Ho ho ho, very funny.
No one outside of the city of Rutgers knows her name or face. This boils down to what, a couple of guys at a club called her a slut because of this? Your time in the spotlight is up, you aren’t good enough to play pro ball, and now you have a choice between going to work and earning a living and suing Imus, you choose the easier one.
I said at the time that if Imus had the brains of a retarded duck he’d have voluntarily given settlements (a few thousand or so) to each of the alleged nappy headed hos as a show of good will (and in exchange for a quick little “no further action” signature) and I’d establish two athletic scholarships at that institution (which to be honest I don’t even remember which one it was as that was about 6 media hooplahs ago). It would have cost him a few hundred thousand and earned him millions in good PR and continued employment and precluded this woman’s suit. Between Imus and the “ooh I was skeered of the big black man so I offered to suck his cock!” and the “sure I bought meth from a male whore but that doesn’t mean I’m a gay meth-head” and all the other frigging fouls that turn regular fuckboils into carbunclefucks I am convinced that people have no fucking clue how to handle a major scandal anymore and someone who does can earn millions. DUDES! THAT’S WHAT MONEY AND CAMERAS AND THINKING ON YOUR FEET ARE FOR! DON’T COME UP WITH STUPID FUCKING EXCUSES THAT NOBODY’S GOING TO BUY, KNOW WHEN TO OWN AND APOLOGIZE FOR COMMENTS AND WHEN NOT TO, AND IF I CAN SIT HERE IN MONTGOMERY AT A MIDDLE CLASS JOB AND SEE HOW TO HANDLE THIS THEN WHY CAN’T YOU SEVEN-FIGURES-PER-YEAR-ASSWIPES?
Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack. Regarding the girl, it’s easy to judge her for but… can you absolutely positively say that you wouldn’t go for such easy out-of-court money if you had bills to pay and lots of people probably nudging you towards it and it dangling in front of you? I like to think I wouldn’t, but I haven’t been in her situation. I have, however, been broke, and I know that the heat of poverty can definitely warp the plastic of morality, so I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t have tried.
It’s amusing to me because I had no idea who any of the the girls on the Rutgers team were until they identified themselves. It’s like saying, “Yeah, I’m the girl Imus called a nappy ho. But I don’t want you thinking I’m a nappy ho! I’m so not a nappy ho I’m suing him for calling me a nappy ho!”
Unless I’m mistaken, no one really thought you were in the first place.
Well, why not sue? Imus got rich calling people things like “nappy-headed ho’s” so why not dissuade him from doing so in the future by costing him some of that loot?
He spouts crap like that for one reason- *to make money. * So, if instead of making him $$, it costs him $$- maybe he’ll STFU.
Fantastic. Now we can limit the speech we don’t like by suing people until they can’t afford to speak anymore. I’m finding a hard time making a distinction between that and extortion.
The left can shut O’Reilly up by suing. The right can shut Moore up by suing. And, we’ll be left with whatever passes through special interest groups and the average Joe on the street without any controversy. That should make for some interesting and creative thoughts.
Well, you would just offer a settlement to make them go away.
Sorry dude, you left yourself wide open for that one. 
Well, not precisely “now.” Defamation has been a tort for quite some time. And not by suing, silly, but by winning a suit in court.
Piffle. One need not be wealthy to exercise one’s right to speak one’s mind. No one has a right to a national forum for doing so.
…successfully.
…successfully.
No, we’ll be left without defamation. Or slander, or libel–related torts which similarly seem to address some sort of public good.
More civil, certainly.
However, I’ll be happy to read and comment upon any arguments you might make regarding the elimination of defamation torts. Feel free to open a GD thread.
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Who is talking about defamation or slander or libel? I was talking about the following:
To me, this reads as saying that it doesn’t matter whether what he did is slanderous or libelous or in any way deserving of a court case. That it’s acceptable to sue as an economic weapon to make someone stop saying things that you don’t like.
And one does not have to “successfully” sue in order to use the courts as an economic weapon.
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If you say so. That might be what DrDeth meant. I’m certainly not of the opinion that the simple bringing of a suit would cost Imus any appreciable amount of money, so I assumed that’s not what Deth meant. Apologies if I jumped the gun.
