In Defence of Imus and Disgust for Sharpton

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=tomndebb]
No, you violated a direct board rule that prohibits distorting text of other posters inside the quote tags.

Do not do this again.

[ /Moderating ]
[/QUOTE]
Well, it just goes to show that one can be here almost 6 years and still remain unaware of some of the rules. I knew that it was frowned upon to distort another person’s quotes seriously, but i thought that irony and other forms of clear and unambiguous distortion, where there was no attempt at actual deception, would be within bounds

Of course, as soon as i read your post, i felt suitably chastised and went off looking for the rule in question. Understandably, the first place i looked was under the link at the top of the page titled “Rules.” After all, one expects that when a moderator cites a “direct board rule,” said rule might be found under the heading “Rules.” That sort of thinking, however, would be a little too linear for the SDMB, apparently, as there was no mention of any such stricture in the Rules section.

After a little more searching, i finally came across the rule in question in a thread started barely six months ago, and stickied to the top of ATMB. The rule was definitely not there when i joined, else i would have seen it. Rarely venturing into that forum, i had missed it; now that i know about it, i will certainly not break it again. I happen to think that drawing no distinction between intentional deception, on the one hand, and clear irony or criticism not intended to deceive, on the other, is bullshit. But obeying bullshit rules is part of posting here, so i will transgress no more.

122

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
Respectfully, I really think this “what if it was YOUR child?” rhetorical device is severely overused on this board, and not particularly useful. Of course someone would mind if their own child, or spouse, or loved one were joked about. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear people publicly making remarks about others that would ruffle me if they were made about me or someone close to me. Political figures and celebrities are mocked relentlessly every night of the week for our entertainment— isn’t every one of them someone’s child?

I’ve never in my life listened to Imus, and frankly don’t give a shit whether he’s fired or not; it was a stupid comment, and hardly his first, apparently. But I’m more concerned about the impact of this “scandal” on public discourse in general, and what seems to me a severely overwrought response, analogous to the “Janet’s halftime nipple” hysteria. We’ve just substituted “what if she were YOUR DAUGHTER?” for “what about the CHILDREN?”
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Perhaps you’re right. I was trying to bring the focus back to what started this in the first place which seems to get lost in the Sharpton is evil campaign. The only reason that he figured so prominently into this story was because Imus contacted him and appeared on his show. When there’s any racial controversy black activists get involved, it’s what they do. So did NOW.

I think the overwrought response had more to do with advertisers pulling out and possible fines than anything Sharpton or anyone else said. I’m sure the women were understandably upset but they seemed agreeable to an apology from Imus. Who knows? Imus is a difficult and demanding guy. Maybe they were looking for a reason to unload him.

123

Harvey Fierstein, in a NYTimes editorial, shows once again why he’s one of my heroes:
[QUOTE=Harvey Fierstein]
. . . America, I tell you that it doesn’t matter how many times you brush your teeth. If your insides are rotting your breath will stink. So, how do you people choose which hate to embrace, which to forgive with a wink and a week in rehab, and which to protest? Where’s my copy of that rule book?
[/QUOTE]

124

[QUOTE=danceswithcats]
Please cite where I’ve advocated avoidance of responsibility for what one says.

Yes, Don Imus or ‘insert name here’ is a jerk. When a sufficient number of people ignore him, he goes away, as his devotees are lacking. That Don Imus and others continue to find a willing audience is sad.

What I have said is that censure of another person’s speech, simply because you find it reprehensible, is wrong.
[/QUOTE]

That’s fucking retarded.

This is not censorship and you know it. (Unless you actually did mean the word “censure”, in which case, censuring someone for saying something like what Imus said is wholly appropriate.) This is the free market in action. CBS and MSNBC are not under some sort of obligation to run this guy’s show, and when the public gets upset at what he says, it’s their prerogative not to provide a forum for him anymore.

Equating such a thing to censorship is ridiculous and it makes a mockery of the importance of protection of free speech. The idea that people who don’t want to hear that crap are obligated not to say anything is ridiculous and stupid. One person’s free speech rights don’t obligate anyone else to approve of what they’re saying or pretend it’s okay when it’s not. Bringing up censorship at all in this context reveals that you’re either talking about something that you’re incredibly ignorant about or else (something I suspect sometimes from the defenders of folks like this) that you actually approve of what he said and are grasping at this ridiculous straw to provide some veneer of justification for it.

This shit is stupid, stupid, stupid. Every time someone brings up censorship in a case like this, it just makes me a little bit sadder - one more piece of evidence that Americans in general, and SDMB members no less, are largely ridiculously stupid and appallingly ignorant of what our rights actually are. Minus the ones who just want to stand up for that kind of thing but are too cowardly to admit it.

