MESSAGE
| DATE | 2007-04-21 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Imus Campaign
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appers, artists, politically correct The New Lynching: Why I Must Defend
Don Imus
By Selwyn Duke
Saturday, April 21, 2007
So Don Imus has been fired from his radio show, and all is well in the
world. We all know about the maelstrom that developed around the aging
shock jock, who has found out how loose lips sink ships, in this case
his own. But even though his is a vessel I never would have christened,
I find a certain conclusion inescapable here. I must defend Don Imus.
Lest I be misunderstood, I have no use for the man nor any for the rest
of his ilk. I know him to be a poster boy for our cultural decay, a man
who, along with innumerable fellow babblers, disgorges cultural effluent
on a daily basis. He has been a willing participant in the defining of
deviancy downwards and I normally would not lament his departure.
I also would criticize his comments. It's most uncharitable to make
sport of relatively anonymous college kids and mock their appearance. So,
one may wonder, given my thorough condemnation of the man, in what way
do I defend him?
It's very simple: What really matters with respect to this issue has
nothing to do with Imus. This is because this has everything to do with
race, but not in the way many think. It isn't what was said that has the
sultans of slime (read: reverends without congregations, et al.) so upset,
but the color of the man who said it.
Let's place this in perspective. We now have a society in which virtually
no comment, no matter how salacious, sardonic, crude, rude or lewd,
is out of bounds. The only restriction is that politically incorrect
people must confine themselves to politically correct comments;
politically correct people can go further and utter some politically
incorrect ones. And shock jocks and music pox, otherwise known as rappers,
regularly exercise their tongues in ways that would make the Marquis de
Sade blush. And these rappers, who, almost to a man, would be dead or in
jail if quasi-literacy and incoherent, vulgar, hateful rambling weren't
handsomely rewarded by our beating-a-chicken-under-the-moonlight culture,
drive around in limousines, even though no amount of money can take the
gutter out of the guttersnipe. We see people who pass themselves off as
artists creating uplifting works such as a crucifix immersed in a bowl
of urine and then demanding tax dollars as funding. We have gratuitous
violence served up with relativistic messages in movies and sexual imagery
anywhere and everywhere; it so permeates our society that now we have
fifth-graders having orgies in the classroom. Then, the Lord's name is
regularly taken in vain on film, although no one cares about that anymore
because we now show obeisance to a new virtue, one of the vice-ridden's
design. Of course, the aforementioned is far from exhaustive, for how do
you encapsulate a toxic culture operating 24/7 and beaming its poison
to all corners of the Earth in a paragraph? Perhaps it can be done,
but it's beyond my capabilities.
Now let's view Imus' comments against the backdrop of the above. In an
amateurish attempt at humor, he called some female collegiate basketball
players "nappy-headed hos." Not nice, no question there, but when placed
in context, how bad do they seem to those who aren't slaves of political
correctness?
I know what some are thinking. You can't excuse bad behavior by
citing other bad behavior, and, in the same way that you apprehend
and convict the murderers you can, the thieves you can and the rapists
you can, knowing full well that others will escape justice, shouldn't
any traditionalist welcome the erasure of one blot on the American
panorama? Doesn't the journey toward a reclaimed culture begin with
the draining of a single cesspool? Of course we would have to start
somewhere, but the problem is that an overall war against immorality
is not the basis on which Imus has been punished. Moreover, Imus may be
replaced with someone more politically correct, but he won't be replaced
with someone better.
And now we're inching closer to the point. Anyone who wants to combat
immorality across-the-board will find a staunch ally in me. However,
I will not, under any circumstances, be party to a process whereby a
few politically incorrect instances of it are cherry-picked from a sea
of immorality and the perpetrators punished harshly simply because they
bear the wrong complexion.
The problem here is both simple and ominous: The firing of Imus further
solidifies the precedent stating that, with respect to freedom of speech,
the latitude one has is directly proportional to his epidermal melanin
content. Plainly speaking, a white person risks his career when saying
things for which black people are regularly given a pass. It's the
new lynching.
I said this solidifies the precedent because it's not even close to
the first such occurrence. Back in 1988, famous sportscaster Jimmy "the
Greek" Snyder's career was ended when, while inebriated in a restaurant,
he asserted that blacks were better athletes and posited a theory as to
why this was so. Contrast this with the case of Dusty Baker, a black
man who, while manager of the Chicago Cubs, also said that minority
athletes enjoyed some innate advantages in the athletic arena. Although
Baker did have to endure some criticism, his job was never in jeopardy
(nor should it have been).
