You are correct - Don Imus can apologize all he likes, but his comments illustrate his character. Please use the same measuring stick when you talk about your John Edwards blogging buddies who offended people with their rants and then said - oh I can change my stripes and I didn't really mean to offend anyone. Imus at least said that what he said was wrong. I don't believe he believes it, but at least he had the balls to use those words. Your pals said I'm sorry someone was offended, meaning of course they never had the problem but that others did. Walking the shoes of those who were offended this time your tone is quite different.

Buffy,
I don't believe that stating your opinion of a religious institution is the same as calling a team of successful basketball players, "nappy headed ho's". The comments of amanda & melissa on the catholic church were directed not at individual people but to the statements of the official church.

Imus' statement downgraded the success of those women. No matter what they do or how good they are at what they do, Imus will only see them as "nappy headed ho's"

Isn't it ironic that the same ilk of people who are always ranting about how people should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps like they did, are so often the ones who jab down people who actually do?

i posted an action link from NOW on the other Imus thread. since that thread is dead, now, i thought that i'd post it here, too.

http://www.capwiz.com/now/issues/alert/?alertid=9602971&type=CU

click on this to send a letter requesting he and McGuirk be fired. they even have a pre-written letter that you can send, if you want, so that it will only take a second.

I'm not sure what cognitive obstacle is preventing people like buffythewhite here from seeing the difference between satirizing or making a joke out of the powerful (e.g., white supremacists, the Catholic Church, misogynists) and making a joke out of the powerless and disenfranchised (e.g., black people, women, black women). Is it stupidity? Is it entitlement? I mean, what exactly is gained by the continued and socially approved insult and injury of the downtrodden?

Is the humor (debatable) to be found in kicking a person while she's down really so important that it's worth the kicker's decency (as well as that of the kicker's audience)? The answer, obviously, is no. They want to be able to spew this crap without having their reputations tarnished. They want to kick oppressed and subdued people without having it reflect badly on their character. Why can't they understand that those days are over? You don't get to abuse disadvantaged people and still be considered decent. Sorry.

Luckily for people like buffythewhite, it's still legal for you to get your jollies off the fallen faces of oppressed people. No one's going to take your precious freedom of speech (to mean insult and poor manners) from you. Just don't complain when you, rightly, get called a bigot for it.

How about if we join together and call buffythewhite a few of the choicest names we can come up with for narrowminded idiots. Something akin to the "hos" comment. Consiering that we - of the broad-minded view- are in majority here, maybe buffythewhite will be able to understand what the difference between "racist/ segregationist" talk and "freedom of speech" is.

But you know what, i do not think someone who can compare apples to oranges will be able to see it- lets call buffythewhite names anyway.

You are correct - Don Imus can apologize all he likes, but his comments illustrate his character. Please use the same measuring stick when you talk about your John Edwards blogging buddies who offended people with their rants

No problem. Don Imus is a sexist, racist fuck and that offended people. Amanda Marcotte opposed sexism and that offended people. Are you for or against sexism, because by the standard being employed here, the two situations don't seem at all alike.

I'm not sure what cognitive obstacle is preventing people like buffythewhite here from seeing the difference between satirizing or making a joke out of the powerful (e.g., white supremacists, the Catholic Church, misogynists) and making a joke out of the powerless and disenfranchised (e.g., black people, women, black women). Is it stupidity? Is it entitlement? I mean, what exactly is gained by the continued and socially approved insult and injury of the downtrodden?

In my experience, they support the racist, sexist hierarchy and that's their motivation. No, they're not stupid. In fact, by pretending they are "offended", they have managed a clever trick of putting people down by pretending they're the ones who are oppressed.

Bravo, Amanda. My meager response was nothing compared to yours.

Call me crazy, no amount of apologizing will do any good. Im thrilled someone pointed out his error to him, but it completely proves who his inner character is all about.

This person is lower than low, and should remembered as a racist and sexist for the rest of his days. He should be grateful they even care to speak with a low life bigot like himself.

I had an interesting conversation about the Imus comments today. I was riding in a cab this afternoon, and the driver, an African American man, had the radio tuned to a station where the Imus comments were being discussed. The driver asked me (a white girl) what I thought of the whole situation. I told him that I was offended by the comments. The driver said that he understood why people were offended, but that the comments were not out of character for Imus to say about anyone, that he makes fun of everyone in a similar fashion all the time. He was of the opinion that the players themselves probably didn't take offense to the comments until it became a big media story.