125

http://www.cnn.com/
I don’t know what it is about this particular section of the article that ticks me off. But I believe it is CNN’s ability to make it sound like a lot more was said, than was said. Tabloid journalism anyone?

126

Scylla, this is not about Sharpton and Jackson. Look at what was said and the circumstances under which it was said. Are you really going to let Al and Jesse decide your stance?

Who decides what is overwrought and what is appropriate? We feel what we feel.

As for “Won’t somebody please think of the children?”:

That became a cliche because of its continuing urgency in our society. Those of us who don’t have children get a little weary of it. Those of us who teach get tired of saying it. Spin it as you will. The age of the young women should be a factor in considering thei impact of his comments. 18-20. Vulnerable ages despite the intimidating look they chose for the competition.

I think that it is pitiful how easily some people could be fooled into thinking these are rough women.

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I don’t give two shits about Imus, but if my daughter died tonight and Imus went on the radio and called hear a dead cocksucking whore, I wouldn’t give a shit because I don’t give a shit what someone I personally don’t know says. Granted no one wants to her their child insulted, but get real. Didn’t we learn about sticks and stones in first grade?

And as Matt Damon said in School Ties about him being a rich guy getting in trouble- “I’ll still get into Harvard…”. Exactly. These are privileged kids who yes faced something they did not deserve, but trust me, their future was never in doubt. They would be embraced by the business world and high society even if they had been found guilty, so don’t waste time shedding tears for them.

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[QUOTE=Zoe]
Who decides what is overwrought and what is appropriate? We feel what we feel.
[/QUOTE]

True, and what I thought when I heard about it was “eh, what an asshole,” and then my attention moved on to less idiotic matters. The “overwrought response” I’m talking about is not some individual’s personal reaction, but the out-of-proportion public response— the ubiquitous story coverage on every network, the blathering pundits, the front-page screamer headlines, the endless press conferences (many of which involving people who had jack squat to do with the incident, who simply can’t miss an opportunity to pontificate on television). CNN and Fox devoted long blocks of programming covering nothing else but this stupid story, as though it were the most crucial thing happening in the world, to the exclusion of all other news.

Imus made his dumbass remark once, and I’d be surprised if any of the players even heard it when it aired. As “The Daily Show” demonstrated with their clip montage, thanks to the media they (and all of us) have now had to hear the phrase “nappy-headed hos” repeated on-air thousands of times.

But now he’s fired, so things should die down until the next frenzy-of-the-week commands America’s highly deficient attention and we go through it all over again.

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[QUOTE=mhendo]
After a little more searching, i finally came across the rule in question in a thread started barely six months ago, and stickied to the top of ATMB. The rule was definitely not there when i joined, else i would have seen it. Rarely venturing into that forum, i had missed it; now that i know about it, i will certainly not break it again. I happen to think that drawing no distinction between intentional deception, on the one hand, and clear irony or criticism not intended to deceive, on the other, is bullshit. But obeying bullshit rules is part of posting here, so i will transgress no more.
[/QUOTE]
It’s also in the Pit Forum Rules:

[QUOTE=Pit Forum Rules]
Quoting: do not alter words within attributed quote tags beyond fair usage standards.

Do not change the attributed quotes of other posters or off-board citations beyond fair usage standards. If you delete material, use either ellipses or descriptive tags (e.g. <snip>, [material deleted], etc.) to indicate you’ve done so. To add non-editorial explanatory material, use square brackets, which means things like [sic], or replacing a pronoun to make a partial quote more clear. If you add formatting for emphasis, please indicate that you’ve done so, either within square brackets within the quote or immediately after the quote.

Paraphrasing another’s argument should be done with quotation marks, not attributed quote tags.

Quote tags may be used as a formatting tool to display another’s words altered to make a joke or to make a point (e.g. replacing the word “Democrat” or “Republican” with “axe murderer”), but the burden is on the writer to make it absolutely clear even to a casual reader and/or really stupid person that the altered words were not written by the original poster. Anything in a quote tag that is attributed to another poster has to have been written by said poster, barring fair use modifications discussed above.

[/QUOTE]

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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I don’t give two shits about Imus, but if my daughter died tonight and Imus went on the radio and called hear a dead cocksucking whore, I wouldn’t give a shit because I don’t give a shit what someone I personally don’t know says. Granted no one wants to her their child insulted, but get real. Didn’t we learn about sticks and stones in first grade?

And as Matt Damon said in School Ties about him being a rich guy getting in trouble- “I’ll still get into Harvard…”. Exactly. These are privileged kids who yes faced something they did not deserve, but trust me, their future was never in doubt. They would be embraced by the business world and high society even if they had been found guilty, so don’t waste time shedding tears for them.
[/QUOTE]
Are you sure about that? I don’t know one way or the other myself, but I have to ask you, “What does this have to do with the egregiousness of Imus’ remarks?” The same comment applies even if one of the young women said that this will follow them the rest of their lives (or somesuch as reported somewhere).

