In Defense of Don Imus

Life really does imitate art. South Park kicked off its 11th season a few weeks ago with an episode about "the N word." In the episode, Randy Marsh appears on Jeopardy and has to solve the following puzzle: N_GGERS with the clue "People who Annoy You." Being pressured for an answer he says the N word. In short, the fallout is that Mr. Marsh has to apologize to Rev. Jesse Jackson, by kissing the Reverend's ass, and is publicly humiliated, being called n*****guy. Meanwhile, Stan Marsh (Randy's son, in case you live under a rock) spends the episode trying to understand why the black community is so outraged, ultimately coming to the conclusion that he'll never understand because he isn't black.

If you follow the news at all, this may sound oddly familiar to events of the past week. On his April 4th show, Don Imus, shock jock for WFAN-NY, referred to the Rutgers Girls Basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." If you're familiar at all with morning talk radio, this won't seem that strange. But apparently people were quite offended by this, and so Don Imus was humiliated and made to apologize on Rev. Al Sharpton's radio talk show. This should have been enough, but Revs. Jackson and Sharpton, along with prominent feminists, called for Imus' show to be cancelled. And they got their wish: MSNBC dropped his television syndication on Wednesday, and on Thursday CBS cancelled his show completely.

Perhaps I'm alone, but I find this whole scenario a bit on the absurd side. I don't know if anyone bothered to look up the meaning of "nappy-headed," but it's not specific to African-Americans. "Nappy-headed" literally means possessing tightly-curled hair. I for one know a lot of white people with pretty nappy hair. Yes, Don Imus was referring to a team of African-Americans, but how is this in any way an insult? I can understand not wanting to be called a "ho." It's demeaning and sexist. But can anyone honestly say he or she has never told a joke or made an off-hand remark intended to be funny that offended someone? I don't normally refer to the Bible, but I'm pretty sure the Reverends could do with rereading John 8:7.

The real hypocrisy is Al Sharpton's reaction to all this. He said, "No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation. Perhaps he should consider how artists like Akon and Rich Boy are doing exactly that. If he really wants to put an end to intolerance, maybe he ought to start with banning songs like "Smack That" and "Throw Some D's" from the radio.

Of course, I'm being facetious. I'm not really advocating radio censorship, rather an end to hypocrisy. If Don Imus weren't a rich white guy, he'd still be on the air, and that is racist and sexist.

Censorship: where the radical left and the far right meet back up at the top of the political pendulum.

drock out.

Check out this Time cover story for a good look at what this means for radio, even if they try to be too politically correct at times and tend to equivocate a bit too much, but that's the media for you.