O.T.: Taking Pulse on Don Imus issue

[Rich Stern]

[rant]



What I find disturbing about all of this is how show business has become news, and news has become show business.



Watch a news show, and they are talking (seriously) about who the father of Anna Nicole's baby is, or what should happen to Imus, or who the winner of American Idol should be.



Our society is blurring the line between reality and entertainment; I'm afraid there are many among us who are losing track of what is important.



Instead of watching that kind of drivel, have a conversation or play a game of cards with your spouse, your sibling, your kids, your friends. Leave the TV off and read a book instead. Go down to the town square and start a conversation with someone sitting on the square feeding the pidgeons. Go to the library. Volunteer for somethng in your community.



We do not have to be what the people who produce such garbage want us to be.



Tune out.



[/rant]

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Nelson, the difference is that Don Imus is a shock jock. He uses satire, parody and comedy to entertain, and often that comedy is offensive, over the line, and in poor taste. It's what one expects to hear when he is performing "his duties".



If a news anchor or a public servant said what Imus said, then sure, by all means, fire the guy. But Imus, well, he's been saying all that and worse for over two decades, and only now when a few call for a pound of flesh, he gets served up.



P.S. I agree with you Rich Stern...Imus was being Imus and got fired for it. Just more PC, BS, censorship if you ask me.



TJR

 

[Rodger Tellefson]

I totally agree with Rich Stern about not watching that kind of stuff, and turning off the TV. I generally watch the Travel Channel, TLC, Animal Channel, Discovery Health, Speed Channel, History Channel, etc. The only reason I now about the Imus thing is that I also watch Glenn Beck and The O'Riely Factor.

 

[Ray McIntireJr]

can't we all just get along!?!

 

[Lloyd Curry]

Firing of IMUS, a total BS over reaction.



Let's see NBC apply these same standards to the music awards shows that feature Black artists whose music lyrics denegrate young women. Will that happen? Probably not. And where is Jesse and Al on these artist issues? Nowwhere to be found.



As for me, I'm sick of a world full of "political correctness". If you don't like the channel, change it.

 

[Nelson Atwell]

I agree the news is not really news anymore. Here are cnn.com's current top stories:







MSNBC drops Don Imus | Your e-mails | Video



Exonerated Duke players want changes | Video



Slide show: Duke players react | Your e-mails



Bomb destroys Baghdad bridge, kills 10 | Video



Soldiers' duty tours extended | Video



Thai king pardons man who marred his images



2,000 stolen wedding gowns seized at border



Planes wait while controller takes potty break



Tears, hugs as toddler finally leaves hospital



Docs worry that 'I'm sorry' will cost them



Tall tale about Bush car bomb burns up blogs



'American Idol' sends another packing | Video

 

[Rick Kent]

Let's put this in perspective:



Imus insults the Rutgers Womens Basketball team (who?).



The black community is up in arms and demands his firing.



Drugs, teen pregnancy, broken homes, unemployment, crime, drug abuse do not warrant the same outrage in this same black community.



In the top 10 current rap songs in the US: Ho, *******, and N***** appear in the lyrics of all 10.



R Kelly routinely calls black women Ho & Bitch in his lyrics and throws around N**** like it is the word "The".



MSNBC displays gutless, white guilt and fires Imus mere hours before his annual fund raiser for children withcCancer (this is the 18th year for it).



The moral of the story: Hurt feelings are more important than real issues, including children dying of cancer.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

IF it were to be taken on a personal level, for example, if I were one of the girls he insulted I would take it VERY personal. No matter what rap songs have done to the words, none of the words Imus said are anywhere near polite. So if I was a player on that team it would affect me personally and hurt me personally.



Has the media blown this out of proportion? As mentioned above in other posts there are much more pressing items out there.



I feel Sharpton is at least as bad as Imus. The guy is so one sided it is not funny. All the people supporting Sharpten have in one form or another had their issues as well.



In many cases they have used the term "cracker" referring to whites in general. But we do not see that in the news or as an issue.



Bottom line, Sharpton lives in a glass house, he should NOT be throwing stones...

 

[Johnny O]

Problem is the double standard. If a rapper said "nappy-headed ho'" in a song, if one hasn't already, nothing would be said. If a white guy says it then all hell breaks loose.



That said, it was a stupid thing to say, especially from Imus who's got no business saying anything about anybody else's hair with that train wreck of a 'do that he has.



I am eagerly awaiting apologies to the Duke lacrosse team from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Malik Shabazz.

