Yeah, I hate to tell you this, but some people are jerks. They will call you fat, stupid, nigger, fag, homo, bitch, dick-head, cunt-face, asshole, retard, loser, nappy ho or any other slur or insult you can think of. You can’t have every asshole fired from their job or banned from your presence because they offended you. Every slight against you does not warrent a media crusade. A person shouldn’t have to endure harassment, but the Rutgers girls aren’t Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier.
What would Martin Luthor King say if asked how he felt about being called a nappy haired ho? He’s say “sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the firehose spraying me in the face, the police beating me with sticks and the the dogs biteing my legs”
Anyhow, see you in Advanced Making Mountains Out of Molehills class later today.
Well, I don’t think any of the Rutgers players said that Imus should be fired. Sharpton has called for him to be fired. And what’s the threshold? Only those who are working on Jackie Robinson-type efforts are allowed to say, “Hey, what you said was fucked up, and I don’t appreciate it?”
Perhaps we should have the msmith537 Scale of Outrage. You can let everyone know if their particular slight or insult is worthy of response.
Well, Martin Luther King would probably say, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Racism has progressed, my friend. It’s far more subtle.
Nah, I’m skipping that one. Just like you could skip commenting on this issue, if it’s such a complete waste of time and not a big deal.
Fact of the matter is, you have no idea what MLK would say about this. None.
Given the way that Sharpton, Jackson, and the NACCP are trounced upon on a daily basis on this board, I’d be mighty surprised if MLK was well-regarded here if he were alive. Folks would almost certainly dismiss him as a troublemaker and an attention whore, just like they do any black person who speaks out against racism in a public forum. So it always amuses me when people put words in the mouth of a dead man who they’d probably hate if it weren’t for that darn assassination.
I hate the goddamn National Association of child care professionals!
Seriously, that’s like saying, the way taco bell beef is regarded, I’d be surprised if filet mignon would be well-regarded. Minus the NAACP. They seem fine.
Don’t you just love it when people who bash Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson cite Martin Luther King, who was the “Al Sharpton” of his day. Always complaining, always protesting, never happy that guy was. Back then he was a commie-pinko rabble-rouser. Nowadays he’s a saint. A saint who would have never worried his sanctified head over insults hurled over the radio, even if they insulted his daughters and his wife.
When you get discriminated at Denny’s, they tell you to go to another restaurant. When you suspect discrimination in the workplace, they tell you to stop being paranoid and be grateful they even let your Affirmative Action ass in the door. When you hear offensive remarks on the radio, they tell you to turn the channel and quit whining. The message they tell you is that these are petty concerns that only distract you from the real problems. But the real message is: I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOU COMPLAIN ANY MORE! YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY BY NOW, DAMMIT!
What they don’t understand is that these things are all tied together. When one listens gleefully as a shock jock waxes poetic about “nappy headed jigaboos”, how does that person react to the nappy-headed gentleman sitting across from him at the job interview? When one gives a racist comedian a pass for the mean things he says because, hey, someone finds him funny, how does that person react when it’s his/her child yelling those same things at a classmate? Or when a coworker repeats those “funny” things at the water cooler, and a black person overhears them? How does that person feel when she tells them her feelings were hurt? Does that person scream at her to suck it up and deal, BECAUSE WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, YA NAPPY-HEADED JIGABOO? Is that why we have the first amendment? So we can be mean to one another and disregard the pain our words may cause?
No, I don’t believe in censorship. I think Don Imus should be perfectly free to say whatever he wants. But I don’t understand why he has to say whatever he wants on the radio, on airwaves that are owned and regulated by the people. No one is given that right, so why should he be treated any different? Because a bunch of white guys don’t think what he said was a big enough deal and they love their I-Man? Please!
(I say all of this despite believing the media has devoted too much attention to this topic. “Forget about the war and White House investigations of people lying. We need a special, in-depth segment on the Rutgers-Imus fiasco because it’s DRAMA!” I’m already feeling the fatigue.)
I think you’re missing the point. King was reviled in many quarters when he was alive. As much as the right has sanitized him, the reality is that he was in favor of a form or reparations. He was anti-Vietnam by 1965. He had strong views supporting democratic socialism. We know he had extramarital affairs, and he possibly appropriated significant parts of his own writings from uncredited sources.
Despite this he was, and is, deserving of every accolade given to him - the Nobel Prize, national holiday, honorary degrees. Oh, and guess who was one of his proteges? Jesse Jackson!
I doubt that he would be championed as the universally praised savior of race relations in today’s political environment.
