Taking on the Don

I’ve never even heard of Don Imus, but as most of you probably have heard, he’s a radio-show shock-jock that is irrelevant to most people; unless, of course, he makes an idiotic, racist statement about black people (the Rutgers University women's basketball team to be more exact).

First of all, any white person who makes any negative comment about black people, especially one over the air-waves, should know that the sh*t will probably hit the fan, and create quite a mess. Just ask Michael Richards. If for no other reason, it’s just plain stupid to make a racist comment like that at all—on the air or off, because you know that a combination of “civil rights activists,” as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton like to refer to themselves, and the media will swarm and crucify you.

But the real reason nobody should say deprecating comments about black people is because it is morally repugnant and wrong. From my earliest days, my parents instilled in me an overarching respect for people of all races, ethnicities and colors, a respect that, by its nature, prohibits malicious comments about other ethnicities. At the same time, I will not pretend, of course, that I have neither heard nor laughed at jokes about other races or ethnicities—whether they are about white, black, brown, yellow or green people. While I will admit that laughing at any one else's expense, for whatever the reason, is basically wrong, I can say with authority that my fellow Americans—whatever racial or ethnic background they may be—also make jokes about other people(s).

While this is no excuse for racist comments, an example of this is provided herein: A local hip-hop radio show host was joking yesterday that "it was just so hard to find good white help these days." Even if a white host couldn't get away with a joke about finding "good black help," it remains non-malicious. The show itself that day was actually centered around Don Imus' comments, and quite a few callers to the show who said they were African-American said that Imus simply was repeating what is normal speech in "black culture," however one might want to define that. I'm not going to get in to what is and what isn't "black culture," but suffice it to say the host and all the callers thought that Imus' remarks were aweful and deplorable. Even if Imus was repeating what is considered common speech routinely found in rap music, there is no excuse whatsover in repeating it.

Here is a good example: my mother always told me (yes, in the Forest Gump voice) that if a certain ethnic group wants to use certain terms for themselves, then so be it, so long as I don't use that term for them. I think we know what term could be applied in this context. I think it is aweful that any race refers to other members of its race in a condensending and deprecating manner—case in point—the term "white trash." A friend of mine a couple of years ago was visiting me in Waco, and, while we were at HEB, an obviously underprivilaged (one might say "poor"), obese white couple walked in to the store near us in the vegetable section. We could hear them talking in thick accents, and noted that their clothes were rather ragged, old and dirty. The friend said to me in a low voice, "hmm, looks like we've got some white trash here". I quickly turned to him and angrily told him how offensive that term was to me—who are we to judge these people, who probably started out with very little, had rough times and are barely making it? How can we, as so-called "enlightened" and "educated", people, look down our noses at these people? This is just as wrong as what Don Imus did. Not only is it wrong to use demeaning, ethno-specific terms for one's own race, it is wrong to use them for ANY race.

I'm not sure Don Imus deserves to lose his entire career (and I use the word "lose" very loosely here) over the comments, but he certainly deserves to feel the heat from his sponsors and his employer, which, in my humble opinion, would be a suspension that is much longer than just two weeks, because of the potential damage he has done to race relations. If any good comes out of it, it's that people realize how demeaning certain terms are to women, regardless of race, and how it ruptures what could narrowing divide in race relations.