What I took from this conversation was a sense that the Imus comments are more a result of the continued, deep-seeded mysogyny in our culture than they are a result of racial prejudice. Not that it isn't an issue as well, but I can imagine that a lot of men, both black and white, probably haven't taken Imus' comments all that seriously, or were laughing right along with him. Because they don't take women athletes seriously. They don't take women seriously.

I had an interesting conversation about the Imus comments today. I was riding in a cab this afternoon, and the driver, an African American man, had the radio tuned to a station where the Imus comments were being discussed. The driver asked me (a white girl) what I thought of the whole situation. I told him that I was offended by the comments. The driver said that he understood why people were offended, but that the comments were not out of character for Imus to say about anyone, that he makes fun of everyone in a similar fashion all the time. He was of the opinion that the players themselves probably didn't take offense to the comments until it became a big media story.

What I took from this conversation was a sense that the Imus comments are more a result of the continued, deep-seeded mysogyny in our culture than they are a result of racial prejudice. Not that it isn't an issue as well, but I can imagine that a lot of men, both black and white, probably haven't taken Imus' comments all that seriously, or were laughing right along with him. Because they don't take women athletes seriously. They don't take women seriously.

See a tongue-in-cheek visual of Imus and his newfound buddy, Michael Richards, hanging out and counting sheep...here:

www.thoughttheater.com

"What I took from this conversation was a sense that the Imus comments are more a result of the continued, deep-seeded misogyny in our culture than they are a result of racial prejudice. Not that it isn't an issue as well, but I can imagine that a lot of men, both black and white, probably haven't taken Imus' comments all that seriously, or were laughing right along with him. Because they don't take women athletes seriously. They don't take women seriously".

That's a valid point- I was watching the women's NCAA
Basketball Playoffs recently when one of my house mates (a male) walked in and gave me a funny look.
I asked him what the problem was and he said he
couldn't deal with women playing sports- they were
"too masculine". I suspect that kind of misogyny is all to pervasive in this society. Look at the attacks on Title IX that are constantly taking place.
Add this to the virulent racism in this society and
its no wonder that bitter white male idiots like Imus continue to use these insults to garner ratings.

JonesingforaDem,
You are exactly right about the comment being more about misogyny. If you notice the way the conversation went,

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.

But the sexism for some reason doesn't get called out. I mean this is all they can say about women basketball players? He calls Rutgers team "nappy headed ho's" and "the girls from Tennesse they all look so cute".

I don't have the whole transcript so I don't know if he ever mentions how well the women played. But the key question is would he talk about a male basketball team that way?

I won't argue whether or not Imus is more of a misogynist pig or a racist bigot, but I think that it's very interesting that people are now bringing up the fact that the misogyny angle has been brought to light as much. Especially in light of this.

oh what bullshit. NOW started their Dump Imus campagain on Saturday-- the same day that that post was written. and what does he expect women's magazines to do? they're published monthly, and this has been going on for a week.

doublefantasy: Actually, NOW didn't start their campaign until April 8th. Imus had diarrhea of the mouth on April 4th. So, yeah, they're pretty damn late.

Also, he never mentions women's magazines, just prominent women's organizations.

malaika924,
I think Imus is both racist & sexist. But I think some people are almost giving him a pass on the sexism. Like it's ok to call women "ho's". Doesn't matter what she accomplishes, she's just a ho.
Reminds me of the taunts in high school whenever a girl had a strong opinion, "must be her time of the month." It's another way of putting successful women of any race back in their place.

The local afternoon paper just landed on my doorstep, and thanks to this blog, I noticed that the header for a story on Imus was "Radio Host Don Imus gets two-week suspension for racial comment; critics say he got off easy."

Reading the entire story on page three, the angle was entirely about the racism, ignoring the sexist elements. How can referring to teenage women on a national radio program as "hos" not be misogyny? It does seem like the media has decided that one can't be the target of multiple -isms at once . . .

The local afternoon paper just landed on my doorstep, and thanks to this blog, I noticed that the header for a story on Imus was "Radio Host Don Imus gets two-week suspension for racial comment; critics say he got off easy."