Getting back to Don Imus, I'll point out that music pox and black
comedians regularly trade in bigoted, misogynistic, hateful material
that makes him look like Opie Taylor. On Hannity & Colmes recently, they
had as a guest a quite corpulent comic named Patrice O'Neal. O'Neal,
a black man, unabashedly used the word "cracker" (a racial epithet
referring to whites that is the equivalent of "nigger") numerous times,
while Sean Hannity just sat quietly and smiled. Then there's the clip
of black comedian Chris Rock (Michael Savage brought it to light on
his show) wherein he talks about how he hates all "crackers" to the
roar of an appreciative audience. "Oh, c'mon, Duke, that's just humor,"
you say? Yeah, so was what Imus said.
Contrast this with how white commentators have been cowed into not
even uttering the word "nigger" for illustrative purposes; instead,
they obediently say "the "N-word.'" It's something they dare not even
whisper. . . . To me, this one, solitary phenomenon perfectly epitomizes
the neutering of the white male, as we genuflect at the altar of the race
hustlers. In fact, it's so preposterous it bears restatement: Blacks can
use the word "cracker" to demean and express hatred, but whites cannot
even utter the word "nigger" as an element of substantive commentary. I
guess this is the affirmative-action of the tongue.
Speaking of the rotten fruits of our affirmative-action mentality, two
of its worst products -- and that takes in a lot of territory -- Jesse
Jackson and the bovine bloviator himself, Al Sharpton, were Imus' two main
inquisitors. I'm far from the first to make this point, but who are these
two vile, vicious, bigoted mental midgets to be casting the first stone
at anyone? Of course, many have spoken of their hypocrisy, but as bad as
it is, it must be subordinated to something far more significant. That
they apply a double standard that benefits themselves is bad enough,
but that the media apply one that benefits them is far worse.
If we are going to root out bigots, why aren't we applying the attention
where it's most needed? As to this, we can add to Jackson and Sharpton's
sins their bigoted crucifixion of the recently exonerated and always
innocent Duke lacrosse players. Let's look at what Jackson said shortly
after the false allegation was made:
". . . And the idea of white males fantasizing about black women is --
is quite old, quite -- and quite ugly, and now quite illegal."
And,
"That fantasy is as old as slave masters impregnating young
slave girls."
Now, this seems curiously reminiscent of what was sometimes said a
century ago about black men lusting after white women, something
now viewed as a most egregious form of racial stereotyping. But
not only has the media not criticized the race hustler for this
prejudiced remark, it has been disseminated so little that I
actually had trouble finding the exact quotation (you have no
idea how long I spent searching for it).
Of course, this is just the latest from a man who is beneath
contempt, a creature who has made a career out of using threats
and intimidation to shake down corporations, all to enrich
himself, his family and his cronies.
Even more of a thug is Sharpton, a man who has incited riots that
have caused immeasurable pain and suffering and more than just
a few deaths -- he has blood on his hands. And this isn't the
first time he has been party to false rape allegations. In 1987
he perpetrated the Tawana Brawley hoax, an incident in which a
15-year-old girl fabricated rape allegations against six white
men. Sharpton was only too eager to drag the men's reputations
through the mud, which included labeling Dutchess County Assistant
District Attorney Steven Pagones a racist and a rapist. Sharpton
never even apologized to Pagones, and to this day has not paid a
price for his vicious slander. Of course, he did disappear from
public view for a spell, but like a jerk-in-the-box, he popped
back up some years later as if nothing ever happened and now is
a favored guest on many news shows. (Shame on you, Bill O'Reilly,
for giving this criminal a forum.)
Now, contrast the above with "nappy-headed hos." Also, how does
"nappy-headed hos" stack up against Jackson's and Sharpton's
demonizing of the Duke boys? Imus made a rude racial comment
about some college students; the two guttersnipes participated
in a lynching that might have changed some college students'
lives inexorably. Thus, can anyone really say the media have
their priorities straight?
Some would, it appears. Dick Morris said recently that taking
Imus to task may herald a new era, one of increased civility
in public discourse. Sure, Dick, if you believe that, your
former employer, Bill Clinton, has some land to sell you in the
Whitewater development.
Nothing will change, except that a further chill has been put
on the tongue, especially when it's wielded by one bearing a
politically incorrect complexion. Yes, when you cut through all
the posturing and sanctimony, it's obvious that what was played
to perfection here is a now old game: Beat up on whitey.
-- http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Interesting Stuff http://www.nylxs.com -
Leadership Development in Free Software
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town that Brooklyn, like
Atlantis, reaches mythological proportions in the mind of the world -
RI Safir 1998
http://fairuse.nylxs.com DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS -
RI Safir 2002
"Yeah - I write Free Software...so SUE ME"
"The tremendous problem we face is that we are becoming sharecroppers
to our own cultural heritage -- we need the ability to participate in
our own society."
"> I'm an engineer. I choose the best tool for the job, politics be
damned.< You must be a stupid engineer then, because politcs and
technology have been attacted at the hip since the 1st dynasty in
Ancient Egypt. I guess you missed that one."
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