Posted by
Shogrensus on Monday, April 09, 2007 9:30:54 PM
April 9, 2007
No Rosie today. She needed another day off. I anxiously await her return.
The Women on Imus
Everyone knows Imus is an extremist whose primary purpose is to push the envelope through shock talk. Last week’s comments by Imus about the women on the Rutgers’ basketball team were clearly racist. These women work hard to be the best athletes they can be and to represent their school in a respectful manner. They had no dog in any fight with Imus. He spoke with the purpose to demean and to hurt.
BW doesn’t think Imus is a man of malice. As she talked about how he has done everything in his power to apologize… she informs the audience that Imus and his wife run a cattle farm for kids who have cancer and 10% of the kids who go to this farm are black. Apparently, that makes it all okay. Yes she says it was terrible but…
Joy, as usual, refers back to Mel Gibson, who she says went into rehab as an excuse. Imus didn’t make excuses. Barbara then points out “he’s not trying to give an excuse” as though this is a good thing.
We should be asking ourselves whether or not there is any difference between a stone cold sober person making racist remarks and a person who is drunk beyond imagine making racist remarks. Of course there is a difference. The Imus comments are far worse than Gibson’s because he should have been able to control himself.
Imus was in complete control of his faculties and made a conscious choice to say truly insensitive, racist things about completely innocent people. Gibson was out of his mind drunk and rambled on about Jews in a totally inappropriate manner. Gibson sought help for his drinking problem. He met with leaders of the Jewish community to try to come to grips with the feelings that surfaced when he was drunk. Somehow, he is more culpable.
This is an example of how these women turn things on their heads: the sane person should be pitied and the impaired person should be pilloried.
Elisabeth wants Imus to get a time out until Black History Month next year. Come on!
Joy has done a bit of a turn around on the speech issue. She now thinks the solution to bad speech is more speech. After her very critical comments about both Mel Gibson and Michael Richards in November she seems to have softened a bit. Could her tempered remarks be a reflection of ABCs efforts to protect Rosie O’Donnell from negative commentary about the things that she says?
In the end, BW concludes that “If we learn anything it is that words are not just something we just throw out there. Words hurt.”
This would be an interesting conversation for her to have with Rosie.
The women of Rutgers should not waste their energy feeling badly about the Imus comments. They should instead focus on the outpouring of support from around the country. These women should put the deranged commentary of a ratings-seeking talk show host in perspective.