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.

Everyone once in a while I'll get in the car and NPR will have something boring on and I'm too lazy to hook up the ipod for the short trip home and I will begin to listen to Cowherd. After all, my commute's only 9 minute, you think you could stand anything for 9 minutes. I never make it.

He literally says the same thing, in the same words, a dozen times in a row. My three year old would lose patience with that rhetorical strategy and say 'papa, I understand. you told me already' after the third or fourth time.

Oh, and then there was the time he was belittling Italian soccer by saying the only decent thing to ever come out of Italy was Picasso! It comforted me at least to know that maybe there was an employment future for all my C students after all.

First of all, I would agree that donning the scarf (as many courteous Western women might do in any Mosque or orthodox Jewish temple) is as accceptable as my wearing a yarmulke while attending a Bar Mitvah. It is a sign of respect.

Second of all, there is a wide-ranging and thoughtful academic literature on the issue of the veil/scarf historically and currently. It is not something that has been universally worn by all Muslims since the time of the Prophet, nor is it necessarily seen as anti-women by all of its wearers. This can be seen especially in the case of Muslim women in Turkey and France who desire a higher education ( a progressive and, one would think, universally-desired outcome), but are kept out of universities and medical schools because of their desire to put a piece of cloth over their heads.

Not surpisingly, a topic which intersects with race, religion, gender, imperialism and our basic freedom to run our lives as we see it is more complex and nuanced than many observers want to admit. Of course the President doesn't "do nuance."

A good starting place for a historical discussion of this issue is the classic article "The Discourse of the Veil" by Leila Ahmed in her seminal book Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale University Press, 1992).

A hour before this was posted, TPMMuckraker.com commented on this same WaPo article using the same Rocky reference about Eye of the Tiger.

TPMMuckraker.com: "It's a scene reminiscent of a training montage from the Rocky movies...(excerpt) You can almost hear "Eye of The Tiger" in the background."

In my line of work, when you take someone else's ideas and don't give credit for it, that's called plagiarism. And if someone beats you to it, you don't get to claim that you came up with on your own.

Am I missing something?

Alex Koppelman, please respond.

The announcers mentioned that Parker could go play overseas, where there's much bigger money. Of course, it's cold in Russia. Maybe Brazil has a prowomen's league...