Imus' Comments Not the Real Issue

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   If you watch the news at all - local, any of the major news networks or any of the cable news networks - you probably know (you can’t get away from it) of the Don Imus brouhaha. For those who haven’t been subjected to this topic ad nauseum, or don’t know who Don Imus is, I’ll briefly summarize Imus and the flap.

   Imus had a show that was simulcast, both on the CBS radio broadcast network and MSNBC, a cable news program. He is known as a “shock jock,” which basically means he’s not overly concerned with being politically correct. He’s also white. Recently he called the women’s Rutgers College basketball team rough and then called them “nappy-headed hoes.” (I did hear one reporter say that Imus called the players “nappy-headed whores;” he was white of course).

   The Rutgers team had just been eliminated from the NCAA basketball tournament by Tennessee in the semi-finals. Imus was originally suspended from both CBS Radio and the MSNBC programs. As the reaction to his comments spread, his sponsors - even Head-On (you know, the really obnoxious commercial where someone says “Head-on for headache pain,” over and over) - withdrew their sponsorship. He was shortly fired from both networks.

   Shortly after hearing about this flap I thought that maybe I’d do an opinion piece on Imus, but I watched with morbid fascination at the ensuing media feeding frenzy surrounding this situation. I watched as commentators pointed out that African Americans are rarely brought in to comment on things outside of racial issues, a legitimate point. I watched Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, being constantly interviewed. I watched Imus appear on Rev. Sharpton’s radio show (it was broadcast on the news), and noted with a combination of amusement and dismay as Imus apparently decided that he hadn’t dug his hole deep enough, so threw his shovel away and got a backhoe.

   He runs a camp for children with cancer, so in defending himself from his earlier remarks, he stated something to the effect that he had had more black kids under his roof than the people calling in and castigating him. This, unfortunately for Imus, sounded a bit like a closet racist saying, “Why, some of my best friends are black.” This, along with other comments, did little or nothing, to put out the fire he had partially created, in fact, he threw gas on the fire. Watching these things I wondered what other UAM students, particularly African American female students felt about this topic, which seemed to consume the airways even more than Anna Nicole Smith’s death. So I asked.

   I’m aware that my methods weren’t scientific, and possibly aren’t representative of the majority of UAM students, but what it did find was this. Although the majority stated that they were offended by the remarks, they felt the most offended as women. The “nappy-headed” comment, the one I felt was racist, didn’t seem to have any major effect, while the “hoes” comment did, but even that comment didn’t get a massive amount of outrage. The majority of people I asked, mirrored the comments that the news media was stating, if the term is in rap, and they listen to it, then they would have a rough time feeling major offense at the term. Quite a few did say that they had become desensitized to the term due to its use in rap, but when they were asked about how they felt about the use of the term, they disapproved of it.

   Most thought that the punishment didn’t fit the crime. When asked directly if Imus should have been fired, most thought that the two-week suspension was sufficient. In general, they thought that the news media had made a mountain out of a mole hill (surely not). They also thought that his firing was motivated by money and not any moral reasons (this is the U.S. after all).

   I also asked how they felt about Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson being the spokesmen for the black community, and again I found that most felt that they weren’t. One person expressed admiration for Rev. Jackson, since he was with Dr. Martin Luther King from the beginning, but all but one of the people I asked (of the black students only) had little use for Rev. Al Sharpton, one person even calling him “mean.”

   So what does this all mean? How do we interpret these responses? The simple answer is that there is no concrete way. An individual will react in the same way that an individual will react - as individuals. We seem intent on putting any ethnicity into a box, thereby knowing how they will react to something that we in the white community will know as racist, searching for a concrete set of directions and/or actions. As a consequence, we reinforce the division between ethnicities. The white community is so concerned with saying something that might be seen as “racially insensitive,” with being “politically correct,” with proving that we are not racist, we walk in fear of saying the wrong thing, (white commentators appeared to be more concerned with proving that they found the comments offensive, than in really reporting on the incident. I counted one commentator saying 15 times in one hour how offensive the remarks were).

   Several comedians even base some of their routines on this concept, such as Carlos Mencia, constantly harping away at the white community to loosen up. Even in this article, the fear that I will say something seen as “racially insensitive” is in the back of my mind, and even that is an indication of a division between, at least, black America and me, that somehow they are different, not part of the whole. Because of this fear, whites tend to see or hear Revs. Sharpton or Jackson (at least news shows that are largely hosted and owned by whites) and believe that is how we should react to the situation, without engaging someone in a dialogue, one on one, and seeing how they feel about the situation. Try it, the only thing you might gain is a little bit of understanding and the eroding of your personal stereotypes.

    One thing that has been brought up on news shows, is that the talks on racial relations that Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans was supposed to spur on, didn’t happen. Even Don Imus stated that regardless of what happened to him, he hoped that this incident would reawaken those debates, and that is my final wish.

   As a country, the differences between us as individuals are greater than those racially, and as such, each person has to be looked at as an individual. Keeping in mind that you can say things to one person without fear of offense, but others you can’t. Go to an evangelical church and bring up evolution, and step back from the firestorm that ensues, but don’t expect that all in that church will react the same way. We still engage in stereotypes, not willing to recognize that humans are individuals.

   If you found Imus’ remarks offensive, you’re right; as far as you’re concerned. If you didn’t find them offensive, you are also right. Overt racists are easy to discount as being lunatics, all ethnicities have them. It seems to me that the covert racists, intent on proving they are not racist, do the major damage.

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