First off, I'm totally amazed that this whole thing has gotten so much attention. I mean, look at it statistically...
What are the odds that at least one of the 20 or so people that listen to Imus is also one of the half-dozen that actually watches women's basketball?!
I digress. My point:
I'm sure the black leadership like Revs Sharpton and Jackson believe that by their actions they are empowering themselves to battle racism. However, they are actually pandering to and perpetuating the racism they claim to be fighting. How?
Let me ask this: Why does a comment like "nappy headed ho's" mean more when a white person says it?
By suggesting that these words, tame in comparison to the lyrics of rap music that has a much wider reach, have the power to cost Imus his job (and career, if they have their way), these leaders are projecting the message that what a white person says somehow "matters more."
Now, if they had said "Eh... fuck that guy anyway," and lampooned Imus for the idiot he is, they've taken the power away from his words.
To react in the way most of the media has is to accept a higher standard for Whites with Mics. Somewhere in the world, some neo-Nazi is posting about how "Damn right Aryans should be held to a higher standard. If it weren't for us, how would these (insert racial epithet) know how to talk about their own kind?"
When the opinions of the NAACP give ammo to arch-racist Aryans... something's off.
(BTW, where did Imus pick up "nappy headed ho's" anyway? ...while sipping a mint julep under willow trees on the porch of some plantation house? No, more like Jay Z)
And also, screw all the media (mainstream and bloggers alike) who have filed in behind the knee-jerk reaction on this one. It just goes to show how quickly accusations of racism can kill a discussion and send people on the defensive. Racism is a scarlet letter offense these days, so much so that good thinking people will accept the PC mainstream-media response without so much as a discussion, for fear of being on the other side of Al Sharpton's interview table.
Some are so desperate-to-be-liberal that they grab the first picket sign someone hands them. Most just don't want to be called racist.
Imus isn't off the hook for what he said, and the media isn't off the hook for how they cover it. Let's not stop thinking just yet...
