Joan Walsh writes to Owen:

"Thanks to you and others for the nice words...."

Really?

"...incontinent old bags pissing themselves..."?

I guess the "not nice" would come if it were "incontinent 'nappy-headed' old bags pissing themselves..."

I don't listen to Imus. I don't really care about him or his show. I read his comments as they were posted on Broadside. I think they were sophomoric, a little dash of frat boy. I wouldn't call them racist.

In fact, I've yet to see anyone describe exactly how they're racist. That's a pretty heavy word to toss around so irresponsibly, projecting what amounts to an entire worldview onto someone based on a few thoughtless comments.

And this "ho" business. Does anybody actually still take the word literally? It's pretty common place. I hear it all the time on television, on the radio, around town. I call my friends hos. They don't become angry, because they're able to distinguish a figurative jest from a spiteful insult. I wouldn't trot out the misogyny stick and whack anyone with it because somebody called someone else a "ho," but, hey, that's me.

You and others did. It's done. Now that the chicken littles have accomplished absolutely nothing of substance except proving that the fat festering tumor of political correctness is not, in fact, in remission in this country, here's hoping your poor offended sensibilities safely scab up, heal over, and leave nary a scar.

And may that fat mutton leg of self-satisfaction you're gnawing on sate you for a while.

Ha just kidding.

I don't want to get into a serious discussion about which is worse, Playboy and Penthouse or rap. I was just making the point that rap today is far more pervasive and likely far more influential than porno print magazines, which are waning in popularity. I don't think todays teens and young adults are influenced much by those things any more.

Playboy and Penthouse and both substantially different from magazines like Maxim, which are really riffs on British "lad mags" rather than evolutions of Playboy and Penthouse.

Hip-hop is a much more insidious, pervasive, negative cultural influence than a hundred Imuses ever could be. Go to any middle school or high school dance, Joan, and listen to the lyrics. Then think about how things are going to be like ten years from now when tens of millions of suburban kids who say they're "pimps" and "ho's" on their myspace accounts are in the workforce. The bar of what is deemed "acceptable" these days has been lowered so much, a snake couldn't wriggle under it.

Don Imus was an old dinosaur who could never adapt to the times. How anyone could ever miss his smug, arrogant, too-cool-to-bother-enunciating-words-properly schtick is beyond me. It looks like all those Beltway scribes and politicos will have to find another pinky ring to kiss. Let's hope they can find someone who doesn't find "amusement" in arbitrarily slamming others.

A few days ago, I expressed my hope that Don Imus would not be fired (although those words expressed on any job would get not only the employee fired but the business sued, which is why sexual harassment training and diversity training are not routine). By requiring him to rehabilitate on air would force him to use his influence in positive ways and keep this issue in the faces of a huge market. I suspect management considered that...but sponsors for obvious reasons would be skittish at the idea of associating themselves with something that's turned really ugly (just look at some of the "anonymous" postings all over the internet--they make Imus look saintly by comparison).

Remember the movie "Betrayed" with Jodie Foster, based on a true story of a young woman who was gang-raped in a bar? After her lawyer pleaded away her risht to sue her rapists, she made it up to the young lady by going after the ones "who cheered it on." Imus has been cheered on tacitly by viewers and by MSNBC for years--when was he ever disciplined when making equally hateful remarks before this? What is MSNBC's punishment? Why is Imus alone carrying the load for offensive patter that's he honed at the network ever since he's been on the air there?

Those of you who think Imus's routine constitutes freedom of expression--what if your daughters, sisters, and mothers came home from school or work everyday with stories of being called names or ridiculed? Black women are a minority group in this country, which means that most of us are going to have to apply for jobs owned and managed by the majority culture. What kind of real chance do we have to make a fair living when the white majority says it's okay to call us jigaboos and nappy-headed ho's? I've worked in environments like that, and it's painful, damaging, intimidating. Complain about it, report it and it only gets worse.

And don't think I complain only about the Imuses. I have ranted repeatedly about Eddie Murphy's Norbit and voiced disgust about that movie making $30 million dollars when its principal character was a stereotypical monster mammy from hell. I'm tired of being depicted this way, assaulted with these images for now over 50 years!

It must be wonderful to wake up everyday and act like you alone own this world and can do or say anything you like with impunity.

Anyway you have a good point about Imus and his backers. I've said it when complaining about Camille Paglia - there will always be stupid, small-minded people in this world. That in itself is not extraordinary. What is extraordinary about some of them is that they have a large audience and professional backing.

What make Imus and Paglia different from your typical ranting guy at your local bar is that Imus and Paglia are given a national stage to peddle their garbage.

Personally I'm finding all the rap comparisons very interesting. I don't listen to Don Imus or rap, but after reading what Imus said and a sampling of rap lyrics over the past couple of days, I'm far more offended by the rap lyrics.

I'm also interested in all the posters who state that mostly white people buy rap, without relating that number back to population. According to the 2005 Census statistics, 75% of the U.S. is white and 12% is black. So I don't find it that surprising that whites make up the majority of rap buyers. I never expected that only blacks buy rap.

However I wanted to know the statistics, so I've been doing some searching online tonight. It turns out there's some oft-cited statistic about 70% of rap consumers being white. It's rarely mentioned that 70% white rap consumers under-indexes 75% of the white population. But what's even more interesting is that nobody can figure out where the 70% statistic came from. At least I couldn't with some extensive searches, though I did find a couple of sources that also say they can't figure out where the statistic is from.

I know this is a tangent from the whole Imus debate, but I'd like to see some data about who buys rap music, and some discussion about why the same groups that were up in arms over Imus's comment aren't organizing letter-writing campaigns and boycotts of stations that play rap. Not that I think they should....personally I think if you don't like a station, you should change it instead of making it your mission to fire the host or cancel the program, but that's another issue that others have covered far more eloquently than me in previous letters. But these rap comparisons....who does buy rap music? How does it compare to the U.S. population as a whole? Why aren't these same groups outraged by these lyrics, if Don Imus's relatively mild comments are deemed so offensive?

For more information, here are a couple of great sites I found that explored the demograhics (or lack of) of rap consumers:

http://poplicks.com/2005/06/who-buys-hip-hop.html

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0526,kitwana,65332,22.html