Should Imus have been fired?
Should Imus have gotten the heave-ho? Should CBS Radio have canned the shock jock for calling Rutgers' women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos"? Was the two-week suspension that Don Imus previously faced enough?
I don't know. And, frankly, I don't care all that much. America's race issues are not going to get better or worse if Imus stayed or went.
What accounts for my uncharacteristic indecision and apathy? It's not that I'm a big "Imus in the Morning" fan, which I am. And it's not that I think it's OK to call African American women what Imus called them, which I do not. His words were dehumanizing and cruel and wrong. It's just that I'm not sure what the standards are or should be in these instances. And the fact that there are now double-, triple-, and multiple-standards in these racial cases makes me wonder how important the Imus affair really is.
Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis, Trent Lott and Rush Limbaugh all had to leave their posts after saying things that were far less raw and racially charged. How, then, can Imus remain on the job? Yet West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd used the n-word in 2001 and that was no problem. Jesse Jackson continues to be a civil rights leader and media go-to guy after famously calling New York City "Hymietown." Al Sharpton continues to make the rounds as a civil rights activist and radio host after his race-baiting antics in the Tawana Brawley mess. Indeed, both of these camera-chasers are now out demanding Imus get the boot. Beautiful.
The fact that Imus had the right friends—largely liberal program regulars from the political and media elites such as Tim Russert, James Carville, Paul Begala, Tom Brokaw—didn't spare him, say Limbaugh's fate as an ESPN football analyst. Do the pals or politics of the person on the racial hot seat make the difference between suspension and firing? In the end, should a spot in the in-crowd also mean a chance for redemption? I don't think so.
Also, Imus and his sidekick were using the same verbiage used and even celebrated in the African American community. In fact, their words were mild compared with the race-based misogyny promoted in so much hip-hop music. One racial slander on the Imus show actually was a reference to a Spike Lee film.
Some might argue that it's fine for black Americans to use this lingo—the h- and the b- and the n-words—and not fine for anyone else. But what they're really saying is this: It's OK for African Americans to dehumanize one another and African American males specifically to demean African American women.
Nobody should be shocked when folks from other races join in. The KKK could not come up with more potent propaganda than this kind of music. What Imus said deserves severe censure, but African American leaders might be far more worked up over what some hip-hop artists and the corporations that profit from them are saying about their community.
Another double standard has also been on display this past week. Imus' words are so harmful, we've been told, because they confirm what black people know: that white people talk this way in private. I'm not sure all black people think this, but I am sure that not all white people talk this way in private. I also know this is racial stereotyping, as harmful when it's directed at whites as when it's directed at blacks.
Should Imus have been fired? It would be one thing if he was not hired as a "shock jock." These guys go over the line at times, as most humorists do; what's important is their response when they do. It would be one thing if Imus was not an equal-opportunity offender. Catholics and Jews, Christians and Muslims, blacks and whites, gays and homophobes, Imus' friends, enemies and Imus himself—all come in for his ridicule. It would also be one thing if Imus were not repentant. But he has offered an apology, and not a mealy-mouthed "if I offended anyone" apology. He even went on Sharpton's radio show to fess up.
I'm more drawn to forgiveness than fire 'em these days. But I wonder how Imus could have kept his job when others who said less have lost theirs. I also wonder how he squares his search for mercy with something I found in my research. In December 2002, when Lott was under fire for remarks he made at South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond's birthday celebration, Imus called the Senate majority leader a gutless weasel who needed to "get out" and go on "Soul Train."
Like Imus' comments about Rutgers, those words probably don't seem as funny today.
