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Read other letters about this article
It doesn't matter how much money Imus donated to charity. The largess bestowed on a few children by him and his wife -- with as much self-aggrandizing fanfare as possible, incidentally -- did not license him to damage millions of others with his pathological ranting. It entitled him to a tax break, which no doubt he enjoyed to the maximum.He's done a hell of a lot more for children than I or most people have. But apparently he's not even allowed that shred of dignity, without a high-minded critic snarking all over it. Simple humiliation isn't enough? Apparently it must be abject humiliation. While what Imus said was certainly indecent, there's something indecent about all the piling on as well.
While I have never enjoyed his tedious rants, I have a hard time understanding how they "damage millions." That's PC hysteria. We really shouldn't be so scared of words. People's psyches aren't that fragile. Even when someone has said something truly vile, at some level adult human beings always can choose whether or not to "take offense" and be victimized by it, or whether to ignore it with dignity.
By the way, no one on the Rutgers basketball team, and I imagine, very few young black women, were listening that morning when Imus made his comment. So if anyone was "damaged" by it, it likely happened during the weeklong hyperbolic media regurgitation of it. I'm no fan of Imus -- I find him a meanspirited, tedious, insecure ass -- but this story has been blown ridiculously out of proportion. There's an ugly whiff of scapegoating and score settling about the whole thing.
