IMUS

[Mary]

admin said:

clubberlang said:

The "Jiggaboo" slur was in reference to the Spike Lee movie "School Daze". He took it right from the movie where the Jigaboos were against the Wannabees.

I think that reference went over a lot of peoples' heads, Clubber.

Yeah, whether Imus is fired for being a dick is really of little matter to me. But as that article pointed out, as well as Mary's observations, the "outrage" is a bit of a misdirection.

i don't want my post to be misunderstood so i just want to make it clear that i was not in any remote way making a comparable argument to the article which rocdoc posted, which i pretty much totally disagree with.

my point was not about public outrage, but about the feigned outrage on the part of the asswipes who hire shock jocks and then pretend to be pissed when their shock jocks offend more people than they wanted. but i think the members of the rutgers basketball team (and that's just the obvious example, but of course any thinking person really fits in here) have every right and reason to find imus' comments totally repellent and to say so.

i have to run and teach so don't have time to get into detail here right now (perhaps later) but for the record:

-- i completely disagree that there is no difference between an old white guy using offensive racial slurs against blacks and a black comedian making fun of all races including his own. context matters.

-- i am so tired of hearing "culture" (and especially hip-hop, as if it is some homogenous blob) blamed for problems in the black community with nary a fucking word about structural conditions like deindustrialization, white flight, and the decline of city centers that has contributed to so much hopelessness and despair in this country's forgotten zip codes.

-- can people who obviously don't know ANYTHING about hip-hop just shut the fuck up about it?? please??

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Mary,


"i completely disagree that there is no difference between an old white guy using offensive racial slurs against blacks and a black comedian making fun of all races including his own. context matters."

I do not agree with this as I think that it makes the excuse to hold one community up by one standard and then hold another community up as another standard. If it's wrong for one, then that standard should be applied across the board. If it's not then you have one group with special interests and another one that doesn't. I understand that the upper class whites in this country have had a special interest against the Black community for more than a century, but as they say, two wrongs don't make a right.

As far as hip hop, me personally I have decided to take a sabbatical from the genre because quite frankly the large amount of homophobia, race-baiting, denegration of women, and the perception that if you are a black person with an education you are considered a "sell out". Now, I don't want it banned, I don't even want it changed, I just don't give a shit. It's their right to say those things and perpetuate the stereotyping of their own race should they feel the need to do that and it's my right to not spend my hard earned cash on that harmful shit. Not all of it is like that, of course, and quite frankly I do agree that the genre is over-generalized to the point of just shocking hilarity.

While I do agree that there has been serious disadvantage to the African-American community from the flooding of drugs and liquor into the black communities perpetrated by our own government. The fact that for some reason though there seems to be a large growing population within the population of our black citizens hailing the behaviour of selling drugs, being uneducated, and completely annihilating women as some sort of "outlaw" machismo is just as destructive as any Jim Crow law ever enacted.

Also as far as Sharpton goes there is always this: Al Sharpton: A jury found him guilty of making defamatory statements The American black civil rights leader, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and two other black activists have lost a racially-divisive defamation case in New York, brought by a white former prosecutor they accused of rape.
The case dates back to 1987, when a 15-year-old black girl, Tawana Brawley, accused six white law enforcement officials of abducting and raping her, and of scrawling racist abuse on her body.

Rev Sharpton and the lawyers - Alton Maddox and C Vernon Mason - said one of the six was a former prosecutor, Steven Pagones.

But in 1988 a grand jury ruled that she had staged her own disappearance, and Mr Pagones sued for libel.

The libel jury will set damages later on Tuesday, although Mr Sharpton's lawyers have said they will appeal.

The eight-month libel hearing reawakened the racial tensions stirred up by the original case; a BBC correspondent says it sometimes degenerated into a shouting match, with lawyers trading accusations of racism.

Mr Pagones, who had demanded $395m in damages, welcomed the jury's decision but called it bittersweet.

