I don’t know how many people have been following the developments of the comments made by Don Imus, a radio talk show host and writer, on Tuesday in reference to the Rutgers women’s basketball team. His exact words to describe them were “nappy headed hoes” and “jiggaboos”. If you haven’t seen it, the video is below:
Imus was subsequently suspended for 2 weeks. My question to our readers this week is do you think that suspension is enough? Or should he have been fired? Do you believe his speech is protected under the First Amendment? I’m pretty sure that regular readers know where I stand on this, so I’m posing the question to you.
File this under the “Free Speech, Free Market” Section for me. If Don Imus–apparently the Grandfather of the shock-jock era, says nappy headed hoes over the airwaves, its stupid and rude, but it’s his right to say it. You can’t throw free speech out of the window just because it’s offensive. They wouldn’t have put it in the Constitution if only “non-offensive” speech was to be protected. The free market part is already at work–advertisers are pulling their support of his show, and Imus will drop in the ratings. He’s already hitting the Apology Circuit Tour (along with Tim Hardaway, Kramer, Isiah Washington, Ann Coulter, Mel Gibson, and more!)
As for his punishment–it’s fit for the “crime.” The suspension allows time for the situation to cool off and drop from the news cycle. The calls for his firing though are misguided I’m afraid. Sharpton and his friends in the Thought Police are wildly inconsistent–when rappers use this language to demean women on a regular basis, they have “forums” and “hip-hop summits,” where they hand-wring and talk about parental responsibility and free speech. Sharpton and the NAACP won’t make public calls for Sony-BMG, Universal, Viacom, etc., to fire rappers who use such language on the regular.
Perhaps Imus should look into signing with a label–then all the outrage against him would only be in passing.
I feel you Charles, and as I recall, Michael Irvin(black), an NFL “analyst” aka ass-clown referred to Dallas Cowboy’s QB Tony Romo (white) as being a gifted athlete because, “His great-grandmother grabbed one of the brothas from the shed and got busy”. Now, this is a BLACK analyst on-air perpetuating sterotypes about his own people, I’m not making excuses for Imus, who looks like the bastard lovechild of Billy Bob Thorton and a woman’s leather handbag, but we as blacks would have a moral perch to look down on this behavior if we didn’t condone it ourselves.
Wow, didn’t know that. That’s crazy man. Also, you had me rollin’ when you talked about B.B. Thorton and the leather handbag! He does kinda look like he can be the spokesman for Marlboro Cigarettes.
well, MSNBC has cancelled oh boy according to CNN….and some of the advertisers were pulling out. maybe this will make some of these record execs rethink some of the stuff they’re doing….yeah right…there is a double standard, but he’s got the right to free speech, and i’m tired of it being okay for rappers to say junk but if someone like Imus says it, he gets nailed. I just wish they’d all shut up… and can someone PLEASE do something about Al Sharpton? I’m so sick of him!!
But you know what….they do look a little rough….did you see the captain?? Just because they play basketball doesn’t mean they have to look like dudes…..with so many negative images of black women…we do have to try and keep ourselves up… he was still wrong, but they did look a little crazy. at the press conference, they looked a lot better. although this is a very heated situation, i hope that something good comes out of it as far as appearance and how we are viewed. first impressions are lasting impressions- we all know that…so maybe coaches will begin to take more pride in how their team presents themselves. as a coach myself, i think it reminds me to check my girls out too. are the hidden rules of society right?? nope, but i think it’s a wake-up call. hope i’m not coming off as insensitive….
HI MS.JENKINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I heard the comments and saw the video. I was not offended. I even laughed a little. Imus comments to me clearly fell under the first amendment. What is interestig is how the issues that the comments bring up are being overlooked. One issue is black people when it comes to race. I have noticed that I seems to be okay when we make comments that may be demeaning to other group or race of people. Okay until the comments foucus on us. Some black people really have the belief that we can not be racist or prejudist at all. My friends and I were talking about the Imus issue the other day and came to some interesting points. Black people have to understand that somethings should not be said in mixed company. Once it is ok for certain things to be discussed in mixed company it is seen as ok for others as ok to repeat amongist others (think about it). All in all we have to pick and choose our battles and I really do not think that this is one of them. Think about these two points: Since I see that Imus has been fired by MSNBC isn’t it just a matter of time before Surrius offers him a mutli-million dollar contract. Also,how can we chastise the white man when, black men are still making the same comments everyday.
Hello everybody. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for sharing your opinions.
Anyone who’s read any of my previous articles on the subject know that I’m going to pull the 1st Amendment card and say that Imus had every right to say what he said. If the government or the FCC had swooped in and started legislating, then I’d be disappointed. I can’t say I’d be outraged, because I personally think Imus is a douche bag, but I would be disappointed at a failure of the 1st Amendment to protect speech.
We had a similar discussion about the Tim Hardaway incident back during All Star Weekend. I was championing free speech without seeing that the detractors of Hardaway were also exercising their free speech rights and the NBA was protecting it’s investment and it’s sponsors.
That same 1st Amendment guarantees that Imus’s detractors, specifically black people have the same right to voice their distaste. The free market that we exist in means that we as consumers have the right to vote with our dollars. The events that lead to Imus’s termination are a direct result of sponsors and content providers protecting their investments into this free market. When people rally to a cause, shit gets done.
We, as a black people, won this small battle. But before we go patting ourselves on the back, we must not lose site of the war. We should be rallying around bigger issues and threats to the black community and being more proactive in finding and solving them instead of waiting for something bad to happen and being reactionary.