Yesterday I wrote about the Don Imus imbroglio (see below), and I thought I should explain that the purpose of that post was to point out the disparity in treatment between Imus's suspension and the punishment meted out to others whose offenses were far less racially offensive than was his.
Having said that, I want also to point out that I don't think Imus, for whom I have no sympathy, said anything in the present episode that was racist or malicious (although his producer, I think it was, uses a racist epithet that should have gotten him fired). Imus's remark was racial, to be sure, but not racist, and much of the commentary that I've heard on this incident, by mistakenly focussing on it's alleged racism, misses the really outrageous aspect of it.
Watching the video of Imus it's clear that he was, in his mind, actually praising the girls on the Rutgers basketball team. He was using what he doubtless thought was black street-slang in order to compliment their prowess on the court. This is what I think the media is missing, and what is so despicable about the incident.
It is only in a degenerate culture that someone of Imus's stature, much less the millions of young people who use language like he used, could think that he was being complimentary by calling these young women "whores."
We have feted and celebrated rap culture to the point now where millions of people think that it is high praise to call a young woman a whore and a lot of young women are no doubt flattered by being called one. "Artists" in this culture dehumanize women by treating them as little more than receptacles for male libido and then the larger pop culture treats the artists as though they are some sort of prophet.
The depressing thing about the Imus incident is that the media, missing the point as usual, is trying to turn Imus's words into a manifestation of racism when in fact they're nothing of the kind. It's really an instance of the language of a sleazy, depauperate American popular culture bubbling to the surface.
Imus should indeed be censured by his employers, but not, in this instance, for being racist or racially hateful, but for perpetuating the demeaning, degrading, dehumanizing view of women rampant in a sub-culture that the media itself has helped spawn.
RLC