"There is a lot of pain associated with this trial. A lot of wounds were opened," he said.

I pretty much feel that Sharpton grilling people on what they say is just about one of the most goddamn hypocritical things in the world.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

SHARPTON VOWS MORE: 'It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves'...

I totally want to punch Al Sharpton in the face.

[Mary]

fwiw, i find that sharpton quote pretty gross too. didn't mean to imply any love for sharpton, only my issues with the article rocdoc posted.

but, more specifically:

I do not agree with this as I think that it makes the excuse to hold one community up by one standard and then hold another community up as another standard. If it's wrong for one, then that standard should be applied across the board. If it's not then you have one group with special interests and another one that doesn't. I understand that the upper class whites in this country have had a special interest against the Black community for more than a century, but as they say, two wrongs don't make a right.

i'm not suggesting that blacks should have a free pass to make racist statements whereas whites should be crucified every time they make a joke about any other race. i am suggesting that it seems to me that there is good reason to believe don imus really is a racist piece of shit based upon numerous other comments he has made, while dave chappelle is a comedian and is just joking.

that said, racism has truly devastating effects when it is entrenched in a class that has social, economic, and political power. it still has regrettable effects when minorities turn toward bitterness against whites (or whoever) - it's basically an abdication of higher ideals like brotherhood and solidarity - but it does NOT have the same brutal and oppressive social consequences. thus i STILL think a white person expressing a racist sentiment is not equivalent to a racial minority expressing a racist sentiment. there are reasons to object in both cases, but only in one case is racism joined to power in a particularly nefarious manner.

The fact that for some reason though there seems to be a large growing population within the population of our black citizens hailing the behaviour of selling drugs, being uneducated, and completely annihilating women as some sort of "outlaw" machismo is just as destructive as any Jim Crow law ever enacted.

i could respond at great length but for the sake of time... i think these tendencies within "the black community" are sometimes exaggerated and overstated, but even where they do exist, i also think they reflect much deeper structural problems, and trying to fix the culture without addressing the structure that gives rise to the culture is futile.

also i think romanticizng these "outlaw" figures is more complicated anyway - americans have always romanticized mobsters and cowboys and vigilantes, johnny cash once sang that he shot a man in reno just to watch him die, but we don't flatly denounce these mythologies. so i see no reason to flatly denounce "gangsta" mythology either. i'm not saying i celebrate it and embrace it - i'm CRITICAL of it - but not moralistic about it and i try to understand where that urge to romanticize comes from too.

also skvor i respect your decision not to listen to misogynistic or homophobic music, but i just worry that a lot of the people who denounce hip-hop wholesale (unlike you) are completely oblivious to more progressive and socially conscious subgenres, so they wind up with this ridiculous cartoon image of all hip-hop being about hos, pimps, and gangbangers. i am also bothered that people single out hip-hop so strongly for its misogyny and homophobia when both attitudes have been rampant in popular music and popular culture for decades but rarely receive the same level of attention outside of hip-hop. not an attack on you personally - i've actually seen you equally critical of homophobia and misogyny elsewhere - just a general observation about many of hip-hop's critics.

i am no expert on hip-hop but that is why i DON'T post sweeping generalizations about it - because i'm not qualified to. i'm tired of reading sweeping generalizations about hip-hop from clueless out-of-touch conservatives - both white and black - who imagine that hip-hop is somehow singlehandedly responsible for the problems of the ghetto.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Understand and excellent post by the way.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

And also, there has been rampant drug use, misogynistic views, alchoholism, violence and just about any other dangerous view in Country music, which Mary deftly pointed out with the Cash reference. I definitely have to agree that hip hop is not the only form of music that has things in it that I don't care for.

I can say that the positive out of all of this is that there are progressives coming out of the woodwork saying that the issues with race have turned into issues of class and education. That the issue is not with hip-hop, the issue is not with Imus, but that the real issue is that what they are doing is re-directing the focus of fighting poverty in the black community to just BS like the Imus riff.

