Hmm…
People hate them because they are self-promoting rabble rousing hypocrites who cry “racist” at the drop of a hat.
I am a firm believer that the First Amendment protects people’s right to be racist asshole pricks. If you don’t like it, don’t watch or listen to the show. If enough people don’t watch or listen, eventually the show will go off the air.
I remember my first thought when I heard Imus called those girls nappy-headed hos. It was “Imus is still ALIVE?!!”
They are handling themselves like a bunch of sheltered, hypersensitive, ivory-tower crybabbies. If “nappy ho” is the worst thing someone calls you in your life, consider yourself fortunate.
I had no idea Imus’s words had such power to invalidate all the achievements of the Rutgers womens sports program.
Good points, every one. Looking at the pictures of Imus, I’m not sold on the alive part- someone should check for a pulse.
And while I have seen parts of the Rutgers team comments and repsect them and all, one of them said that their sucess was ruined becasue of Imus- really? Something this guy says has that big an effect on you? If I were on the team, I would think a collective “who gives a fuck what he thinks” would sum up my feelings on the issue. Let’s not give Imus that much credit.
It’s telling that you can say “Big whoop.” when you hear Imus has called a group of young women who’ve done nothing untoward “nappy-headed hos” but froth at the mouth, saying Jackson and Sharpton are “self-promoting rabble rousing hypocrites who cry “racist” at the drop of a hat,” when the events they get involved in might warrant closer inspection, at the very least?
Why not a “Big whoop” here also?
Imus is an ass, and he’s always been an ass. As Sharpton said, you can’t just keep saying racist bullshit and then apologize like that’s going to make it all right. I started listening to Imus in junior high school. There’s a lot to like about him–he’s smart (smarter than he’s been acting), politically savvy, and when he’s in the right mood, he asks politicians tough questions.
But he and his crew (especially his producer, Bernard McGuirk) have been spewing racist and misogynistic bullshit for years. It’s why I stopped listening to him. When intelligent, articulate Gwen Ifill became moderator of Washington Week in Review, he ranted about how they gave the job to the “cleaning lady.” When some cute white news person (Willow Bay?) was working sports and dating a black athlete, Mc Guirk nearly vomited on air, and said it was disgusting. Imus has been saying or endorsing this crap for years. Stanley Crouch has been calling for politicians to boycott Imus for at least a decade because of the racist comments.
What he said about the Rutgers’ basketball team was more of the same–and it’s about damned time he got called on it.
Per the Sharpton interview, Imus wasn’t the one who said it, and they were satirizing David Duke.
McGuirk makes Imus look like a goddamn goodwill ambassador. He’s pathetic. And Imus isn’t all that smart. He surrounds himself with smart people. I’ve been watching him squirm these past few days, but aside from that, I’ve quit him. I think the whole show needs to be reconstructed from the ground up, and that would begin with shitcanning fucking McGuirk.
Hmm. I don’t remember it that way, but it was years ago. But, hell, he’s said so much crap, it doesn’t matter much anyway. And, yeah, McGuirk really needs to go. It really pisses me off when the I-man acts on the air like McGuirk has gone too far, but he’s laughing, and you know that the guy’s not going to say anything that Imus doesn’t approve first.
I think they’re all assholes. But I’m not clamoring for Sharpton or Jackson from being fired from their jobs (whatever their jobs are). That’s the difference.
A friend of mine also made a good point to me in that if you are so thinned skinned that you can’t handle one moron making a stupid joke on his talk show, maybe you shouldn’t be in collegiate level sports or any other activity that takes place in the public arena.
And certainly don’t play pro soccer in Europe, where African players are sometimes subjected to monkey noises and having bananas thrown at them by opposing fans- just thrown out there for comparison.
Take it from me, don’t suggest that Imus’ show involves satire.
Well, it is certainly your right to clamor that S & J be fired from their jobs. I’m sure if you can make a legitimate case to their employer and constituents that they should be removed, you’d get somewhere. But I would expect the goodwill that working class and poor African-Americans have for S & J would make your effort useless. Because there are many people from those communities who can speak to the positive effect their involvement has had in their lives.
Is your friend a member of a group that constantly battles people from the dominant political and socioeconomic group in society - White, middle class males - challenging his/her worth? And those comments reflecting in his or her life opportunities for employment, in housing, in financial compensation, and the like? If not I would respectfully suggest that your friend has no idea what he or she is talking about.
