Why Don Imus was Wrong - and Right

If you haven't heard the ruckus over Imus' remarks about the Rutgers Women's basketball team, you must have been in a coma recently. I used to listen to Imus in the Morning back in the early 1970s when commuting to work in New Jersey. He was funny, brash, and pushed the censor envelope every time he went on the air.

He also was fired from an L.A. radio station for similar racial remarks before being picked up by a NY station. His warning was, however, that he would be canned if he went over the censorship line.

I think there are two uproars over his latest gaff: one camp is the Black community itself (and guilty White liberals), and the other is the one that I'm in, called the "tired of the double standard" camp.

Blacks have their own race-baiting champions, namely Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson. They always come out of the woodwork if a White person makes a comment, remark, joke, whatever, that has any racial overtones. Indeed, these usual suspects have made it a cottage industry and they are the CEOs of phony racial injustices. They are so predictable as to be laughable. If I was a Black person, I would be embarrassed to have these chuckle heads "represent" me.

My contention is that you can't have it both ways, yet they persist in their one-sided attacks -- they are the poster boys of the double-standard. And that's what irritates and outrages me to no end.

This is the year 2007, people. Ethnic and racial jokes are pervasive across the new media that didn't exist before the 1970s. We now have the internet, cable TV, and satellite radio as venues for every manner of speech. Does that make it right? No, absolutely not.

Imus referred to the women (of whom there were a couple of White girls on the team) as "nappy-haired hos". I also read the context of that comment, when his sidekick McGuirk mentioned that they had tattoos and were rough girls. That led up to Imus' comment. If you read the transcript, or heard it, it was a virtual Black-speak reference to the women, harsh as it was.

I thought about the remark in the context of the girls themselves. It was hurtful. What if any of them was my daughter? I would be outraged, as their parents should be and probably are.

But, like I said, it's the year 2007. Anything goes. Anything for a laugh, regardless of the potential pain it can inflict. Imus was going for the shock humor that his audience is used to and probably craves. In-your-face nastiness prevails, across all racial and ethnic boundaries. Would Imus say the same thing in person to any of those girls? Absolutely not.

Where am I going with this? Back to the double-standard issue. Why is it perfectly acceptable to most of the Black community when Ludicrous and other so-called rappers use the N-word, call Black women "bitches" and "hos"? The African-American female is totally denigrated on a daily basis by African-American males. Is that okay?

A really good example of this is the Dave Chappelle show. I've watched every episode, sometimes more than once. He's a brilliantly funny guy with very creative writers who far exceed Imus in the racial shtick. Dave seemingly knows the difference between comedic remarks and nastiness. I think he understands the boundary quite well. He satirizes every race with equal aplomb, making his fans (and I'm one of them) laugh out loud. Should he be held to the same standard that Imus was? I hate to admit it but yes, he should, as I don't believe Imus was being nasty, just trying to be funny in the 'hood sense.

Black entertainers constantly use race as the foundation for their stand-up comedy routines, excoriating Whites and White police officers. Funny? Yeah, sometimes, if you don't adhere to a double standard. They make fun of rednecks and their Southern style of living without anyone standing up and protesting.

Where is the line drawn with free speech? Some people say "on the public airwaves". I don't listen to rap stations at all. It's my choice, and I don't tune in the stations on the "public airwaves". The same could be said about Imus' show on MSNBC (past tense, now). If you don't like his humor, don't tune him in. The same goes for Howard Stern, the King of the Shock Jocks. I have a choice -- I don't listen to him.

I'm waiting for a courageous Black to stand up to Sharpton, Jackson, and the rest of the race-baiters and hold them accountable on moral and philosophical grounds. Their racial demagoguery continues to widen the divide between Blacks and Whites in this country. As for Imus, he's toast. He's had a long run since the early 70s and is now in a has-been category.

By the way, Sharpton has never apologized to the White community for the Tawana Brawley incident. Do a Google search on it, and see the double standard at work.