This Is No Longer About "Don Imus", It's About the Racism of CBS and NBC

When Don Imus said to Al Sharpton this afternoon, "I can't get anyplace with you people," it became more obvious than ever that he lives in a world that is sharply divided between black and white. "You people" can only be taken one way. The other key statement from his interview with Reverend Sharpton is that he has no intention of resigning. It's also clear, after 40 years in the business, that he's not changing his stripes. He is who he is, and he's not leaving on his own.

The FCC (according to reports on CBS News tonight) will take no action because no nipples or f-words were involved.

So, with neither resignation nor government action imminent, the ball is now totally in the court of CBS (owner of his radio outlet) and NBC (owner of his television simulcaster). They either need to pull the plug on his microphone, or they are officially condoning racist slurs and the ability of old men to comment on the appearance and sexual habits of very young women.

This evening MSNBC administered its first wrist slap, but a two-week hiatus in the simulcast cannot be considered a punishment

And by the way, "You People" does not just include the "You People" of whom Al Sharpton is a member. There is also the sexist component of the term "nappy-headed hos" that has millions of women understandably upset. Here is an easy to follow campaign organized by the National Organization for Women that will help you send letters to the appropriate people at CBS and NBC.

Where are the high profile CBS and NBC personalities? Are they working behind the scenes to cleanse the racism from their organization? Do any of them have the guts to actually speak out about this stain on the network that feeds them? THAT probably would lead to a firing. This is America in 2007, where you can say anything you want about people younger and darker and weaker than you, but leave your bosses alone.

Where are the high profile professional athletes? How quickly would WFAN-AM in New York drop Imus if Derek Jeter and Eli Manning and David Wright refused to interact with that sports radio station until the I-man was gone? I'm pleased to see that Cal Ripken is the first guest to cancel a scheduled Imus appearance, so maybe that wall is breaking too, but it is amazing to see, over and over again, how people get more cowardly when they have more to lose.

If the NBCBS overlords don't drop him soon the Rutgers football Scarlet-White Game on April 21 will become the "April 21 Anti-Imus Rutgers Stadium Rally."

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UPDATE: Now CBS Radio has suspended Imus for two weeks "due to the events of the past week." (i.e., the protests, not the hateful comments about Rutgers women made on April 4). If he comes back onto CBS radio and MSNBC simulcasting in 2 weeks, it means that NBCBS is knowingly rehiring a racist, and the protest, at least on this site, will be twice as loud.

This Picture Should Destroy a Few Stereotypes . . .

... and destroying stereotypes seems to have become the raison d'être of this blog all of a sudden.

There's a real danger that with the entry of Al Sharpton into the debate about Don Imus's right to use the public airwaves to call young women of Rutgers by hateful sexist and racist names, Imus's defenders will now try to turn this into the Don vs. Al Show, a show that goes back at least a decade. So I looked for instances where these men have interacted in the past. Along with the expected finds about Rev. Sharpton's voice being imitated on the show in an Amos'n'Andy show manner, I found the following coincidental juxtaposition of articles in a Media Life Magazine news page from March 28, 2005. It was worth a screen capture; just click the picture to enlarge to full screen or click here to see it in its original setting (just scroll to the bottom).

• The Imus article at the top of the screen is an answer to the Imus fans who say, "Don't attack Don. He does more for charity than anybody!" (It also says a little something about his legendary thin skin)
  
• The Sharpton article is an interesting answer to the other point made by those fans: "Don't attack Don for calling people 'nappy-headed ho's' unless you attack the rappers who use that language too." (not that too many of those rappers are simultaneously broadcast by CBS & NBC every morning)
  

I hope that this issue -- this important debate about the acceptability of casual racism and sexism on the air -- doesn't boil down to the Don vs. Al Show, but if it does, I'm 100% on Rev. Sharpton's side!



Cross posted at the Rutgers football blog, BeatVisitor.com

Filing a Complaint with the FCC is Easy

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html

The real question is not a question of free speech, though Imus's apologists would have you believe it is.

