MSNBC announced a few hours ago that they are ending their satellite of the Imus in the Morning program. This is due to the number of advertisers who have pulled their spots from the show, though NBC News is saying that they are upholding a certain standard.
I'm talked out about the subject.
2 comments:
OK, I never was an Imus fan (but boy are my parents), but after reading your posts I dug a little deeper last night on the internets.
My 2 cents: Do I think Imus should be fired or even suspended over this? No. I found worse things he's said over the years, but he's pretty much the original "shock jock" so that's to be expected. Do I agree with the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson witch hunt? No. Do I think we should just let this go? No. Do I think his comment was racist? Yeah, I do. But honestly he's really just guilty of being almost as old as my Dad and making a lame joke that some 18 year old would make to his friends on AIM. It was sad to watch him defending himself on Al Sharpton's show, and I kept hoping he would rip into Mr "I hate Jews" the whole time.
But, as someone who has lived first half of my life in the NYC Burbs and the 2nd half in the South I can say that the good ole boy/Jim Crowe mentality is alive and well here. I can say with confidence that people in the Northeast are fairly insulated from BS a guy like me (white) hears from random people in the South who think I'm in the "club" and will laugh off their racist comments. I have black friends here who have told me some pretty shocking stories, and they're a lot younger than me.
I'm sorry Imus has become the poster child for racism in America for the last week, but I'm glad the media and the American public seem to be so fascinated with comments from people like Michael Richards, Mel Gibson & now Imus. America is now paying the price for 200 years of oppressing/ignoring/abusing/mistreating an entire race of people, and I think it will be a long time before we recover.
But there definitely is a double standard here. I'm hopeful that all of these incidents will make the masses rise up and complain equally about words much worse than what Imus said that are uttered by hip hop artists at the top of the charts today. There's a great post I saw on digg.com today that says it all: http://tinyurl.com/38oxzv
And don't even get me started on Mr Hymietown and Mr Kill The Jew. Does anyone really take those two anti-semites seriously?
Hopefully Imus can recover from this, and hopefully Americans of all colors can learn something from this mess.
Jon,
Great post. Thanks.
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