Tens of thousands of Iraqi people burn our flag and march through the streets of Baghdad screaming “Go home, Americans.” Ten more brave young Americans give their lives on the same day, because we sent them there to fight…for some reason. But the biggest news of the week is that a guy who makes millions of dollars a year for making funny-stupid comments on the radio, made an un-funny- stupid comment on the radio.As we say in Brooklyn, “Enough, already.” For the record… Don Imus is a decent guy. I worked with him for years at WNBC. He is a pain in the tail, but he’s not a racist; he’s good to his family; and he sees to it that his money does a lot of good for a lot of people…of all colors and religions. I have a terrible temptation to take on some of the guys with the biggest mouths calling for Don’s head. Especially Al “The Sharpie” Sharpton, who has made a career out of anti white/anti Jewish racism… but that would just speed up the merry-go-round.
We’ve got to stop looking at words, and start considering intentions. Words have become bogie men in America…Some idiot long ago couldn’t spell Niger, so we got nigger. The word “homo” simply means man in Latin. Bastard. Like it’s my fault I was born ? Bitch. (A very young relative of mine whose mother raises show dogs recently called my Lady Wonder Wench in a complete frenzy of excitement and said, “Nana, we won best bitch.”)
What’s to be afraid of in a word ? If a guy describes somebody as a “nigger,” that guy has done you the favor of telling you right up front that he’s an idiot. Simply by using that word, he’s saved you the time and effort of trying to figure him out. You know right away he’s a jerk.
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WE DON’T SEE THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE. WE SEE THINGS THE WAY WE ARE! Watch the guys who have the biggest mouths about racism. They are usually the real racists… all the way down inside.
Imus was a miner, a railroad guy and a U.S. Marine who barely escaped a court martial and dishonorable discharge because he and a buddy, aided by an excess of adult beverages no doubt, swiped the stars from a general’s jeep and put them on their own car one night.
His main critic, Al “Sharpie” Sharpton, while he was defending Tawana Brawley in 1981, compared the (Jewish) N.Y. Attorney General, Robert Abrams, to Adolph Hitler. Then he tried linking Gov. Mario Cuomo to organized crime and the K.K.K. He was later accused of being a prominent participant in the 1991 anti Jewish riots in Crown Heights.
My Lady Wonder Wench knows Imus. She sees this as what she calls a “Man vs. Woman” issue. She says “It’s a matter of a man seeing how long he can get away with snickering and pinching at women.”
I really don’t think so. I just see it as a stupid statement by a guy trying to be wise-funny on the radio. But the amazing thing is that it actually got to be a really heated discussion between W.Wench and me. As a matter of fact, I was seriously considering, for just a moment, sending her to the Donna Reed Housewife Summer Training Camp. (Well…not really.) IT’S A JOKE – HONEST. AND NO, I AM NOT PLANNING ON SLEEPING IN THE GARAGE TONIGHT.
One “shocked and angered parent” said…”What if I had my kids in the car when he said that ?” Well, for God’s sake, “Shocked and Angered”, I hope you wouldn’t have wasted the opportunity to explain what the words mean and how stupid they are!
Imus is the product of a rough upbringing… probably racist. As I said, he’s not a racist…because he’s way too smart to let himself get stuck in that kind of crap trap. But somewhere down inside, there’s probably still a little kid who heard and remembers stuff like that.
I know from personal experience that sometimes when you’re on the air, your mind is cooking up what you’re going to do next, and you just trust your mouth to make noise for a while till you get to where your head is at. I suspect that’s what happened to Don. There’s more about this theory in the current podcast at www.dicksummer.com .
One of the “Properly Shocked” tv news guys actually said, “Oh my God, think of how crushed those young women must have been.” If that’s true, guess whose fault that is. Idiot.
I’ll guarantee you that none of the young women on the team are Imus listeners. The only way they would ever have known about the whole thing is because tv guys like “Properly Shocked” have beaten this story black and blue. As my Lady Wonder Wench says, “It’s disgusting to watch all the guys on tv trying to protect themselves by running away from Imus.” And she makes another good point when she says, “Any girl who has the guts to do what those girls did on the basketball court is not going to let something like this scar her life.”
