First off I'd like to say Don Imus is rich, he'll be fine.
This whole Imus ordeal is so chaotic and crazy to me; I don't understand why Reverend Sharpton would call for Imus to be fired after accepting Michael Richards' apology, I mean he didn't even call for a boycott..
Any listener of Imus's program knows he even refers to his wife as a 'ho.' And not even Reverend Sharpton had the balls to ask why discussions on accomplished females tend to focus on their appearance, which was the true crime Imus committed.
And remember Fat Nick Minucci, who was convicted of a hate crime last year after he bludgeoned a black kid while calling him a nigger - his lawyer used the hip-hop defense, claiming that Minucci's use of the word was not racist, but rather a common term expressed by fans of hip-hop as a term of endearment, the jury didn't buy that one.
Between these last few racist uproars I see a pattern - to say that hateful comments aren't so bad because rappers use or have used the same language.
Rap as a music is not responsible for sexist and racist sentiments, there is rap without hate, and hate without rap. And I think that Sharpton and Jackson are problematic, but the media keep going to them, so even when they are right about a specific issue some people holler "Hymietown" or "Tawana Brawley" and then hypocrisy becomes the focus, rather than the real issue that matters to me.
Sexism and hatred is not an intrinsic part of Hip-hop culture, after all this is the movement that spawned Will Smith, Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, and Kanye West. It isn't a mere coincidence that the violence and misogyny in Hip-hop rose with media consolidation. That the more conscious rappers out there are not part of the mainstream says more about the marketing decisions of the corporate media, than about Hip-hop.
Misogyny in corporate rap is not news, backlash against it - led by womens groups on campuses, and media pundits (Stanley Crouch anyone?) isn't news either.
It seems disingenuous for the MSM to target rappers now after 10 years of gangster rap. And I'm just positive those feminist crusaders were concerned about the images and language of popular hip-hop before Fat Nick's or Michael Richards' or Don Imus' meltdowns. I mean, if Snoop Dogg said it then Don Imus should say it too.
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From what I saw the media pundits ideas on racism seem completely out of sync with reality.. There's this black and white paradigm that says either somebody is racist or they're not-- the racist is aggressive, mean-spirited, probably a southerner, and he uses nasty words.
This is not racism in the 21st century, people. Even the Klan has toned it down in the last 50 years. There is a vocabulary, a subtext, a movement to put people down without blatantly insulting them, the racism of today is slippery and easier to ignore than anything our parents or grandparents faced.
What else can explain how pundits could denounce M. Richards' or Imus' comments as racist while denying that those men are racists themselves.
Even the Nazi soldiers went home to a wife and kid and adored them, loved them like any good husband and father would.
Which brings me to another common defense of Imus, the "he gives money and support for sick kids, black kids and neeedy kids" defense. I'm happy he does it, and apparently without racially discriminating. Does this mean he doesn't view non-whites or females as lesser in some intrinsic way?
People who are decent and perhaps even admirable by many measures of such things CAN be racists. Racists are not necessarily monstrosities. They are not necessarily the biggest assholes you know. Many people know and love people who harbor racist ideas. Some racists might even make friends with somebody of a dreaded color, and excuse their stereotypes by claiming their friend is not like the rest of her color.
I think everybody should chill out and judge individuals based on what they say and do, not on overarching stereotypes, we have to allow for people to make HONEST mistakes, while continuing to fight ignorance and hatred on every level.