The real issue is why CBS (owners of WFAN-AM) and NBC (his Cable TV simulcasters) are not RACING to fire Imus to see which is more anxious to remove its corporate imprimatur from the racist and sexist "jokes" being broadcast during family listening and viewing hours.

Since neither CBS nor NBC feels the need to respond to nor acknowledge correspondence from the public, our only recourse is to directly contact the government agency charged with protecting the public airways against indecency.

They make it very easy to register your complaint at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html

and in Sports news . . .

Can you find the one remaining Imus fan in Rutgers Stadium? (Click to Enlarge)

Is there ANY reason that Don Imus and his two stooges haven't been fired yet for their recent racist remarks on the radio and on MSNBC??
Another inevitable empty Imus apology ("Sorry, we were all drunk and senile again") should not be enough.

This is from the April 4 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning (I've copied this transcript from the Media Matters for America site where there's also a video record of this racist outrage):

IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between -- a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women's final.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night -- seventh championship for Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and --

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough --

McCORD: Do The Right Thing.

McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

IMUS: I don't know if I'd have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

IMUS: Well, I guess, yeah.

RUFFINO: Only tougher.

McGUIRK: The Grizzlies would be more appropriate.

PLEASE WRITE TO MSNBC HERE: viewerservices@msnbc.com and Imus@msnbc.com
More contact information on their Contact Page. I don't have cable TV, so I'm telling them why I'm boycotting all other NBC outlets. What you want to tell them is up to you.

I posted this same transcript late last night on BeatVisitor.com, but the more I think about it, the more angry I get, and the more I want to get the message out that this is totally unacceptable in the mainstream American media. It is certainly more offensive than any imaginable televised wardrobe malfunction, but this morning WNBC (New York) has a poll on their article about this incident in which only 27% of the respondents say that what Imus said deserves punishment.

Imagine that we were talking about Rutgers football instead of women's basketball.

Imagine we run across a newspaper from 1917 in which the great Paul Robeson of Rutgers is being described as ugly and "nappy-headed"and being compared to the "cute" Princeton backfield of Mitt Buffington, Peter "Pippi" Longstocking, and P.T. Boatwright the Fourth. Of course we'd call it a sad remnant of America's shameful racist past.

BUT WHAT IS DON IMUS DOING ON NATIONAL RADIO AND TV IN THE 21ST CENTURY???

Just asking, True Blue Liberal (Rutgers College Class of 1978)

Congratulations to the beautiful Rutgers Women for making it to the NCAA Championship Game. Next year the title is theirs!

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ADDED CONTACT INFORMATION, 6 April 07 @ 8:30 pm: Because MSNBC keeps on disclaiming responsibility for anything broadcast by Imus, here's the contact information for his radio station
WFAN (A CBS Company)
Email: fanmail@wfan.com (use a catchy subject line)
Main Phone Number: 718-706-7690
On-Air hotline to talk with our hosts: 718-937-6666Contest Line: 800-821-6611
Mailing Address:
WFAN-AM
34-12 36th Street
Astoria, NY 11106
So he's simulateously appearing on a CBS outlet and an NBC outlet? Is this racist somewhere on ABC too?

ADDED CONTACT INFORMATION, 7 April 07 @ 9:30 am: Here's a list of the 96 radio stations on which he appears around the country (ZERO in the proud state of New Jersey!) in case you want to write to your local Imus outlet.
In the Boston Herald this morning, the response to the local station is noted:

Phil Redo, vice president and market manager for Greater Media Boston, which owns WTKK (96.9 FM), said the Boston station hadn’t received any complaints.
“I can’t defend it because it’s indefensible,” Redo said of the remarks. “I’m glad that he apologized and he should have. It was a stupid comment. It was a terrible thing to say.” [emphasis added]

Even just one email or phone call to these local stations (cc'd to local sponsors) should have some ripples. If you hear a response to any of your complaints, please let me know in the comments.

Happy Poetry Month 2007

Musée des Beaux Arts
by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Happy Poetry Month from True Blue Liberal.

Where did True Blue Liberal go?

And what did he find to comment on that's more interesting than America's political games?