I seldom watch Imus but I can’t believe how stupid this little caper was.
In the first place, he defended it on the basis of “it’s a comedy show.” So he broke the first rule of comedy which is to be funny. There was nothing remotely or even potentially funny about the remarks.
In the second place, anyone with the brains God gave a goose should know that the remark was bound to be offensive. I know part of his schtick is to be offensive, but usually his targets are prominent people who have done someting he considers stupid. These team members don’t fit that profile.
Excuse me, but you insult the good name of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and the name of Malcolm X when you toss Al Sharpton’s name up with either of them.
I’ve said before why I think Sharpton’s a bad person. I’ve said before why I respect King, and why I respect X, and why I think Farrakhan should be in jail.
I’ve said before why I think we are damn lucky we had Ms. Parks where she was, when she was, as who she was, as a nation and a people.
That said, I understand exactly what those women meant when they said he made the moment about him. From now on, any mention of their triumph is going to have his sad-ass name attached to it. Their hard work, their blood, toil, sweat, and tears, has been reduced by an aging self-proclaimed cowboy’s few belittling words.
‘nappy headed hos’
Less than people. Less even than objects. Stereotypes, cardboard cutouts.
Why is he filet mignon in your comparison? Because, to you and mswas, in his non-violent approach to civil disobedience, he was one of them *well-behaved, good, clean * nigras?
The only thing that I disagree with is the strawman that Dopers who say that Sharpton is a piece of crap (he is) would not regard King well today. It’s not true, and it’s offensive.
Well, the original strawman was create when Sharpton was made the focus of this thread, this discussion about what *Imus * did wrong.
The only reason Sharpton was even brought up here was because, for whatever reason, Imus chose to go on his show. Nobody put a gun his head; if you have a problem with his doing that, like another poster said, take it up with him.
I’ve never said that, but everybody loves King because he’s not in anybody’s face about their wrongdoing… hasn’t been for almost 40 years now. Similar to how a lot of people love John F. Kennedy after he died, but it wasn’t as if the nation was enthralled with him when he was alive.
King was human and made mistakes. As far as I know he never admitted to, or apologized for the ones I’ve mentioned. He got involved in a lot of situations that didn’t affect him personally, but affected poor Black people. Sounds a lot like what Jackson and Sharpton have been up to all their lives. I’m not deifying King because there is no need to. He’s still a great man to whom this country owes a debt. I’ll not vilify Sharpton and/or Jackson for the same reasons.
E.D. Nixon identified King as a leader in the NAACP. King identified Jackson as a leader in the SCLC. Jackson identified Sharpton as a leader in Operation PUSH. There’s a lineage of leadership here.
Oh - and I’ll go on record here to say it’s no surprise to me there isn’t a groundswell of folks wanting to take up the mantle of fighting for civil rights. It’s not like you get a lot of positive reinforcement, until you’re dead. Anyway! Back to Imus…
Hippy Hollow, do you really think that Sharpton will be fondly remembered 40 years from now? I’m not sure that saying King was imperfect and he is fondly remembered, so maybe we’ll ignore Sharpton’s problems works for me. I’m reminded of Calvin bragging to Susie Derkins that Einstein had bad grades in school, but his are even worse.
Anyway, I’m sure a mod will be along soon to move this out of Cafe Society!
No, but the point was that making such a stink over what is a trivial matter diminishes the legetimate struggles and hardships people like MLK and Malcom X endured. Rosa Parks had to ride in the back of the bus or get arrested. Blacks were beaten and killed. The Rutgers girls got called nappy hos by an ignorent has-been DJ. Truly the black people are facing an insurmountable challenge.
Fact of the matter is, you have no idea what the SDMB would say about this. None.
Wow, that’s a lot of power you attribute to Don Imus’ words. Understand that it is the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world with the media and their “continuing coverage” of this incident that has overshadowed the girls achievement. Without them, Imus and his ignorent comments would have been quietly ignored.
Well, I would submit that you don’t have to listen to his radio program if you don’t like what he says. Ultimately his producers will decide if he has turned off enough people to make his show unprofitable.
That’s the problem with people. They’re all for free speech as long as they are only hearing things they like to hear. “I don’t believe in censorship. I think Don Imus should be perfectly free to say whatever he wants. But I don’t understand why he has to say whatever he wants on the radio.” The answer to that is we DO want the people to decide what goes over the airwaves, not just the people we agree with. We don’t want the government legislating it.
Except now my right to IGNORE both Don Imus and Rutgers Women’s Basketball - two things I care nothing about - has been taken away. Now I have to see it on every damn station.
