The Don Imus Travesty
Dale King
April 14, 2007
Yesterday, to no one's surprise, shock jock Don Imus was fired from his radio program by CBS, a day after he was fired from his tv simulcast by NBC. But was the firing justified?
I'm no fan of Don Imus, but in my opinion, his suspension and subsequent firing were nothing more than a high-tech lynching.
It wasn't just wrong. It was hypocritical.
Okay, so Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy headed ho's."
If CBS and NBC were truly as offended and outraged by his comments as they claimed, why didn't they fire Imus immediately?
No. It wasn't until scores of corporate sponsors started pulling their ads that CBS and NBC took such drastic action.
Theirs wasn't a moral decision, it was a financial one. And that's where the hypocrisy comes in.
While I'm not condoning what Imus said, by any means. He has said much worse over the years, without getting so much as a slap on the wrist.
There's also a double standard here that has bothered me for years.
Why is it that black people can use the "N" word so freely, but when other races use it, blacks have an exponential meltdown?
You can't have it both ways.
The N word is offensive. No one should be able to use it without severe consequences.
If it's offensive when one group of people use it, then it should be offensive when anyone uses it.
Here's another example of the hypocrisy of this whole situation.
Aren't ministers supposed to forgive your sins and mistakes?
Where was the forgiveness for Don Imus, from Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton?
Imus apologized over and over again and showed true remorse.
But instead of showing compassion, Sharpton and Jackson refused to throw a drowning man a life jacket.
Once again, here's where the hypocrisy comes in.
Rev. Jesse Jackson referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in January 1984 during a conversation with a black Washington Post reporter, Milton Coleman. Jackson had assumed the references would not be printed because of his racial bond with Coleman, but several weeks later Coleman permitted the slurs to be included far down in an article by another Post reporter on Jackson's rocky relations with American Jews.
Finally, Jackson doused the fires in late February with an emotional speech admitting guilt and seeking atonement before national Jewish leaders in a Manchester, New Hampshire synagogue.
In 1987, a 15 year old black girl named Tawana Brawley, was found smeared with feces, lying in a garbage bag, her clothing torn and burned and with various slurs and epithets written on her body in charcoal. Brawley claimed that she had been assaulted and raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in the town of Wappingers Falls, New York.
Attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason joined Sharpton in support of Brawley. A grand jury was convened; after seven months of examining police and medical records, the jury determined that Brawley lied about being assaulted by the police. Sharpton, Maddox and Mason accused the Dutchess County prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. The three were successfully sued for slander and ordered to pay $345,000 in damages.
So as you can see, Sharpton and Jackson are hardly angels themselves.
In the end, financially, CBS and NBC had no choice but to fire Don Imus. He had simply become too toxic.
But make no mistake, morality had nothing to do with it.
Dale King is the owner of the new Internet marketing website, Guruknowledge.org
Want More Sales...Traffic... Success?
Hire An Internet Marketing Expert Today!
I'm no fan of Don Imus, but in my opinion, his suspension and subsequent firing were nothing more than a high-tech lynching.
It wasn't just wrong. It was hypocritical.
Okay, so Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy headed ho's."
If CBS and NBC were truly as offended and outraged by his comments as they claimed, why didn't they fire Imus immediately?
No. It wasn't until scores of corporate sponsors started pulling their ads that CBS and NBC took such drastic action.
Theirs wasn't a moral decision, it was a financial one. And that's where the hypocrisy comes in.
While I'm not condoning what Imus said, by any means. He has said much worse over the years, without getting so much as a slap on the wrist.
There's also a double standard here that has bothered me for years.
Why is it that black people can use the "N" word so freely, but when other races use it, blacks have an exponential meltdown?
You can't have it both ways.
The N word is offensive. No one should be able to use it without severe consequences.
If it's offensive when one group of people use it, then it should be offensive when anyone uses it.
Here's another example of the hypocrisy of this whole situation.
Aren't ministers supposed to forgive your sins and mistakes?
Where was the forgiveness for Don Imus, from Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton?
Imus apologized over and over again and showed true remorse.
But instead of showing compassion, Sharpton and Jackson refused to throw a drowning man a life jacket.
Once again, here's where the hypocrisy comes in.
Rev. Jesse Jackson referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in January 1984 during a conversation with a black Washington Post reporter, Milton Coleman. Jackson had assumed the references would not be printed because of his racial bond with Coleman, but several weeks later Coleman permitted the slurs to be included far down in an article by another Post reporter on Jackson's rocky relations with American Jews.
Finally, Jackson doused the fires in late February with an emotional speech admitting guilt and seeking atonement before national Jewish leaders in a Manchester, New Hampshire synagogue.
In 1987, a 15 year old black girl named Tawana Brawley, was found smeared with feces, lying in a garbage bag, her clothing torn and burned and with various slurs and epithets written on her body in charcoal. Brawley claimed that she had been assaulted and raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in the town of Wappingers Falls, New York.
Attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason joined Sharpton in support of Brawley. A grand jury was convened; after seven months of examining police and medical records, the jury determined that Brawley lied about being assaulted by the police. Sharpton, Maddox and Mason accused the Dutchess County prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. The three were successfully sued for slander and ordered to pay $345,000 in damages.
So as you can see, Sharpton and Jackson are hardly angels themselves.
In the end, financially, CBS and NBC had no choice but to fire Don Imus. He had simply become too toxic.
But make no mistake, morality had nothing to do with it.
Dale King is the owner of the new Internet marketing website, Guruknowledge.org
Want More Sales...Traffic... Success?
Hire An Internet Marketing Expert Today!
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