The Worse of Two Wrongs

So. One of my bestest friends sent me an email he’d gotten from a friend. It was, essentially, defending Imus’s right to say horrific things because other people say them too.

It was an interesting look at the situation. In some ways, the arguments made a lot of sense, taken as individual sentences perhaps. Except that in context, it all comes down to: yeah, what Imus said was bad, but look over there! That person is saying bad things too!

Were these maroons never told growing up that two wrongs don't make a right?

Look, I’m not an expert on race relations or linguistics, but it seems clear to me that what this all comes down to is just another white guy pissing and moaning because he can’t say whatever he wants about blacks and women any more.

Here’s the thing: for something like three hundred or so years in this country, white males could say whatever they wanted about blacks and females. (And Asians and Hispanics and Jews and homosexuals and so on and so forth.)

About, oh, let’s say, forty years ago, that no longer became the polite thing to do. It was still done in private, of course, but in public it was, by and large, considered uncool.

So they started being more subtle about it, and speaking in code.

Blacks (and, I think, to a much less extent, women) decided to fight back. One of the ways they did this was by claiming the word “nigger” as their own, much the way “queer” used to be an insult and, when used by some, still is, but the homosexual community decided to try to take at least some of the sting out of it by claiming it as their own.

So now white males—particularly obscenely wealthy ones like Rush and Imus—decide that because blacks get to use the word “nigger,” it’s fair game.

It’s not.

Blacks started using the word to try to take some power away from the rich white bigots like Rush and Imus who’d been keeping them down for centuries. And rich white bigots like Rush and Imus can’t have that. So they start fighting back. By using the word and other slurs like it.

It’s the same old thing, just in a new decade.

Put simply, it’s the difference between you and your siblings talking about how your mom just said something really bitchy, as opposed to the guy down the block saying, “man, your mom’s really a bitch.” Because of the context, the shared experiences, and the relationship involving, amongst other things, love and understanding, the first is acceptable while the second is completely unacceptable.

And one thing that’s gotten lost in all this is that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, whatever their myriad faults (and they've got plenty), have been fighting against misogynist rap lyrics for decades. So the folks who are asking why Jackson and Sharpton (amongst others) haven’t been fighting that fight do nothing but reveal that they're woefully ignorant.

Keep your eye on the ball: a team of successful and hardworking young girls got insulted by one of the more famous rich white men in America for no reason other than the color of their skin.

Yet the ones now crying victims here are the white males who hate having to compete on a level playing field. They’ve never had to before, and the thought terrifies them. So the rich and famous ones stoke the anger of the less rich and powerful ones.

And so it goes.

Comments

[shannon]

I wish that more people were as logical as you are about this issue. I was discussing this with a friend who took the same stand as the one taken in the email you received. I just kept asking him "What is it okay for Imus to do it just because (1) he's said stuff like that in the past and (2) other people say it, too." He didn't have an answer for me. I suspect that he knew that his argument was wrong. I think what he said was reprehensible and the sad thing was if he was in the White House, he probably would have gotten away with it.

[DT]

Right on, brotherman. Sing it loud.

Sure, speech is still free and Imus is allowed to voice whatever swill that spills from his old, addled brain. Go for it. But guess what? His critics also have a right to point out what a racist dog this guy is. And his advertisers have a right to say, "To hell with this. I'm tired of spending my money propping up a guy who says such hateful, stupid things." And his bosses have a right to say, "This guy is an embarassment to us and is NOW costing us money. Screw it - he's just not worth it anymore. We're going to fire him."

Free speech, and free will, are amazing things, aren't they? You know who’s probably more aware of that today than ever before? Don Imus.

Oh, and we're talking about a man who is a tired, bitter bigot surrounded by kneepad-wearing sycophants who only exist to make him think he's funnier and more relevant than he is. For years he's been wonderful magnet for what P.J. O’Rourke once described as the “Parliament of Whores,” who could come to his show to suck up to this mouth-breather and, in turn, have their egos stroked. Among other things. Joe Lieberman, Tim Russert, James Carville, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and many, many more were guilty of propping this dude up for a long, long time. Shame on them. Maybe they can try Howard Stern next?

Good riddance. There are too many real outrages to cry about than to waste a tear on this creep.

[Tom E.]

A copule of thoughts: I suspect that Imus had gotten to the point where he thought he was bullet-proof. He doubtless felt he could cross any line or spew any bilge he liked. After all, did not princes and potentates approach him on bended knee? He could, literally, in one moment refer to Hillary Clinton as a "satanic bitch" and then the next entertain the likes of Tim Russert, John Kerrey, Bob Dole, John McCain, Bob Kerrey, the sainted Rick Santorum, Joe Liebermann, and on ad nauseum. As for the comment, I wonder if he actually thought he was referring to a group of young women as "whores"? I think that he had not completely confated the term "'ho" with the word "whore." He likely would not have in his wildest dreams referred to the women in qestion simply as "whores," but that's just what he did. By using "'ho", he deluded himself into thinking he was perhaps not wildly out of line. But given, his past, maybe he wasn't truly concerned about that. My wife thinks I'm smoking something when I raise this possibility; she's probably right, but there it is. I think it bears some scrutiny, though.
As for the right-wing radio clowns, they've always struck me as whiny white boys who woke up one day to find that their new boss was black, a woman, or both, and just hated it.

"Fanucci, with or without nuts, the greatest name in fudge."

[scott]

The tiny aquatic one has some great points on this—and I'd have said that even without the reciprocal props.

[Ed]

To me this is a part of the reason why this country has become so divise. Fools like Imus and Rush just poor on the hate, the us-vs-them, take no prisoners, no middle ground mentality, and it comes to I'm white, you're black, therefore you are inferior. Kudos to the advertisers that pulled their ads, and to an extent to MSNBC and CBS for having the cojones to fire the fool. These guys hide behind the first admendment and think anything is fair. Thank God for reality checks!

[Molly]

Amen, Ed!