Letters to the Editor
rkr327
Published Letters: 43 Editor's Choice: 5
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Perspective
[Read the article: Bloggers, Don Imus and free speech]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The basic ‘shtick’ with Imus is the unedited id loose in the real world. [Say anything!] Although he does edit himself, he is hardly perfect in that regard, and things over the line will out.
It’s humor! Sophomoric, crude and often very funny. Anyone who takes Imus and company seriously in such business is seriously courting loosing their grip. Exploiting stereotypes is part of that game. But Imus and his gang play it entirely in the spirit of ‘equal opportunity’.
It is one thing to cycle through a select group of stereotypes, however humorously, in pursuit of an agenda (racial, political, personal, whatever); it is quite another to present a whirling carnival burlesque of stereotypes, with no discernable agenda at all. The sheer idiocy of the stereotypes themselves is thrown into high relief. Jokes are what they are good for – the only thing they are good for. THAT most nearly describes what “happens” on Imus in the Morning.
Get a Grip!
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In three posts
[Read the article: Firing Imus was the right thing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Imus I
I take strong exception to taking Don Imus off the air. Did he do something wrong? YES! Should he apologize, and ask forgiveness from the Rutger’s University Women’s basketball team and its coach and staff.? ABSOLUTELY! Should he meet them in person? If they wish it, CERTAINLY! These young women were not candidates for the particular (peculiar?) humor of his program. Celebrities are, but this team certainly was not. They were indeed robbed of a precious moment in their lives, and a price needed to be paid. I thought the two weeks suspension, and the dialog as it was developing, were about right. He is responsible for his humor and for the impact of how it can be taken. He cannot propose that only those ‘in’ on his shtick are listening. He must be aware of the incidental or occasional listeners who can be egregiously hurt. And he must be sensitive, as well, to the plight of those whose attention might be brought to what has been said – albeit as comedy – by others, so that ‘the comedy’ is encountered outside of the unique context of the program.
Ironically, the one ‘good’ that has been proposed to come from this - a national conversation on racist and sexist language ‘in the air’ around us – is rendered unlikely with Imus not on the air. Once he becomes involved with a question, he becomes a BULLDOG on it, frequently driving nearly anyone going along for the ride crazy. It’s about 95% probable that, without Imus to drive the matter, these questions will disappear in short order.