Kansas, Bored of Education, Finds Comfort in Ancient Myths

The next step is to give astrology its equal chance in the classroom with those secular humanist heretical heliocentric theories of "astronomy." Anyone who really looks at the stars and realizes their majesty knows that they can't be uninterested in our chances in the next Kansas MegaSuperPowerball® Lottery ("ya gotta be innit to lose it!").

Lautenberg Amendment would rename GOP Budget Bill: "Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportion Reconciliation Act."

Nice idea, but a Congress that named its bills honestly would never pass anything.

Sen. Kitten Killer can't ... Dr. Inside Trader so affronted he ..., or, What is it with right-wingers and their attachment to sentence fragments?

The following rant sounds like any right-wing rant on any right-wing blog, but remember when reading it that these are the published words of the Majority Leader of the United States Senate. You can click here to see the original rant on Bill Frist's blog, "Pack of Voles" (or its edited version, if he comes to his senses), but here's his whole post, without a single edit or addendum, as it appears this morning, Thursday November 3. The ellipses belong to the author, not to True Blue Liberal.

Embittered Democrats Sink To New Low
Author: Bill Frist, M.D.
November 2nd, 2005

Leave it to the Democrats to find old ways to sink to new lows ...

Today ... for the first time in more than 25 years ... Harry Reid - backed by a loyal following of obstructionist Democrats - invoked an obscure rule under which the Senate chamber can be ordered into closed session.

No vote is required.

One moment, we were talking about finally acting to get our deficit under control.

The next: closed doors. Zipped lips. No C-Span.

Everything secret.

Why did he do it - and why does it matter?

This was, at best, a political temper tantrum.

But more likely ... a feeble attempt to give purpose to a party with no agenda.

A tactic of the weak ... a tactic of a party with no convictions, no principles, no ideas.

Look ... it's no secret that Washington has been tense lately over numerous political issues, but this can be healthy.

To debate is democratic ... a sign of progress ... a means to a resolution.

What was done today is anything but ...

It was an affront to the Senate; it was an affront to the American people; and it was an affront to the principles of democracy.

This political stunt, in truth ... reinforced the difference between US and THEM.

We - Republicans - were elected by the American people to MOVE AMERICA FORWARD.

The Democrats are content just standing in our way.

So ...

When Harry Reid and his colleagues are done pouting behind closed doors, my door will be OPEN.

Open to talk about how we're going to secure our borders; open to talk about filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court; open to talking about ending wasteful Washington spending and restoring fiscal discipline to our government.

Open to DOING THE JOB THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED US TO DO.

Today's actions remind me of an old proverb:

"The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out."

This is the writing of a man who went to Princeton and Harvard? Besides the wingnut love of sentence fragments and CAPITAL LETTERS TO SHOW THAT HE'S REALLY REALLY AFFRONTED, please note what's missing. He never once mentions War, or Iraq, or Rove and Libby, or the White House Iraq Group, or the failures of the Intelligence Committee, or anything of substance. Harry Reid did not close the doors of the Senate for procedural reasons, or to flex his muscles. Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership were (finally) raising real questions about war and peace that affect every American. Maybe Dr. Bill should have listened to Harry Reid when the doors closed, rather than pitching public fits of pique.

Until further notice (or indictment), the phrase "Senior White House Advisor" should be globally replaced with the words "Karl Rove"

from The Washington Post, "Trial Could Pit Libby's Interests Against Bush's":

"A senior White House adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said the Bush team believes it dodged a bullet when Fitzgerald charged only Libby on Friday and then pointedly said in his news conference that the indictment should not be read as a condemnation of the war or its run-up."

Just once I'd love to see a sentence start with these words in the Post or the Times: "Karl Rove, speaking on the assumption that we would respect our 'promise' to protect his anonymity, ..." Is there ever anything that any anonymous senior advisors in any Administration (Republican or Democratic) reveals anonymously to their embedded media partners that isn't either a) a self-serving lie, or b) self-serving spin?

Just asking.
True Blue Liberal

crossposted from http://whiggate.org/