There is also the conspiracy-theorist in me that is saying the media latched onto this so that the Bush administration and the Pentagon wouldn't have to answer tough questions concerning the redeployment of troops and totally asinine practices in our military where national guard soldiers are being basically drafted into the Army without so much as a voice or a choice for their Alamo.

[Mary]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

That the issue is not with hip-hop, the issue is not with Imus, but that the real issue is that what they are doing is re-directing the focus of fighting poverty in the black community to just BS like the Imus riff.

amen to this.
total agreement!

[Thorngrub]

It appears that perhaps this is, after all, a simple freedom of speech freedom-to-get-your-panties-in-a-wad issue.

Ok , seriously. . . . . I think that this is about Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Accept the Consequences of Freedom of Speech, but most of all, this issue underlines the general erosion of our ability as Americans to deal with the First Amendment, and why is that, exactly - ?

I'll say it: YOu know how, when you stop exercising a muscle, it becomes weak and flaccid ?

Uh - huh. That's what I'm sayin' . . . I'm sayin' all this Big Brother Bullshit, this "PC Shenanigans", this

*to the tune of Katrina and the Waves*

"I'm Walkin' On EGGSHELLS" mentality is all the

End - Result

of this innately "me me ME" - society which:

~engenders greed
~feeds the voracious EGO till nigh-BURSTing
~and generally perpetuates selfishness.
~ Not to mention the destruction of our natural habitat and all living species including ourselves


NOw, I realize I'm not the brightest bulb in the shed, but can someone explain to me what the 1st Amendemnt means by the term "the press", here:


"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "


Ok, now of course that means the NEWS, and TV reporting, the MEDIA I suppose falls under this category, so doesn't it seem as if RADIO BROADCASTING also does ?

Hey now: Don't get me wrong, I realize that Mr. Buzzard Face Don Imus is an employee for most likely some private company, and they reserve the right to fire his ass if he so much as looks cross-eyed at the CEO, and I have absolutely no problem with that. Consequences, right ? Sure.

My observation is simple. This country and the people in it are going to the fucking dogs, we are a fundamentally WEAK nation, full of self-righteous, Ego-maniacal, selfish greedy bastards (illegitimate spawn, to be precise) who deserve to be boiled alive in our own FAT unto Eternity.

Like I'm going to feel sorry for people who express they have been "scarred for life" from the pathetic, insignificant dribble that spills out of a cockeyed Country Ass Hat on the radio! I pity the fools, is more like it.


Learn to grow some skin for fuck's sake.

[Thorngrub]

Disclaimer:

My silly rant was for entertainment purposes only. If you think I'm weighing in on the actual federal rules, regulations, and guideliness as they apply to the FCC then you are possibly more naive than myself. This has been a public service announcement for RS.castaways intended purely for laughs and to make fun of not only Don Imus but all Americans.

[Thorngrub]

"Going to the dogs? When have you ever been able to say whatever without fear of consequence? This is nothing new kids, you say something people don't and people get mad. I admit what that something is changes and could even be considered trendy at times. I ain't saying it's right, I'm just saying that Don Imus losing his job for not being a funny racist isn't a sign of anything except a refusal to stand by his dumb old ass anymore. " ~ ded



Well, yeah

[Thorngrub]

Hey man. . . U're just not quick enuff ;D

[Thorngrub]

See man? Stand by your comments dude... don't be ashamed. I totally agree w/what you said

[Thorngrub]

god I hate it when people delete their posts

[Galactus]

Sorry...I was going to retype it...I'm just having trouble getting my thought together today.

[Galactus]

I think Imus getting fired and why some people are making such a stink over it are almost two separate issues. I was going to write a longer post trying to explain it but Thorny caught me. I'm not ashamed of anything I've said BTW. I think it's easy to blame Imus and it's easy to puff out your chest and call it a step forward but it's not really.