This hullabaloo surrounding Don Imus has been bugging me.
Don’t get me wrong. Imus’ remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were vulgar, obnoxious, and thoroughly objectionable.
But—here’s the thing: This guy has made a living since the 80’s being vulgar, obnoxious and objectionable. Like Howard Stern. And Rush Limbaugh. And the jillion other shock-jocks and shock-jock-wannabees that have dominated the airwaves across the country over the last thirty years.
Obnoxious is what they have been paid to be. Obnoxious is, apparently, what people want to hear. Obnoxious has sold the credit cards and the cel phones and the office supplies and the dish soap and the automobiles for more than two decades.
So, what….? This guy makes one remark that is some degree more heinous than everything else he’s ever said, and suddenly we’re all clapping our hands over our virgin ears? We wallow around in the latrine with these guys for decades, grinning our secret grins and tittering our embarrassed laughs... Then this particularly smelly turd floats by and we freak out. We haven't noticed before now that we’re neck-deep in shit!?
What bunch of laughable hypocrites we’ve become.
You hit the nail on the head with this one. Why the big fuss NOW? Personally I've never liked him or any like him but they have the right to try to attract an audience I suppose. The whole thing that struck me about this was why is everybody so upset now, he's apparently said some pretty horrible things about people for a long time. Yes I think he should apologize. Do I think he means it? Not really. At best it means "I wish I'd known it would make such a fuss. I wouldn't have said it then." His apology doesn't, I don't think, mean he is truly sorry for how those Rutgers players are feeling which pretty much makes it meaningless. Should he be fired for what he said? Not necessarily. As much as I don't like it he had the right to say it I suppose. What is next if people are allowed to force his employers to fire him? Where is the line drawn? Most things these days seem to upset somebody when they are said, hence all this crap about being politicaly correct. (It's still an Easter Bunny as far as I'm concerned.) His employers hired him to do a job...the job he's been doing for years as you pointed out. He apparently does it well. If they don't like the way he does his job, or something he said causes him to lose market share and be no longer profitable for them, then they fire him, not because somebody, or a few somebody's, who are not part of his audience said to fire him.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about doing an entry about Imus myself, but you have said all. And, I just don't get it. I mean , I get it, but I don't want to.
ReplyDeleteOh, if you don't like it or find it objectional, just turn the damn channel! Turn off the radio. What if we adopt this stand against books...movies....and peoples religions? I just really don't get it, why we (and I have to assume 'we' are the majority) are sitting back and letting this happen.
ReplyDeleteI understand your point, but I'm also glad that people realize that there IS a line, and that he totally crossed it. "Nappy-headed 'ho's"? I don't know what kind of heinous things he has said in the past, because I've never listened to the guy to my knowledge, but that comment was awful. I can see how no company or sponsor would want to be associated with the guy.
ReplyDeleteYou said it, and now I don't have to. Once again, you're dead on target.
ReplyDeleteI guess I have been living in the dark ages, I di not know who he was befor this!
ReplyDeleteAmen. I've never heard the man. Actually I've barely heard of the man. He looks sad, and sorry and about ten years older than he really is.
ReplyDeleteIt's just another form of violence that's become so pervasive in our culture that it doesn't even register anymore unless it's off the charts.
But, did Imus say anything any worse than the the hip hop rappers have been saying for years? So it's somehow ok for black men to denigrate black women, but not ok for a white chucklehead to do it. I wish Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would take on their own homegrown misogynists with the same energy they're using to go after Don Imus.
Jackie
I won't listen to any of these jerks that make their living demeaning others. I guess I don't enjoy hanging around the latrine. I find it all offensive and wish that I lived in a world where the good in all people was celebrated. Why is it entertaining to exploit weakness or misfortune?
ReplyDeleteI wish they'd all think twice before they took an opportunity to put down others. That especially applies to those that target social groups that are products of a struggling cultures. Being a poor black woman with no discernable skill or talent is nothing to laugh about.
We live in a country of free speech. But if you want to speak freely, you have to face the music if someone else has the guts to stand up and say.."oh NO you don't!" I wish it happened more often. We shouldn't legislate it, because free speech needs to be protected. But these jerks need to think before they spew their "entertainment" at the expense of others.
I agree with you completely. Why is everyone so shocked by Imus' remarks? That's what he's been paid to do all along... That's why he's called a SHOCK-JOCK.
ReplyDeleteShadie
Once again, you've said it so well. And while we're on the topic...I haven't rented a movie in maybe two years, so this weekend I rented Borat. YUCK! It was disgusting, crude, lude, not funny...much like Imus, I gather, whom I've never heard of before, btw...I can't stand to listen to any of them, but if Borat is any indication, they seem to be multiplying...
ReplyDeleteJudi