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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I don’t give two shits about Imus, but if my daughter died tonight and Imus went on the radio and called hear a dead cocksucking whore, I wouldn’t give a shit because I don’t give a shit what someone I personally don’t know says. Granted no one wants to her their child insulted, but get real. Didn’t we learn about sticks and stones in first grade?

And as Matt Damon said in School Ties about him being a rich guy getting in trouble- “I’ll still get into Harvard…”. Exactly. These are privileged kids who yes faced something they did not deserve, but trust me, their future was never in doubt. They would be embraced by the business world and high society even if they had been found guilty, so don’t waste time shedding tears for them.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps because this is not the first time Imus has made such remarks? And just because it doesn’t bother YOU, doesn’t mean it won’t bother others.

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Runaway Bride ring any bells? :smiley:

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[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I don’t give two shits about Imus, but if my daughter died tonight and Imus went on the radio and called hear a dead cocksucking whore, I wouldn’t give a shit because I don’t give a shit what someone I personally don’t know says. Granted no one wants to her their child insulted, but get real. Didn’t we learn about sticks and stones in first grade?
[/quote]
Well, i actually tend to agree that whether he said it about your child, or any particular individual’s child, is not the issue here. The issue is whether what he said was racist and bigoted. And it was, no matter who he’s talking about.

As i’ve said a bunch of times, i don’t want to force him to stop saying shit like that. Hell, at least people like Imus help us work out who the bigots are, so we can avoid them. And my reasons for condemning what he said have nothing to do with my feelings about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Hell, i don’t follow college basketball and i barely knew the team existed before this brouhaha. This is about bigger cultural issues than the dozen or so young women that he was referring to specifically; this is about the type of speech that we think is appropriate in a civilized society. While there’s no need to censor someone like Imus, we can at least hope that he gets the message that some segments of society will refuse to deal with him so long as he acts the way he does.
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
And as Matt Damon said in School Ties about him being a rich guy getting in trouble- “I’ll still get into Harvard…”. Exactly. These are privileged kids who yes faced something they did not deserve, but trust me, their future was never in doubt. They would be embraced by the business world and high society even if they had been found guilty, so don’t waste time shedding tears for them.
[/QUOTE]
Firstly, as i said above, this isn’t (for me anyway) really even about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. It’s about Imus.

Also, to your more specific point about privilege, you realize, i assume, that Rutgers is a state university, and is in a completely different league than Harvard in terms off the resources required to attend, and the average level of family wealth among the students. Admittedly, Rutgers is a very good state university, and one where competition for entry is keen. But in-state tuition at Rutgers (pdf) is less than $4,500 per year, and even tuition for out-of-state people average less than $9,000 per year, a far cry from the $31,456 charged by Harvard for tuition.

Not only that, but a good proportion of the women’s basketball team are probably attending the university on sports scholarships. Yes, this allows them entry into the privileged world of post-secondary education, but it doesn’t say much about the levels of power and privilege that their families enjoy, and about which you know little to nothing. To paint them as a bunch of spoiled rich kids who will get over this and go on to lives of wealth and power, as you seem to want to do through your comparison with Damon’s character in School Ties, is rather stupid.

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[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting]
Are you sure about that? I don’t know one way or the other myself, but I have to ask you, “What does this have to do with the egregiousness of Imus’ remarks?” The same comment applies even if one of the young women said that this will follow them the rest of their lives (or somesuch as reported somewhere).
[/QUOTE]

I stupidly added the second paragraph on this post when it was actually meant to be about the Duke thing. I apologize for any confusion.

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[QUOTE=mhendo]
Well, i actually tend to agree that whether he said it about your child, or any particular individual’s child, is not the issue here. The issue is whether what he said was racist and bigoted. And it was, no matter who he’s talking about.

As i’ve said a bunch of times, i don’t want to force him to stop saying shit like that. Hell, at least people like Imus help us work out who the bigots are, so we can avoid them. And my reasons for condemning what he said have nothing to do with my feelings about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Hell, i don’t follow college basketball and i barely knew the team existed before this brouhaha. This is about bigger cultural issues than the dozen or so young women that he was referring to specifically; this is about the type of speech that we think is appropriate in a civilized society. While there’s no need to censor someone like Imus, we can at least hope that he gets the message that some segments of society will refuse to deal with him so long as he acts the way he does.Firstly, as i said above, this isn’t (for me anyway) really even about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. It’s about Imus.

