(and found i've been misspelling it all along! (it's gyn for women, not gen)) it's not so easy to find *actual* quotes. almost all are about Imus. but one says, "Al Sharpton also plans to talk to the FCC about an airwaves ban on rappers who don't respect women. "If they've got the right to call my daughter a b----," Sharpton says, "I have a right to say 'boycott'.". it seems everything is in the "planning stage" though for all i know sharpton spoke in many churches (where most rap artists can surely be found, early sunday morning)

Is just a scream of anger and frustration from the impovershed and forgotten inner cities.....The inner cities that explode every now and then and everyone goes--"Oh my".

Rap music is just a reminder that this problem is still there, and probably heading towards a massive boil-over somewhere down the line.

That's the reason the white establishment doesn't like rap. They just want it all to go away.

I feel like America is more divided today than it was yesterday. Not that America was united over a radio host, but this incident, the fact that it took corporate sponsors pulling out to get the network to act, the gutlessness of Tim Russert, Joe Lieberman, and others, all of it just stinks.

Clarence Page was the only commentator who spoke with any clarity on the issue, so good for him. Joan, I remain a fan, but your ambivalence was palpable. I think you want to believe he should be fired, but you don't.

Several people have applauded the discussion this opened. If it continues, which it probably won't, can I add that it's OK to criticize someone without calling for their dismissal? How about a general discussion of speech, be it free or sponsored by CBS? How about some deference to people who've held their job for over 30 years? Jobs in broadcasting and journalism are scarce -- maybe this is part of the problem -- so let's not be so quick to demand someone lose their job. If you lost a job, you'd be a little slower on that trigger.

Rob Anderson, Imus' firing is simply not a violation of his first amendment rights.

No responsible court in America would deem it such.

Yes, the airwaves are public, as are the waterways, but that point is specious in this context.

By that logic, Imus doesn't have the "right" to his show any more than you or I have the right to dump toxic waste in the Colorado River.

In reality, he doesn't have the right to a syndicated national radio show any more than you or I have the right to a syndicated national radio show.

I'm sorry that you enjoyed Imus in the past and feel for those who will now be deprived of convenient access to his product.

But their access to his speech was not curtailed by prior restraint, it was curtailed by capitalism and private industry.

If Wal-Mart is selling a really great toilet paper - soft, cheap, works great....it's the BEST toilet paper ever! - and they simply stop selling it, they have not violated your civil rights. They've just annoyed you & bummed you out.

If enough people complain, that might entice Wal-Mart to change its mind.

If not, and if enough people continue to clamor for the toilet paper, maybe Target will start carrying it.

Otherwise, you'll just have to special order it on the internet.

Imus is an entertainer, and his speech is his product.

He certainly has a legal right to speak, but he simply does not have a legal right to have that speech distributed widely. No one does.

Nor do we have the "right" to hear him.

in 1984 i was traveling with my wife to the famous Crown Heights for her to receive instruction on her conversion. on the subway i see, scribbled high on the wall, "i raped a virgin here, christmas 1984". even after 20 years, the recollection still makes me sick.

Hip hop put the word "ho" in the popular vernacular. And when a 70 year old white guys says "ho", you know that hip hop's influence is far-reaching. Maybe this will force the hip hop community to reflect upon its message. If anything positive can come about from this controversy, perhaps this is it.

There is a cost for what you say. Free speech doesn't mean that there isn't a price to be paid for what you say...

One thing that has changed and not for the better is the shear amount if inflammatory and slanderous rhetoric that is being thrown around with abandon on both radio and teevee...

ALL of the talk show (both teevee and radidio) hosts need to be taught that what they say HAS A COST and isn't 'free'...

I continue to cringe at the illogical depiction of gun use on teevee and movies... What you say can have the effect of a bullet...

I haven't had time to read all the posted comments on this piece, so forgive me if I'm re-tilling the soil here...

Two thoughts come to my mind whenever the "double standard debate" for blacks and whites surfaces when it comes to publicly uttered racial comments.

One is that whenver black rappers or black comedians invoke the N word (or ho, or bitch, or whatever) they are in effect doing the heavy lifting that in decades and centuries past were the "reponsibility" of white racist orators. The new, PC era source of this crap effectivley perpetuates racial myths and prejudices to the cross section of America who is vulnerable to those myths to be perpeturated. The medium is not important. A radio show, a cable rebroadcast of a radio show, a comedy club stage, a hip hop might club...it doesn't matter. The same message is getting through to the same people. The nuances of a "hip" black man or woman publicly making a racial slur or joke is lost. For "educated" or "sensitive" Americans to split hairs over the source and context of these remarks misses the big point, and that is the powers that benefit from blacks being reduced to a sterotype are still in business. Only the messengers have changed.

The other point is that the idea that you should simply "turn it off if you don't like it" is somehow an effective or appropriate response to offesive material is completely insane in the era of mass media. The social impact of disagreeable words and thoughts is what's offensive, not my discomfort or your discomfort caused by hearing them.

Imus should go. So should Dave Chapelle.