Why would anyone defend Imus for demeaning honorable young women?

Question

So often you hear people saying that young blacks need better role models! Then when they have wonderful and strong role models like these Rutgers basketball players who deserve to be respected and held up as role models......someone like Don Imus or anyone for that matter can call them derogatory remarks over public airwaves and people are not outraged at that behavior?!?!?!

Why would anyone condone or defend this reprehensible behavior?
Don't try the 1st Amendment response because while yes his free speech is protected....his public talk show is not a gauranteed right!

I had hoped we were getting better as a society?

Answer 1

Republicans that want to demean Liberals and women's rights for the next election. You should know by now they will go to any lengths to win.

Answer 2

Have you actually heard the tape?
This whole crap is blown way out of proportion.
If 100 different media outlets (thanks to those racist bigots Al & Jessee) hadn't picked this up, this 10 second comment would have gone unnoticed.
They were talking about a basketball game and how the Tn team looked so clean cut and well, Rutgers didn't. They aren't the most fresh faced team on the planet, the tattoos kind of make you wonder whether you are watching University students or gang bangers play ball.
I saw the game, below I have posted a link to a page that contains on the right hand side in the blue box a link to the actual broadcast. Imus wasn't the only one speaking in an unflattering manner about the Rutgers team.
If we want to crucify Imus for racial remarks, we had better be prepared to attack every single utterance made by every single "entertainer" on televison,in film, in print, on cd and on the radio.

Listen to the recording then tell me this was all worth it- by the way, the man saying jiggaboo and referring to the team as thugs still has a job

Answer 3

It is not that anyone condones his behaviour, per se, but grants him the right to hold and express his opinions.

Because CBS is a business and can employ Imus at will, they have the right to fire him, but that does not prevent Imus from expressing his opinions.

I can say Bush is an idiot in a public forum and many people do here. That is our right. Yahoo censors some words and phrases. They can do so because they own and control this forum.

The players have a right to take offense, Sharpton and Jackson can take offense also. But they cannot deny the right for Imus to express his opinions, not matter how much they disagree.

Sharpton and Jackson are both notorious for anti-Semitic remarks, but they have a right to their opinions.

The First Amendment right to free speech is a fundamental right in this nation. Its importance can be stressed enough.

Answer 4

Nobody is defending "what" Imus said, just that what he said does not justify the arbitrary punishment that resulted. It is censorship...pure and simple.

The way the system SHOULD work is that people who don't like what he says turn him off, and the drop in ratings leads to his show going away. That is NOT censorship; that is capitalism.

Instead we have the likes of Sharpton and Jackson who never met a TV camera they didn't like, once again attaching themselves like leeches to a news story, regardless of its merits, and mobilizing their following of "useful idiots" to intimidate MSNBC, CBS, and their sponsors. These people never watched the show to begin with and are using political correctness to squelch freedom of speech. It is especially hypocritical when Sharpton and Jackson have been frequently guilty of hurting other people with their speech AND are the first to complain that their freedom of speech is being threatened because someone dares complain about any of their outrageous statements.

So I, too had hoped we were getting better as a society...but not for the same reasons.

Answer 5

Wait, honorable? DO you know who he was talking about? You might wanna do some research before you try pressing terms such as Honorable towards women like this. I don't agree with what he said, but listing them as something like that is just plan ignorance.

What I find funny is how this has been blown up bigger than it should have been. Compared to oh, say a black star who ignorantly stated that a President, someone who told people ON public tv to leave before the Hurricane hit, did not care about black people? Because afterall, blacks are the only ones who lived there. But Hey! It's okay for the colored folk to be racist but not the white man! Nappy is a term directed towards a black persons hair, although does not always mean so, it is a racist term nowadays.

Answer 6

He hasn't even tried to defend himself. He admitted that what he said was wrong. I'm not sure any sensible person has defended what he said. But there is still a question about whether he has forfeited the right to ever be on the radio again. There are also some interesting questions about where exactly do we draw the line in what is acceptable and what is not acceptable to say on the radio. It seems that the rules may be changing. Maybe that is a good thing, but it should be acknowledged.

And as far as double standards, that is just something we have to live with. Black people can say the N word, but white people can't. Black people can say "ho" but white people can't. That is just the way it is. Living with that double standard seems to be a pretty small price to pay for more than 200 years of slavery followed by another 100 years of denying people their basic constitutional rights.

Answer 7

Why does everybody defend 50cent, Snoop Dogg or every other wannabee gangster rap artist out there?

Oh wait, nobody does because they are excluded from this situation. Its not as if todays youth listen religiously to Imus, the same way they religiously listen to all those lovely words on the rap albums.

Its double standards and is quite ridiculous. On one hand you have a radio DJ saying a sentence, on the other you have albums full with sentences which are much worse and used by todays youth to look cool.

I believe people are not defending it, they can't understand why others haven't been brought up on their own racism.

Answer 8

FYI.....I've seen the East Side Year Book of E****** C****** and she refers to her friends as her Bitches and Hoes.

I bet if you check all of their yearbooks, there will be similar references.

If these honorable young women refuse to use that language themselves, that is different story. But if they submerse themselves in it daily...(also check out a list of their favorite artists - broadcast during the tournament- for similar language)..they become hypocrites for denouncing it.

And hypocrites are not honorable.

But he still owed them an apology, which he gave.
I also feel Imus' time is done...he has been on the radio forever..

But I wonder, if Imus was really a RACIST why would he allow ethnic children to his Imus Ranch (free of charge) to recover from disease and learn a sense of responsibility. If he is going to be portrayed as a racist/sexist shouldn't he become one and exclude those people from his charitable works(like the Imus Children's Wing at Hackensack University Medical Center)

Would that make you happy? What have you done to help society?

Answer 9

I think he should have been disciplined for it, but not fired! If a black man would have said the same thing on the air, nobody would have said a word about it! If the blacks don't want other races saying stuff like that, then they shouldn't say those kinds of things to each other either!!! How did those girls get hurt by a comment? If it weren't for the media, they wouldn't have even known it was said! I think the whole damn country has gone stark raving mad over all this! Everybody is just to sensitive anymore. If you go looking for it you can take of fence to everything everybody says! It's just nonsense!

Answer 10

I don't defend Imus...I personally think that there has been too much time spent on what he said. There are more pressing matters which should be covered like the BS with the SPP and the NAU that certain elite jerks are pushing along. But if they actually did that then they wouldn't be able to go ahead with what they are planning.

Answer 11

What Don Imus said was extremely poor taste. However, anyone who loses sleep at night of his silly comment should truly get a life! Is that what we have come too, we shut down basic freedom of the radio market to appease people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? (Poverty Pimps). Does every radio host in the country have to truly be careful of what they say because Jesse and Al will scream the loudest when they say something off color? I think the whole thing is rediculous.