar with the term "nappy haired" before. if people think what he said was so bad, i definitly am in no position to say otherwise.

geerussel: stepping up to the plate, cool. if you say pepsi pulled support, thats fine. and i'll even mention that sharpton wrote a letter to the hiphop summit explaining that its not ok to dispariage women, or each other. but do you not think that a huge amount of hiphop is worse than what don imus said? and wouldnt you also say that hiphop is also much more relevant than don imus?

i see the hypocricy as demanding don imus's job and perhaps ruining what he had left of his career, while hip hop gets largely ignored. why arent rappers, labels, stores, etc getting boycotted? sharpton/jackson have shown that they have the muscle.

gutz: who do you think the most prominent black activists are today? imo, sharpton and jackson are head and shoulders above everyone else.

Why would you care? And why would your opinion hold legit weight on who they represent?

In main crossover media they are prominent, but they dont represent black people. They represent their interests and typically most of us see that. Which is why they are on cnn with don imus, rather than in communities helping improve the the areas. If places like CNN/msnbc/etc. knew how much power and rep they dont have anymore, they wouldnt be so stuck pleasing them.

I'll see al sharpton gambling in a vegas casino a second time before i see him setting foot out here making a difference anytime soon.

I mean the IMUS thing doesnt even effect anything but IMUS and publicity for all the parties involved. Thats why its "Imus-Free". Because its a waste of time topic that has the potential to turn into another subject(like race and censorship) when its not even worth all that.

I think the one fact everyone is missing is the fact that the Imus show was painfully awful. Everyone seems to be hating on him because of the racist shit he's said on his show, but they should be hating him because he's awful and has never been able to justify why in the hell he would ever be broadcast over the airwaves.

I don't think Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton are necessarily the best representatives that African-Americans could have for their interests in the public arena, but I don't really think of them as having done something for African-Americans here. I think of them as people who, unwittingly, have saved all of us from a miserable existence of hearing this mumbling dirtbag on the radio for the rest of his decrepit life.

I see Jackson and Sharpton, in this case, as kind of like a couple of hillbillies who went out driving in a meth-fueled rage and ended up plowing into a van full of terrorists. They didn't set out with pure intentions, but they ended up accomplishing something good despite themselves.

Why would you care? And why would your opinion hold legit weight on who they represent?

In main crossover media they are prominent, but they dont represent black people. They represent their interests and typically most of us see that.

I for one welcome my negro overlords.



but do you not think that a huge amount of hiphop is worse than what don imus said? and wouldnt you also say that hiphop is also much more relevant than don imus?

Sure most of hip hop is worse... but pointing out truths about hip hop is not a defense for Imus.

Here you had an old white man denigrating some young, college educated women ... just for being black. It's not edgy social commentary or politically incorrect observation with a kernel of truth... his comments were just plain bigotry and I have no problem with him getting shunned for it.

What does anyone have to say about the open, unbridled bigotry and racism that has been on display in Right Wing Nut Radio Land for nearly twenty years now?

In case you guys missed Zip's Front Page article on this topic yesterday:

http://www.wtfdetroit.com/index.php?page=morning5107


http://wtfdetroit.com/forums/admincpanel/../../pics/toiletpaper.jpg WTFDetroit’s Morning Constitutional
With Zip Goshboots

May 1, 2007

Whither the Imus Controversy?

The subject has been largely ignored by the normally astute social commentary that graces this great site, but it was finally touched on last week. I would be remiss if I didn’t offer my two cents on this farce, so let me have at it.

There’s an old saying that “perception is reality”, and although many people protest that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do not speak for the Black Community, the perception is that they do, so that in fact is the reality. Do they not draw crowds when they speak? Do they not do whatever it is that they do, and seem to make a lot of money doing it, and carry the loudest voices among Black Leaders? Then how or why are the rest of us to think otherwise?
There is an almost Pavlovian synergistic relationship between these two and the media. Whenever a racial controversy pops up, the largely white media run to Sharpton and Jackson like trained puppets to hear what they have to say, and give them as much air time and print coverage as they desire. In return, Sharpton and Jackson, like trained puppets, give the exact response that the media wants, and it’s a two fold return. First, they will condemn whatever white male said or did something abominable without looking into the controversy at all. Second, Sharpton and Jackson are only too willing to assuage this mysterious “white guilt” by saying things the largely white media can all agree with in the never ending attempt to be politically correct or prove they are “down” with the brothers.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/5186/anchormankc3.jpgThere is one gift that keeps on giving that no one seems to really talk about, though. Just about every white commentator or talking head will give themselves the proverbial showering away of the dirt of Jackson and Sharpton by uttering something along these lines: “I have, err, some black friends, and they do not like Sharpton or Jackson, and say those two don’t speak for black people”. They can, in essence, tread both sides of the issue by staying cool with their white audience by lampooning Sharpton and Jackson or rebuffing them while showing their black audience that they will listen to what Jackson and Sharpton have to say. And part of their debunking of Jackson and Sharpton will always be in the form of bringing on black guests who refute those two also. Validation is what they seek, and there is no shortage of black guests who will give it to them.

The irony of it is that Sharpton and Jackson keep playing into this bullshit, not realizing that they are being used as examples of the perceived lack of leadership in the Black Community. It’s almost as if the media, who refuse to seek out other opinions, are constantly saying, “Well, who else you gonna turn to? There isn’t anyone else!”.

Another irony is that the controversies seem to be bullshit in the first place, and only Sharpton and Jackson respond to this bullshit. I mean, does anybody recall what Barack Obama had to say about Imus? How about Condoleezza Rice? Oh wait, we know what that great civic leader Snoop Dogg had to say!

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/8444/bang407qc5.jpgWhile we’re all waiting to count all the “gains” adding up in racial relations or the advancing social status of black women that the Imus firing is generating, I’m going to ask a question. How much better does anyone think it might have been if both Sharpton and Jackson had ignored it, and if Don Imus would have just said the probable truth: that he was an old white guy trying to get away with a joke and it backfired? He stepped over generational lines with a comment, and ended up sounding like an ass.

One funny thing also came out of this: that the most ridiculous comments didn’t come out of the mouths of Imus, Sharpton, or Jackson. They came out of the mouth of the preacher who mediated the meeting between Imus and the Rutgers basketball team. You remember, the fellow who said Imus must financially compensate these women. Well, first, I thought they were amateurs anyway, not supposed to be paid for anything, and secondly, with all the media coverage the players and their over emoting bad B-movie actress coach got from this, and no doubt will continue to get (anyone else smell a horrible Lifetime movie and several books?), it’s as if Imus has already written each of them a check for five million bucks.


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