I guess they have to add a new class to the curriculum: Putting Up With Racial Slurs and Not Complaining About It 101.
Totally off topic but does anyone else think Imus looks almost exactly like Andrew Jackson?
Well you need to have jobs to be fired from them- ha! I kid, I kid.
You mean he looks like Andrew Jackson would look if you dug him up now? 
It does seem a stretch to empower his stupid joke to that extent— and while I’m sure none of the players are happy about the incident, it would seem to me that the huge public outcry over his comments, the overwhelming majority critical of Imus and supportive of the players, would mitigate the “hurt” somewhat.
It was an offensive statement by a career asshole, but let’s not turn him into Hitler or Ted Bundy.
I’ve never been a fan of comedians or rappers using the term “ho” to refer to women, but I think there is a difference between using the term “ho” as a generic term for an unspecified woman and, what Mr. Imus did, applying the word “ho” to a specific group of people - the members of the Rutgers’ women basketball team.
I don’t know if I can name two dozen reporters of any color off the top of my head. Why that number, it’s awful big? You said Oprah. How about Tavis Smiley, Juan Williams, Al Roker. The last one was kind of a joke, but certainly the first two are better picks.
How do you know what these girls have expereinced? Certainly there is no universal black American experience. I doubt that their being black has to date hampered in any way their careers as basketball players or interefered with their getting decent dorms, scholarships, or the like. I doubly doubt that this will in anyway “follow” then through their careers. Without googling, name them? Now name them in a year, ten, twenty. An irony to all of this is that Imus has shone the spotlight a little bit longer on Rutgers women’s basketball, and collegiate women’s basketball in general. I have no doubt that ten times as many people now know that Rutgers was in the national title game. Look, he didn’t intentionally do them any favors, but they sit in a position to make hay off of this (and from the sound of the remarks at the press conference, some of them are). Should they be expected to suck up every racist remark they encounter inl life? No. Some of them might be in the spotlight (at least as much of a spotlight as the WNBA shines) and they need to be able to handle comments like this and they stand to gain a lot more by not acting like the victim when some dinosaur forgets that he’s no longer broadcasting in the 1950’s south. I wish Juan Willims had this interview. Hell, I wish Bill Cosby could be on a panel with Juan Williams and Imus, let Tavis run the damn thing.
Because Wee Brain said
(bolding mine)
So he doesn’t want Al Sharpton to be the go to guy for apologizing to black people and there are dozens of alternatives, so I’m asking who they are.
It’s also in Imus’ best interest to go to a ‘man of the cloth’ who are in the forgiveness business rather than go on Oprah, or I even would like to see them on Dr. Phil.
One of the things I found very offensive about Imus and crew is that they were happy about the triumph of the beautiful over the ugly, or at least what they thought about the personal acttractivness of the the two teams. So instead of watching basketball they where sitting thinking which team they would rather fuck and they were happy that the more fuckable team won. The NCAA tournement is not a beauty contest. If the teams were all white women, what they said would still be just so very wrong.
Well, I don’t know their exact experience, but I would suggest that there is a common experience among African Americans dealing with racism on some level. Perhaps institutional, perhaps individual. But there’s a reason why scholars like William Cross, Janet Helms, and Beverly Daniel Tatum have theorized about racial identity development among African Americans. There are many common points of reference. Heck, on this message board, you can search many threads where you can see African-American Dopers relating to common experiences of racism, prejudice, etc.
Now who’s presuming to know what these girls have experienced?
This isn’t some cheap reality show. I don’t understand this idea that negative or embarrassing attention is better than none. I guess you’d have to ask them, but I would presume these young ladies would much rather be answering two questions about basketball than a thousand about the slight they received. They said as much in the press conference.
Would you care to explain this? I watched the press conference. What “hay” are they going to make?
Well as you said, no. They are responding publicly to a racist remark they encountered. Problem?
Are you projecting here? I heard nothing proclaiming victimhood. They were upset and hurt by Imus’ comments and they said so. What exactly is “victimhood,” anyway?
It seems you’re imagining or reading in to the things that were said at the press conference. The women spoke about their accomplishments on the court, the bond they had with one another, and the talents and skills they had beyond the court. The harshest words for Imus came from the RU president. Was he proclaiming victimhood?
Juan Williams? Bill Cosby? Tavis Smiley? What point are you making here? Imus could have contacted them all, but for some reason he went to Sharpton. Take it up with Imus.