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If you allow this, what next? An athlete suing a sports commentator for saying he “gave up” on a play? Paris Hilton suing Mr. Blackwell for the damage he caused her when he made of her dress? Anybody on youtube caught doing something stupid suing the person who took the video?
The Lakers haven’t called…but I’m sure they would have if not for being called a nappy headed ho by Imus.
:rolleyes:
Actually, yes. Those sorts of things happen and will continue to happen. That’s the core of the US tort system–we’re allowed to bring suit* for redress of damages. We’re only allowed to win our suit if we can demonstrate those damages.
*Or rather, attempt to bring suit. If a suit is frivolous, the system is at least intended to lay the smack down in the form of sanctions. But if it’s in good faith, and the suit has a factual basis, the existence of any actual damages is determined by the court.
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As I said, he makes money off slandering folks, so it appears it is a fair weapon to use right back at him. Now, if he was just giving his opinion, no matter how distasteful, then the 1st Ad protects him. But it doesn’t allow dudes to freely slander and libel, they can (and have) been held to account* in a Civil Court *for this. He certainly will use the 1st Ad as a defence, and maybe he will prevail. Or maybe not. But I don’t see why allowing a judge and jury to decide is so very wrong.
None of us are authorities on her motivations. But assuming that you are correct, would there be anything wrong with suing for damages? That is what the law provides for.
By calling all of them hos, he called them each a ho. What decent woman is not concerned with her “delicate reputation” as you put it. How is that reputation marred by filing a high- profile lawsuit?
Why do you call this a "frivolous lawsuit? On national television and over radio – before millions of people – she was racially ridiculed and called a whore. That doesn’t sound “frivolous” in my world. Would your mother or your wife or your daughter find that frivolous?
Why is it greedy to file a lawsuit? Is this not what our system of justice provides? Why does it tarnish her reputation to file a lawsuit – to seek justice? Why is this lawsuit “pointless”? What if the court decides that she’s right – that Imus had no right to call her a whore before millions of people? That’s a very likely outcome. The suit doesn’t sound pointless at all.
Too bad that truth is a perfect defense. 
All it takes is to be damaged with one person. But just for the record, these young women held an hour long nation wide press conference. She is a very pleasant young woman. They all seem to be.
I watched Imus almost every morning and loved his show. He is basically a good man with a bad mouth and poor judgment. Apparently he is also a bigot – which I did not know. I hope that he is allowed back into television for several reasons. And I hope that any of the young women that he slurred win any lawsuits filed against him.
If this stupidity ever made it to trial, wouldn’t she have to prove the comments weren’t true? There was a lengthy thread at the time dealing witht the actual definition of nappy headed- does this player in particular meet the definition? As for ho, used in that way it means not only someone who works in a brothel but also someone who sleeps around- can she prove she doesn’t? What a dumb bitch.
The real way to tell this is insane- most of the black sports reporters, those who are asking for due process for Michael Vick for example, are bashing the suit.
This is what I was wondering about. Does Imus get to depose her boyfriends? “Ho” hasn’t been used exclusively for prostitutes in 20 years.
They write summons on diapers, nowadays?
Actually, no. He made himself look like an ass. He made the team look like a group of athletes who took the high road. I didn’t know the names of any of them.
But now I know the name Kia Vaughn. She now has a reputation with me. And I now think of her as a money-grubbing attention ho. Had she not gone on this greed quest, I never would have heard of her, and her reputation would be fine with me.
I think my mother would be fine with it. She’d realize that it’s Imus who’s the real whore here, and that reflects on her not at all. And all reasonable people would agree. Unreasonable people are not worth dealing with.
I don’t have a wife. But I’m pretty sure that all of my past girlfriends would think that Kia Vaughn is a money-grubbing attention ho, and that Imus is a jerk.
I don’t have a daughter. But if I did, I’d try to instill her with a sense of self-worth, and not to pump it up by using racial and sexist slurs. And not to be an attention whore by filing frivolous lawsuits. And I’d teach her the word “asshat” and when to use it properly. As in “Kia Vaughn is an asshat.”
Even if she has to prove she doesn’t work in a brothel or sleep around,* why does the potential for this test make her a dumb bitch?
- or Imus has to prove she does either or both, or that was her reputation prior to the statement and he knew about it. FWIW, I think she should drop it, but apparently it’s her right to pursuit this.