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Hello, Imus Be Going |
On Thursday CBS decided to join forces with MSNBC and terminate the career of Don Imus, radio legend, due to his comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team being “nappy headed hos” and his producer saying it was a game between the “jiggaboos vs. the wannabes.” Yes I know, Spike Lee had it in his School Daze movie from way back. It’s a shame that no one saw the movie because no one got his joke.
Golden rule, if you’re going to make a joke that can be considered offensive but the source of the joke is virtually unknown, its best to keep your mouth shut.
Now, I am against all forms of racism. Although I do not agree with illegal immigrants coming into our country, I don’t hold anyone accountable for the color of their skin or the way of their culture because there are two strong facts of life. One, we all bleed red, two we all going to die one day. If the world would keep those two thoughts in their head, the world would be a better place.
What Don Imus said was unfortunately along the lines of something I would have blurted out during one of my shows, but not against the Rutgers women’s basketball team. If they were fucking the football players and taking drugs, then I could understand. But these are some smart women playing basketball do become something better than Imus will ever amount to. I know he thought he was being cute and funny, but pick a better target by God Donnie boy.
The thing that makes me sick is you have people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson trying to take Imus to task for what they did. Why is it every time there is a racist comment made, people like Jackson and Sharpton have to be in the front lines fighting it? I believe if black Americans really wanted a savior to defend them, it wouldn’t be men who made racist comments on white people themselves. I also believe that Black Americans are more than capable to defend themselves.
Jackson once called New York “hymie town.” What is a hymie? Lets go to the all trusty Wikipedia.
Hymie is used as a derogatory slur for "Jew". The word comes from the name Hyman (from the Hebrew name Chaim (meaning "life")). "Hymie" was originally a nickname for Hyman. This is the best part of the article, watch it, wait for it. In recent years, the name has been used almost exclusively as a racial slur, particularly due to a famous interview with Jesse Jackson, during the 1984 United States presidential election, where he referred to the Jews of New York as "Hymies", and to New York City as "Hymie Town".
So here we have Jesse running for president making a racist remark, but he is all pissed off because someone used it on a radio show for entertainment purposes. Was double J trying to be entertaining while trying to be..er, presidential?
And then there’s Sharpton, here is a highlight reel from the Capitalist magazine:
1987: Sharpton spreads the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax, insisting heatedly that a 15-year-old black girl was abducted, raped, and smeared with feces by a group of white men. He singles out Steve Pagones, a young prosecutor. Pagones is wholly innocent -- the crime never occurred -- but Sharpton taunts him: "If we're lying, sue us, so we can . . . prove you did it." Pagones does sue, and eventually wins a $345,000 verdict for defamation. To this day, Sharpton refuses to recant his unspeakable slander or to apologize for his role in the odious affair.
1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews -- with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.
1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and simulate striking a match. "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno. (Taken from the Capitalist Magazine, Jeff Jacboy, 2-26-03)
I am sorry, but if I were a Rutgers basketball player, I wouldn’t ask either one of these hypocrites to defend me. You know, its funny, Coach Vivian Stringer never asked for their help. Instead they had a meeting with Imus in the Governor’s mansion of New Jersey to air out some shit, and I guess it went OK.
Let’s go back to Imus. Imus does not feel remorse for his comments and the only reason he is apologizing is because someone is calling him out and he was in danger of losing his job. Imus has been making comments like that against women for years. His comments should not be shocking. He is an old man ready to get himself a pair of depends and a trip to the retirement home. This shit doesn’t matter to him. He has made his money and will most likely be hired by Howard Stern to do satellite as Howard takes back other radio personalities who have done things to get fired. Imus for all intensive purposes is a piece of shit who sees himself in higher regard than others, and the fact he cowered like a yellow dog when called out shows it. A man who is not racist wouldn’t have kissed ass as much as he did. A man who is not racist wouldn’t have given Al Sharpton 5 minutes of his time. A man would have said, “my comments were not race oriented, I was messing around and if you have a problem with it, sue me.” Don Imus is a punk ass pussy ass bitch and that’s about it.
But the question…should he have been fired? No he shouldn’t have.
His comments were offensive, but he has been offending people for years. Why would MSNBC and CBS bend over for Jackson and Sharpton? Yes advertisers pulled their ads. But when will the people of America be given the chance to speak rather than people in the upper class like tweedle dee and tweedle dumb. Why do the suits get all the power? I believe taking Imus off the air for a period of time and then keeping the chains on him once he returned would have been acceptable. If the listeners didn’t come back via Arbitron ratings, then you can his ass because no one wants him around any more. If the people stick around, the advertisers will come back. I know some employees were offended and I do believe that CBS has a responsibility to them, but get over it. It was a stupid comment from a stupid person, and quite frankly after talking to many blacks, that is the way they are looking at it, and they don’t need Jesse Jackson championing for them.
Is racism still a problem in this country? Yes it is. And most likely it always will be. But I believe that anyone who is a different race would rather see people become open minded and accept everyone for who they are, rather than have a money driven media continue to chop away at progress that has been made over the years. Some parts of it will change, and some unfortunately will not. America is shaped to believe certain things and until people realize what I said at the beginning of this piece, we can never move forward.
JAE
