The name of the man in the picture to the right will be forgotten before long. This is the first and last entry that will confront the readers of this blog with a picture of Don Imus, but the crawl at the bottom of the screen as he was uttering the slur heard round the world is telling. It shows something about the speed of news cycles; "..H RICHARDS SAID HE ONCE SNORTED..." of course refers to the big scandal that was breaking right before Imus created his own scandal, that Keith Richards said he had snorted his father's ashes in a cocaine mix. That story had legs about one inch long.Now that CBS has followed NBC's lead by firing the original shock jock, he will quickly be replaced by another scandal on the front pages. But his story will be remembered and taught for years by those who work in the mass media. The uttering of casually sexist and racist "jokes" on the public airwaves (or basic cable) is now as clearly taboo as accidentally flashing a female breast during the Super Bowl halftime show or dropping an f-bomb. There's no gray area here. The next Imus who says something similar on the air will have his microphone pulled during the next commercial break.
And Don Imus will remember that it's not nice to fool with the Scarlet Knights. He started the conversation that ended his career by saying, "That's some rough girls from Rutgers." He had no idea. He had no idea that the real strength of these talented young women was in their intelligence and their quiet dignity. While others (including this blogger) immediately jumped into the fray, they showed how vile Don Imus's comments were just by being themselves (and making all of us with connections to Rutgers even prouder to be Scarlet Knights than we already were!).
5 comments:
Funny how Al Sharpton is screaming for apologies and resignations after his comments on the Duke lacrosse team, but now that we know the hooker lied, is he apologizing? HELL NO! what a hypocrit. Besides this whole thing is just a crock as he is only in trouble right now because he's white and he said something bad about black people. If your black and say something bad about white people its not news? That what we call a double standard, get over it... "nappy" and "hoes" are both words that have been promoted primarily by BLACK people, in case you have lived in a cave for the last 50 years.
Michael,
I was going to answer you, but I'm getting very tired of trying to answer lists of red herrings and non sequiturs with something approaching logic.
I'll let your comment stand on its own as an example of what I hope we're losing in the national discourse by losing Don Imus on the radio and cable TV.
Thanks for visiting Mike, and Go Knights!
AL SHARPTON IS A JOKE HE USED THE PLAYER`S FOUR HIS OWN GAIN !! I CAN SAY THAT IMUS HELPED DISADLED VETERANS LIKE ME? WHAT DID AL DO NOT A DAM THING?
Again, this was not about Al Sharpton; if the media paid more attention to Al Sharpton than to the thousands screaming about it before he jumped on board (including large groups like the National Organization of Women, and small ones like the middle-aged white guy running this blog), then blame the media and not Al. If they had succeeded in painting it as the "Al vs. Don Show", then CBS and NBC would probably still have their foul-mouthed cash cow on the air.
(and why can't racists spell?)
So tell me: aren't you happy to hear Don Imus will be back on air pretty soon?
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