What about the sexism, Imus?
Ok, Don Imus was in the wrong, like Limbaugh with his feminazis, and Ann Coulter with whatever s/he has said this week, and all the other blowhards who are regularly hateful – and with more ooomph behind it.
Actually I think the guy was trying to be “cool” and he was the wrong guy, talking about the wrong women, at the exact wrong time. Of course, he has said a lot of nasty things in the past, and had even vowed to stop, so both public opinion and the voice of the marketplace have now spoken.
(By the by, let’s not pretend those young men at Duke are pillars of society, even if the charges have been dropped. It was a pretty unsavory scene – and a common one for the college sports community.)
Imus does do some good work in service to others, though, and that should be factored into moral judgments as well – as it seems to do rather easily for Sharpton and Jackson. Although they have been leading the attack (on the basis of race), they both have histories of inappropriate remarks of their own. For them to lead the moral outrage response on this is about as hypocritical as Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr attacking Clinton on grounds of sexual morality.
I’m always interested in what motivates someone to throw the first stone.
Here’s what is continuing to bother me about the coverage.
Everybody’s talking about race – what about gender? The sexism across all our communities – black, white, everybody – seems (pretty much) to go unquestioned.
Imus’s remarks were not only about a heavily racially-coded form of hairstyle with a cultural history. They were also sexist – a form of prejudice, contempt, and domination against women.
He called them whores! – or “ho’s” – and yet the pundits make no room for a feminist to speak on that issue.
The coach and the women on the team made the point, but who in the media will pick it up? Is it ok to call accomplished young women whores, but just not to do so in a racially-tinged way? Is that the message?
4 thoughts on “What about the sexism, Imus?”
Imus was ousted because he became unprofitable.
He became unprofitable because his sponsors left
His sponsors left because they felt their customers would stop buying their products
His sponsors felt their customers would stop buying their products because they believed in the potential power of a common voice from the black community.
It’s about who was Imus’ audience. If he had been on MTV, he would have gotten a promotion. The fact that he didn’t know his audience is further proof that he should have been removed.
And your point is? (grin)
Actually, there is a side of me that just bristles against censorship at all.
Fundamentally, I don’t believe there is any such thing as a bad word. It’s all about the context, and the person who uses the words.
There is a part of me that would rather have the sexist and racist comments on the table, where they can be confronted.
The big sideshow on this distracted from things that I think are probably more important – but I am glad that the women got to speak, too.
I suppose I still hold on to the idea of freedom of speech, or liberation of discourse. Then, when hateful people express that, everything is out in the open. Chips fall, sponsors back out, same effect.
But it bothered me that the issue of calling accomplished young women whores didn’t seem to bother any part of the community nearly as much as the race issue.
This is not censorship. This is economics. He can say anything he wants. Whether or not he gets to do it in a forum whereby he is paid for this words, is an entirely different question.
I think there are plenty of m~th~r~f~k~g sh~t-~ss p~ss~-l~ck~ng bad words. Otherwise, I would not keep my children from using them. [we shall see how many curse words make it into publication ;-)]
To put words on display for discourse is fine. To use them as a hateful descriptor towards a human is a little too edgy for Mom & Dad commuting to the office listening to Imus.
The big sideshow was that it sold air-time, paper and ink.
Imus is not the newscaster, he is an entertainer who was put into a situation where he reacted badly (poor Kramer) He was supposed to use news to intrigue listeners.
From the “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” show from this past week, I understand that he’ll be getting a new job at a kinder gentler Japanese performance group called the Happy Headed Nohs.
And my editing of your comments means that I have control over the words that are published on my blog. That is a self-decision, not an other-decision.
What I mean is that the words themselves are innocent. The motivations behind them are not, the speaker or writer is still held accountable. And when the speaker is in a position of influence, and especially when the ones attacked are not, that is a form of power assertion. The words themselves are not to blame.
I completely agree that words used – functionally – to dominate – can’t be held as acceptable in civil discourse. But I would rather see the racist and sexist display themselves for what they are than that they agree in secret but never say anything – the people who enjoy such lyrics in rap songs, the insiders who enable hatred.
I am not defending Imus at all by saying that.
The big sideshow is that we weren’t hearing so much about more important issues – like the fascination with Jon Benet, Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole and the like. They preempt the news for days, or weeks, or months…
In this case, it’s all over, I think. Virginia Tech put it in perspective. But now we’ll glom onto that and worship the tragedy as a fetish, the way we tend to do.
Americans seem to have a limited attention span, a short-term interest… just my opinion.