Also, to your more specific point about privilege, you realize, i assume, that Rutgers is a state university, and is in a completely different league than Harvard in terms off the resources required to attend, and the average level of family wealth among the students. Admittedly, Rutgers is a very good state university, and one where competition for entry is keen. But in-state tuition at Rutgers (pdf) is less than $4,500 per year, and even tuition for out-of-state people average less than $9,000 per year, a far cry from the $31,456 charged by Harvard for tuition.

Not only that, but a good proportion of the women’s basketball team are probably attending the university on sports scholarships. Yes, this allows them entry into the privileged world of post-secondary education, but it doesn’t say much about the levels of power and privilege that their families enjoy, and about which you know little to nothing. To paint them as a bunch of spoiled rich kids who will get over this and go on to lives of wealth and power, as you seem to want to do through your comparison with Damon’s character in School Ties, is rather stupid.
[/QUOTE]

The second paragraph was meant for a thread about the Duke case, I don’t know how I got the two confused, and I apologize for the error.

I have asked a Mod to delete the erroneous second paragrpah.

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I was reading about Phil Hartman this morning, and I had the misfortune to remember the Imus crew’s reaction to his death. Since I’m just throwing things into this thread, I’ll say it was fucking mean and unfunny to say on the morning he died that his wife shot him because his voice was annoying.

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[QUOTE=Caridwen]
Runaway Bride ring any bells? :smiley:
[/QUOTE]

Another good one, but even more dear to my heart as she was a local girl. We’re all so proud.

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Forcing him to be fired is not censorship? What the Hell kind of conclusion is that? Excalibre you are an idiot. An idiot of the worst kind, one who is supremely confident that anyone who thinks other than himself is a fool while he himself doesn’t understand what freedom of speech really means.

I guess closing down a newspaper that prints things I don’t like wouldn’t be censorship either … the reporters can still speak freely.

I guess that Conservative groups scaring Disney out of distributing Fahrenheit 911 and trying to scare anyone else from picking it up wasn’t an attempt at censorship either.

Geting him fired goes beyond appropriate censure and into censorship of the worst kind (And oh that’s so impressive to point out the difference). The hypocritical self-rightousness of those who will fight for freedom of speech as long as people say things that they want to hear. As long as it doesn’t “bother” me or “others”.

Like you with the face said well

Mock him. Insult him. Ignore him. But do not set up a world in which the pundits or politicos have the right to say that if we do not like what you say then you will be pulled off of the soapbox whether others want to hear what you say or not.

Sad thing is what I’ve been thinking about this morning … as noble as these young women may have sounded on air I will be unsurprised if within a few months we see one or more of them in Playboy or Penthouse and justifying their acting the part of sexual object for money with the rationalization of “He implied I’m ugly, well I’ll show him.”

Gawd I hope I’m wrong.

139

[QUOTE=DSeid]
Forcing him to be fired is not censorship? What the Hell kind of conclusion is that? Excalibre you are an idiot. An idiot of the worst kind, one who is supremely confident that anyone who thinks other than himself is a fool while he himself doesn’t understand what freedom of speech really means.

I guess closing down a newspaper that prints things I don’t like wouldn’t be censorship either … the reporters can still speak freely.

I guess that Conservative groups scaring Disney out of distributing Fahrenheit 911 and trying to scare anyone else from picking it up wasn’t an attempt at censorship either.

Geting him fired goes beyond appropriate censure and into censorship of the worst kind (And oh that’s so impressive to point out the difference). The hypocritical self-rightousness of those who will fight for freedom of speech as long as people say things that they want to hear. As long as it doesn’t “bother” me or “others”.

Like you with the face said wellMock him. Insult him. Ignore him. But do not set up a world in which the pundits or politicos have the right to say that if we do not like what you say then you will be pulled off of the soapbox whether others want to hear what you say or not.

Sad thing is what I’ve been thinking about this morning … as noble as these young women may have sounded on air I will be unsurprised if within a few months we see one or more of them in Playboy or Penthouse and justifying their acting the part of sexual object for money with the rationalization of “He implied I’m ugly, well I’ll show him.”

Gawd I hope I’m wrong.
[/QUOTE]

Nice pile of steaming stupid topped off with a final paragraph of patently offensive. Maybe you could replace Imus, the show wouldn’t skip a beat.

Imus lost his job not because of Al Sharpton or Jessie Jacson or anyone else. His advertisers threatened to drop their sponsorship in droves, and that killed it, along with the overwhelmingly negative response.

If I were IBM and was the biggest advertiser on a show, and the hosts kept saying “IBM sucks” day after day, and I took my advertising elsewhere, would IBM be guilty of censorship? You don’t know what the word means.

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[QUOTE=DSeid]
Forcing him to be fired is not censorship?
[/QUOTE]

Who forced him to be fired?