Last few points: 1- What’s wrong with being a “ho”? I figure if you’ve got 2 consenting adults and one of them wants to pay to use the other’s body, as long as I’m not one of them, it’s none of my business. And besides, I’ve seen marriages that could be described exactly like that, and so have you. I do tv voice overs because some people like my voice enough to pay me for its use. Pretty guys/girls sell their pictures the same way. (NOTE from WW: there is nothing wrong with being a whore if you so choose. But call me one and you’re dead.)
2- The guy was just a mouth on the radio. Mouthing off on the radio is fun and sometimes profitable, but it is a truly insignificant job. Don’t like what he says ? Turn him off, and don’t buy his sponsor’s stuff. He’ll be gone tomorrow morning. As a matter of fact now he is… BECAUSE THE SPONSORS WALKED. As long as he was making money for CBS/NBC, it really didn’t matter what he said. But hit media guys in the pocketbook, and they immediately become “forces for good in the community.”
By the way, the bible says something nasty about hypocrisy, as I recall. I don’t think “Sharpy” has come to that chapter yet.
But here’s what corks me most: We all know who the I-man is, and who the girls are. And the tv guys certainly devoted plenty of time to making sure everybody now knows about the ever holy and incensed Al Sharpie. But nobody had time to tell us who those ten American soldiers were. Nobody. Remember them ? The young people who died this week in Iraq…because we sent them there to fight…for some reason?
My God, I hope there was some reason.
This just in – 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 the airwaves’… Developing…
Imus is out. “Sharpie” and his crowd are in. And THEY will “discuss” what THEY think should be allowed on the air.This was never about Imus. It wasn’t about the Rutgers Women either. It was a plain and simple media and political power grab.
Imus is a flawed “hero” in this soap opera. But he is also the only honest player on the stage.
I like honest.
Dick Summer
Your comments would be welcome, both here on the “Connection” and at dick@dicksummer.com Â
The following comments are from media professionals who saw this blog prior to publication:
Wow! very interesting read and you open and close with what really matters most …the needless casualties of war. The fixation on celebrity news is out of control … CBS had no problem with Imus’s crass comments until sponsors started bailing. Well-written and superbly-stated Dicktake care ..
Paul in Nova Scotia
Excellent stuff, Dick. I wondered when you’d say something about your colleague. I don’t listen to Imus, not on my local station, plus, I rarely listen to commercial radio except during NPR pledge drive weeks or to hear the Cubs games. So, I don’t know Imus from Amos, and that probably makes me a racist if someone assumes I meant to say Amos ‘n Andy.
I do recall hearing someone on a NYC station back in the 1970s–right after I got out of the Army–doing a bit about some Reverend and his Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship….it was funny, I laughed, I moved to the Midwest where that stuff ain’t funny. Was that Rev. Imus? If so, I’m shocked, shocked thirty tears too late or too soon.
Ho? We’s all ho’s… My most recent V/O gig was as Gabby the Groundhog, a PSA cartoon for Call 1-800 (something) before you dig. This week, I paid a guy to dig out my driveway for new gravel, didn’t call and cut a cable…I’m a stupid ho.
As for Sharpton, he’s no Ho, he’s a pimp.
–Paul B.
But how do you really feel Dick???
Mel Phillips
e-mail: mphillips1675@yahoo.com
blog site: http://melphillipsremembers.com
As far as Imus is concerned, whom I’ve never met, his career has been built on saying outrageous stuff. And at first I though he did it for publicity…like showing up on Al Sharpton’s radio (?) show. I think his comment was “insult du jour”, nothing more…and that’s why radio’s have tunning dial and on/off switches. But The Al’s and femi-Nazi’s got their teeth into it…and our country is going down the toilet. S.G.
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Can we still say Westward Ho ?
Will Santa need to find a new laugh?
I’m SO glad I’m not on the radio anymore B.B.