Reading the entire story on page three, the angle was entirely about the racism, ignoring the sexist elements. How can referring to teenage women on a national radio program as "hos" not be misogyny? It does seem like the media has decided that one can't be the target of multiple -isms at once . . . too complicated!

My bad. He does mention women's magazines at the end.

But organizations like NOW should have stepped forward sooner and said, "We won't tolerate Imus' bullshit, either." For people to say that the misogyny factor is being is put on the back-burner to the racism factor is ludicrous because those who would speak out the loudest against mysogyny didn't stand up and fight until they were being called out on it.

malaika--

you're right, it was the 8th. i got the date wrong. that is kind of late. i must say, though, that in my experience NOW is pretty late in general. i'll usually get action alerts on an issue from one or more organizations a couple of days before i get one from NOW. so, certainly, there is problem there. however, i think that it's unfair to act like there was some sort of extra delay for this issue in particular. i don't find this to be the case.

and actually, he did mention magazines:

"Frankly, Burke, NOW and even the editors of female magazines should be ashamed of themselves. "

malaika,
Thanks for the link. You're right the women's rights organizations should have been on top of this. They should have been right up there first thing & I don't understand why the response took so long.

I think he should be taken to task for everything he said. And I certainly don't think a 2 week suspension and an apology is enough.

Mandy312: It does seem like people are saying "Those are racist comments. By the way, they might also be kinda sexist."

Doublefantasy: Yeah, sorry about that. I caught the "magazine" bit at the end.

I wonder why NOW was so slow to pick up on this, though? Are there any other women's organziations who also need their hands slapped with a ruler?

I think we should contact every woman's organization listed on the side of this web site and take them to task for ignoring this issue.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/10/SPGMDP5OAQ1.DTL

Not sure how to link, but I thought you all might be interested.

Oh -- it looks like it did.

malaika924, women just can't win can we? Women bloggers have been screaming about the misogyny since the Imus comments came to light. But they're wrong for that because it distracts from the *real* issue of racism. Don't those fem bloggers care about women of color? On the other hand, prominent women's organizations didn't jump on it with lightning speed, according to some anti-feminist godbag. Therefore, feminists don't care about women of color.

I've been following this ugly Don Imus controversy and I just don't understand why the comment is seen as mostly racist. It seems to me what this man said is thoroughly sexist and denigrating to ALL women, and that on top of it he added an extra insult about black women's appearance.

After all, after you've called a woman a really nasty version of the word "whore", does it really matter what else you add? It's the verbal version of hitting someone with a baseball bat over the head with all of your strength, and then kicking them once more.

But what is, I think, fascinating, is that when the comment is debated, the focus is mostly on the wrongness of calling black women "nappy headed". Now, I think this is awful. But what about being called the h word? I really wish someone who is good with language would disect this word because it's common parlance in our culture. It has been a favored word in rap music for years, and it has for years been percolating into main stream. I think we can now say it has arrived.

The reason I think this has more to do with sexism than racism, is because lots of black men use this word for women. Yet, there has not really been this great outrage - why? We've all grown insensate to seeing rappers with angry faces vomit their hatred of women on all of us (figuratively).

What has made this into a national even is the fact that is was said by someone who is white and who looks nothing like a rapper. It is SO unexpected to hear something like this coming out of an old white man's mouth, that is has jarred us from our complacency. I hope it has.

And I hope that this won't stop here, and that it will go further to other people and groups who use these words. It's time that all that disgusting stuff in the dark corners of our national consciousness come to sunlight.

I can suggest why it's primarily seen as racist--because the term "ho" comes out of black vernacular culture and is mostly applied to women of culture when it's used in the mainstream. I would argue that "ho" is as racist as it is misogynistic.

In my opinion, mainstream feminist groups (especially NOW) take a really long time to respond with official condemnation of just about anything. But Feministing had a post about this on the 6th, and I had heard about it through other feminist blogs earlier than that. Since I would be willing to bet that most feminists aren't happily listening to Imus on a regular basis, that seems like an okay response time.

I do think that we (feminists, and in my case, a white feminist) need to be strongly condemning of both the racist and sexist nature of his comment. To be sure, it's not acceptable to allow either portion of the especially offensive comment to slide past, ignored.

