As a parent, I am utterly beside myself with anger; not that he said it, but that he will get away unscathed. I am terrified that the media will just excuse it with their usual casual cynicism. Jeff Greenfield is appearing on Imus tomorrow as if nothing is wrong.

I am reminded of MLK's Letter From a Birmingham Jail, in which he said "when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"

Honestly, I am not normally a "what about the children!?" person, but what am I to tell my daughter? That no matter what she does, no matter how much she achieves, not only will racists reduce her to a stereotype of an over-sexualized whore, but that the country won't care? That she can work hard and win a national stage only to be referred to as "jigaboo" and no one well do anything more than tsk-tsk?

That when people do respond with anger, racist letter writters (I am talking to you, Gordon Wagner) will tell them to calm down, take a joke, and phrase it in Amos & Andy dialect?

I am a historian. I study imperialism and slavery and racism. I know this is a racist country. I am not naive, but this felt like a slap in the face.

He has a right to say whatever he wants and not go to jail. But media is a business and we the customers have the right (and in this case, the obligation) to write to his bosses and let them know that we disapprove, that we will not support their stations at all while he is still employed there, that we will not support the products of companies that advertise with his show.

He has the right to free speech and we have the same right. We also have the power to withhold our dollars from people who support racists.

In Buffalo, in all social circles, playoff beards are perfectly acceptable. Half the male population put away their razors on Easter Sunday and now don't have to shave again until the Sabres either win the Cup or are eliminated. Your boss can't complain, because, c'mon man, it's a playoff beard! And he probably has one as well.

Last year, by the time they were eliminated, it was incredible to see the preponderance of beards at the supermarket or gas station and of course even more so at the arena or in a bar.

There's been an ongoing debate about what women could do to join the movement. On the one hand, there are women who want to show their support for the team but are divided about how to do it; pigtails for two months? Sabres colors at all times? On the other hand, there are the refusniks: wives/girlfriends who are anti-beard and who vow to grow their leg/underarm hair out in protest until their husbands/boyfriends shave and stop rubbing their faces raw.

Go Sabres.

It is clear that no matter how many faux apologies he issues, Don Imus simply does not get it. Even as he repeats the non-apology of if-people-are-offended variety, he demonstrates that he clearly does not understand that he did anything wrong.

The Time today reports:

Today he said that the phrases he used “originated in the black community. ... I may be a white man, but I know that these young women and young black women all through that society are demeaned and degraded by their own black men and that they are called that name.”

Really? That's the excuse? Because some black people call other black people bad names within the community, he can reduce a group of outstanding young women to the lowest stereotype of their community? Would a husband accept that explanation from someone who insulted your wife? Hey! Wives are insulted all the time by men who are their own husbands. You're a man. Therefore you have no right to be upset that I've just insulted your wife.

He should be boycotted. His sponsors should be boycotted. His guests should be boycotted and his employers as well. Let us speak with a strong voice that while this is clearly protected speech, we the American public have higher standards than this and we will not support those who tolerate those who do.