Letters to the Editor
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I love how some white folks want everyone _else_ to take responsibilty for their actions...
>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?<
And _that_ is why this is so offensive. Day after day after day white folks just love to talk about black folks' failings and say that they all are dangerous gangstas or shiftless trash. The Rutgers' women's team have accomplishments many white teams would be proud of, but that's not good enough for the likes of Imus and his defenders--they still have to reduce these women to terms they can understand and deal with. No matter what black people do, folks like Imus will always find a way to make them out as less than human--and turn their insults back on us by claiming we're sensitive or are letting ourselves be represented by "agitators."
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Uh, JMWalker
These women just pulled off a Cinderella season with high grades and becoming number two in the country in women's NCAA basketball, and it doesn't matter a peep because a vicious bully decides to equate them to dirty crack prostitutes? No matter what they do or achieve, their race will STILL be the only thing some whites will see (like Imus and his fans who don't think the comment was racists)? Notice, I didn't say all whites. Imus's show has a very small demographic, but it is a very powerful and desireable group of people to advertisers. Many whites are as disgusted as blacks about this kind of vicious bullying.
What do the women of Rutgers have to do to have their achievements seen? There are plenty of white college women with tattoos, in basketball and other sports. There are white men with tattoos (Justin Chambers from Grey's Anatomy has a bunch) but they can be "seen" as individuals. These women, who worked so hard and proved themselves on national TV, couldn't be seen by the indifferent jerks on that show for their achievement. None of them were "nappy headed" or "hos", by the way. That was NOT an accurate statement of their "grooming". But to some whites (Imus and his fans) all of us black women, no matter what we do or how much we achieve or act, will ever be anything other than these stereotypes. We can't be individualized. We can't be middle class. We can't just be for SOME white people. Imus pandered to those whites.
This carries over, unspoken,into the workplace.
For the record, many black women have ripped on the gangsta rappers (whose audience is white) as race traitors, and many black organziations and media, from Essence to the NAACP to the Urban League to Girls Inc. toblack leaders like Julian Bonds and Joan Morgan(DESPITE what white people think, Sharpton and Jackson are NOT THE leaders of black America-that's like saying Dobson and Falwell represent ALL of white Ammerica- so stop using publicity hounds as an excuse for Imus. That he chose Sharpton's show to apologize on makes his apology seem LESS credible to me than if he had gone on Tony Brown's Journal, or talked to a credible black journalist- wait, that would mean he'd have to apologize to Gwen Ifil, the black Clinton WHite House beat journalist he called a cleaning lady.) The MSM ignores actual black leaders because they are less interested in controversy (Maxine Waters would have castrated Imus, as would have Eric Michael Dyson, Bill Cosby...Oprah, much as I dislike her, could have busted his chops better).
The fact that he rips everyone makes me even more disgusted. He's like the guy in the movie "In the Company of Men" who was such a misanthropic bully. He ripped people wherever it would hurt them the most. Imus should have been disciplined a long time ago. It should not have taken this to get us here. NO ONE deserves this kind of bullying treatment, with a shrug of the shoulders and a pathetically passive aggressive "You're just thin skinned" or "You need to get over it" or "He treats everyone that way" or "He's just trying to be funny". That's just manipulative viciousness.
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Amazing how some people want to overlook the basic point here...
(But then it's always easier to put the blame on Sharpton/the black community/rappers than it it to face your own racism.) The reason people are angry over Imus' remarks is that there was no truth to them--or excuse for them. The Rutgers women's team accomplishments are something a white team would be proud of, so why is Imus insulting these girls as if they're gangsta thugs? If a black broadcaster had called the Tennessee team a bunch of "straw-haired skank hookers," you can bet he'd _never_ work in broadcasting again. So, why does Imus get a pass for doing this? Imus has been pulling this "say racist crap, then pretend to be so, so sorry" garbage for a good twenty-five years now. (He was the guy who thought it was hilarious to play "Another One Bites the Dust" when police would find victims during the Atlanta Child Murders case, for example.) Now, it's catching up to him--and about freakin' time. And to you who defend this as humor--humor is funny when it's truthful. Where was the truth in this--unless you think all athletic AAmerican women are secretly hoes and deserve to be insulted because they aren't straight-haired white girls...
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make amends??
Wow, Imus makes another stupid comment that should offend people...and he gets a two weeks vacation! Maybe he should spend those two weeks doing something useful. He could work on a new act if his bosses really insist he stop being an offensive asshole. Imus without the insults. Would there still be an Imus?
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Imus
As a fan of college women's basketball AND a frequent listener/watcher of Imus In The Morning, I can attest that Don Imus doesn't respect college women's basketball, period. I believe he thought no one else does, either, and thus he could offer an incredibly crude remark with impunity. Still, I wish that SOMEDAY, SOMEONE targeted by a racist remark will riposte, rather than mope. Years ago, I regretted Tiger Woods' sullen reaction to Fuzzy Zoeller, when he could so effectively have made fun of him instead--this over-the-hill, out-of-touch competitor whose game pales beside Tiger's. Instead, we were asked to agree with Tiger that somehow, despite being incredibly gifted, privileged, and young, he had been made to suffer.