You may think that the whole Imus affair has everything to do with Imus saying a slur against African-American women. You can be forgiven for thinking this is true, but the truth is much stranger than that. Like Bonfire of the Vanities pointed out nearly two decades ago, there are bigger forces at work here not unlike the forces detailed by Tom Wolfe.
More on the flip.
[UPDATED]
First, Imus and his staff do something bad. On their radio program, they call a bunch of (yes) innocent college basketball players "n****-headed h***." It's rude. It's hurtful, and mean-spirited. It's also not very funny.
But it's also in passing. Is there any reason to think that Imus has any special hatred for Rutgers basketball or black women in particular? Anyone who listens to the show can see that he insults a lot of people (calling Dick Cheney and George Bush "war criminals", for example, and frequently calling the people on his program "bald-headed nazis" or something along those lines). There's no doubt that it's not a good thing. Still, there's no evidence that this is a "window on his soul" and that it's his lifelong ambition to keep black women down.
It also reduces all his good works. His money spent helping kids with cancer or SIDS babies? All forgotten. His outspoken advocacy for kicking drugs and alcohol? Gone. His slamming of the Iraq war? Done. His building of a world-class veteran's treatment center, and his role in publicizing the Walter Reed scandals? See ya. The free airtime he gave Harold Ford, Jr. in the Tennessee primary - and the condemnation of the Republican racists who came up with the "Playboy" ad to bring him down? All but forgotten.
Then, he feels the pressure. Folks like the NAACP, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have been licking their chops for something like this to happen for more than a decade. A white guy saying something like that? It's time to flex our muscles and state our outrage! Never mind that I can turn on any regular radio station and hear hits from rap artists the demean women with a much stronger tone and a much more subversive message of women being sexual playthings. Or I can look at issues of real policy racism - for example, why our government isn't doing more to stop the genocide of Africans halfway across the world, or pressuring drug companies to save millions of black (and Asian) lives a year by supplying malaria nets to developing countries.
But it's not about racism to them. It's about pumping up their already-declining membership and relevance. I know I can get my people fired up about this, while it's hard to pressure George Bush on Darfur and rappers about nasty images and lyrics. A white guy said that? Time to picket NBC!
CBS board members (also prominent members of the NAACP), eager to put in a "lay-up against racism", say Imus should be fired. Not because they think Imus is a racist, but to "teach a lesson" to all the other (read: white) evildoers who might actually say something like that.
Sponsors try to avoid the "R" word. Threatened with being labeled "racist", thin-skinned sponsors leave the program. Sharpton cheers. Jackson cheers. The NAACP cheers. But not about vanquishing racism. They're cheering because they still feel they're relevant.
They're not cheering because Imus won't be around to expose hypocrisies about the administration, or support some of their candidates. Because he's not reliably Republican or Democrat, he's "unreliable". He doesn't pass the red or blue litmus test. He's only important as a straw man, right?
We live in an era now where our pundits have to wear red "R"s or blue "D"s on their forehead. Although Imus is a nice man who said something bad, he's of no use to us. After all, what's his demographic? We can't identify who's the "R"'s and who's the "D"'s. "So what's the use? If we want to advertise to "R"'s, we'll go on O'Brien!"
The Rutgers ladies speak out. They are classy women, all of them. They know they can get him fired with one word at their press conference. Yet unlike the rabid media horde, they act with wisdom beyond the entire press corps. They are measured in their response, saying they will meet with Don Imus and talk to him face to face. A lot of people in the media were hoping them to say "I'm going to slap his face silly!" or something. But they didn't. They acted like champions.
Unsatisfied, CNN and the AP make something out of nothing. How can we keep this in the news, you picture the suits at CNN ask? In the same way they brought down Howard Dean and so many other political figures, they find a way to twist the words of the press conference to make it sound like the Rutgers ladies really did take it to him.
"I mean, isn't it more important that we get our morning ratings up?" you can hear the suits say. "Imus is killing us! If we can just keep this in the public eye this week, he might resign!"
"Just make a piece tying what the Rutgers ladies said, what he said, and comparing it to the worst things any shock jock, no matter how obscure, said in their lives," you can hear the AP suits say. "This news story is on fire, and we'll do our best to keep it up! Besides, it sells papers!"
The candidates weigh in. All competing for the "black vote", the Democratic nominees for president, in full campaign mode, fall over themselves to try to outdo the other in condemning Imus. A "Sister Soulja" moment for Hillary and Obama, they eagerly compete to see who's more outraged. "I'd fire him!" says Obama. "I'd never go on his show!" says Hillary. "I'd kill him!" says Kucinich.
The pressure being too great, MSNBC dumps Imus. Fools around the world feel that this is a victory against racism. O'Reilly and Limbaugh, you're on notice! Racism is a thing of the past! Whee!
In the middle of his 18th annual drive to raise money for kids (of all races and backgrounds) with cancer and SIDS foundation, Imus is given the news. Unsurprisingly, he takes ownership of what he did and says "I can pay the price." He apologized for what he said; he correctly said that the issue is between him and the Rutgers basketball team; yet it's not enough.
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It's not about racism. It's not about eradicating racism, or punishing someone for saying something. It's about a guy who's trying to hold the powerful to account, who made a stupid comment and only has his listeners and fans to defend him, a cross-section of "R"s and "D"s who don't fit into an easy political constituency. And forces beyond his control have been unleashed, for good or ill, that will determine the fate of his program on the radio, even though his fate on MSNBC has been sealed.
Just don't expect it to have anything to do with true racism. This has always been a circle-jerk of political correctness, not about racism.
I can picture Dick Cheney cackling with glee. Finally, someone silenced that damned cowboy! Pass me another pork chop, Condi!