 

[Fred]

I am eagerly awaiting apologies to the Duke lacrosse team from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Malik Shabazz.

Don't hold your breath.



Actually, to be more diverse, you need to totally forget everything those non-racial fellows did after the non-racial exotic dancer accused the players.

 

[Rod Helstad]

I have never listened to Don Imus, nor do I agree or disagree with all the BS that is going on, but here is something that was in my email this morning. Thought it was interesting. Rod



"COMMENTARY

Imus isn’t the real bad guy

Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.

By JASON WHITLOCK

Columnist



Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.



You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.



You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.



Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.



The bigots win again.



While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.



I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.



It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.



Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.



It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.



I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.



But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.



I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.



Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.



Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.



But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.



In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in part

 

[Ryan Schaecher]

Quote:



I am eagerly awaiting apologies to the Duke lacrosse team from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Malik Shabazz.







Don't hold your breath.



Actually, to be more diverse, you need to totally forget everything those non-racial fellows did after the non-racial exotic dancer accused the players.

Ditto.



I'm still waiting on the Dixie Chicks to appoligize.

I'm still waiting on "Reverand" Sharpton to appoligize about Tawana Brawley

I'm still waiting on "Reverand" Jackson to appoligize about calling New York Jews "Heimey's"

I'm still waiting on Rosie to apploigize for saying that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America."

I'm still waiting for Julian Bond to appoligize for saying that the Bush cabinet appointees that they came from the Taliban wing of the Republican Party.

I'm still waiting for Spike Lee to appoligize for sayingthat he hated interracial couples. And when he sees interracial couples, he gives them visual daggers.



All of this offends me, yet I'm not out on every network, newscast, radio station, Regis and Kelley or Oprah saying so. I'm bigger than that.



Sharpton and Jackson defaced the poor Duke players. They defaced Steven Pagones in the Tawana Brawley thing. They insulted the Jews. But they've both ran for President and received high accolades for doing so. The media runs to them any chance they get.



Yet neither one of the "Reverands" said spit when Rosie opened her mouth.



The Imus case aside, it's always the "right" wing who must appoligize for anything and everything. Joy Behar must pre-appoligize to Sharpton for mentioning Tawana on the View. Rush Limbaugh looses his ESPN gig when he states "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”



Guess what? He didn't stay on ESPN long.



Up until Imus, the left never said anything about it's own members.



I'll have to find Keith Olbermann's comments about one network having no manhood about one of their members spouting off (I think it was ABC with Rosie) but goes to bat and freely admits being two-faced about Imus. I need to find the quotes to get it accurate.

 

[Fred]

And another question, how does "nappy headed ho" refer to any color? I think "ho" is slang for whore(?), and if I'm not mistaken there are whores in all colors. Oh yeah, I forgot, the double standard thing has already been mentioned. Nevermind.

 

[Jeff Geist]

Some Al Sharpton racists remarks and actions (the man is a hypocrite):

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."

 

[Jeff Geist]

The slang nappy typically refers to black women and all the "product" they put in their hair.

 

[TomT]

There would be no racial problems if people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would quit exploiting everything. Funny thing is, I work with several blacks and none of them can stand Al or Jesse. In fact the ONLY people that listen to them are poor uneducated blacks and liberal white people.

 

[Bill V]

I find it especially interesting that one of the more outspoken critics of Imus on this subject has been Whoopi Goldberg.



And what is the name of the production company owned and run by Whoopi?



One Ho Productions.



How do you spell "hypocrit"? W-H-O-O-P-I

 

[Chad Merry]

Both of the "Reverends" are useless and it is an incredible waste of time to even listen to the garbage that comes out of their mouths.

 

[WXMotorSports DecalsPartsAccs]

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are Racism Hustlers. Al Sharpton even have any creditability after the last election? Only 3% of the black population voted for him.



Imus shouldn't of made the remarks, however, leave it to the media to blow it out. Even the Capt of the Rutgers team thought his name was Doug Imus.



I've must of missed it but are they offended at all of being called a "Ho"?

 

[A K]

"If CBS follows suit as NBC has done, it gives a chilling message to those that will use the public airwaves in a way that is gender-biased and race-biased," Sharpton told "The Situation Room."



He also said he intends to complain to the Federal Communications Commission about the matter.



"Somewhere we must draw the line in what is tolerable in mainstream media," he said Sunday. "We cannot keep going through offending us and then apologizing and then acting like it never happened. Somewhere we've got to stop this."

Wait, wait--Al Sharpton is racially neutral? If he wants to see the above occur, he better be prepared to lose his camera time, too.