I meant women of "color."

a white guy said a stupid thing. don't go blaming blacks but white commercial rap that plays up racist stereotypes.

imus should def be fired:

Imus and his crew, Charles McCord and Bernard McGuirk, are frequently accused of racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Imus referred to sports columnist Bill Rhoden as a "New York Times quota hire" and PBS anchor Gwen Ifill as a "cleaning lady". Imus has repeatedly referred to Arabs as "ragheads." He has berated many female newsreaders, most recently Contessa Brewer, which caused her to leave the show. After she left the show, Imus went on a tirade, saying, “With that fat ass she’s got, she wouldn’t be one of ‘em,� (a beautiful woman). Imus said on the air, "That skank has to spend three hours with makeup in the morning." The tirade was also tied to comments that were overheard of Contessa's calling Imus “a cantankerous old fool� at a dinner in a restaurant in 2005, when she was still newsreader.

Carlagirl: yes, the word has origin in black vernacular. But I have heard and seen it used to refer to non-black women just as often. I'm speaking about expression on the internet, entertainment, music. Rap music became the music of choice with teenagers years ago and its language therefore became popular with whites - apparently, it has even reached an ancient thing like Don Imus who probably feels young and hip when he sounds like a rapper.

I could be wrong, but I definitely think this attitude toward women has reached critical mass and it affects all women (perhaps not equally, but it does affect all).

Donna, so black rappers bear no responsibility when they denigrate black women?

Are we forgetting that calling a black woman a whore is racist? In traditionally racist society black women are whores and black men are bigger and better sexually than white men. All part of the fearmongering necessary to keeping these bigotries strong.

Whoever said that it isn't racist? But why is it also not sexist? Why does sexism not deserve as much attention as racism? I have seen and heard white women being called the h word, and there was no controversy. Had the team been all white women and Imus called then the h word, we wouldn't even be talking about it. It is because he also made a racist comment that we are even talking about it... the question is, why is sexism so ignored? Why is it not given the same attention as racism?

I thought the white women were easy and the whores? I forget.

Samhita had this great post about the recent documentary made by and for the black community. The website for the documentary seems to say that white commercial rap promotes stereotypes and black men and women need to be aware and to stop making and listening to it. I'm not really sure because it aired at 2:30 a.m.

Give me some Pam the Funkstress!

Don Imus was racist, sexist and homophobic. Isn't he loverly? Because he also suggested they were butch and the other team feminine.

There's a pretty good link about Imus's previous remarks at http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0028,goldstein,16350,1.html

That an article from 2000, too. If he doesn't exude white male privilege, then I don't know what does.

Here's the statement from the Rutgers coach in regard to Imus' comment.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/10/coach.comments/index.html

Donna, so black rappers bear no responsibility when they denigrate black women?

ummm... wow.

okay, look, we've got a white man on the radio degrading athletes for being both black and women... and, suddenly, the conversation turns to how bad black men are to women.

i'm a little disturbed here.

this is an opportunity to come together. to recognize that an established public figure is insulted all black people and all women and is facing minor and meaningless censure.

black (and white and latino and asian and...) rappers do bear responsibility for their actions... and it's really important to dive into why cam'ron and snoop and fergie and so on tend to dominate the airwaves, while shelly b and m1 and jean grae and so on don't... because there are plenty of stars out there who don't shine on the radio (immortal technique, queengodis, pam, boots, dj chela) and the values of the universal zulu nation are not so, well, universal by the time hip hop hits top 40.

however, that's not the issue here... the issue here is that don imus, an established white man who could say whatever positive or negative things he wants without meaningful oversight, chose to call out successful atheletes for being black and for being women.

to blame the african american community for don imus is unnecessary and counterproductive.

this is an opportunity to see where our interests intersect and i really don't see why it has to turn into calling out white women's publications for not acting quickly enough or black entertainers for being assholes...

i mean, really, we've got a major network, here, which is willing to allow someone who reinforces disrespect for black people, women and, particularly, black women to stay on the air and keep netting them money...

and all we can do is blame each other? come on.

is this why there's no more cointelpro? 'cos we're doing the job ourselves?

c'mon... get out there, call msnbc, sign every petition you can, talk to your uninformed friends about what a prick imus is, get together with people of color and/or women and let's start working together... to understand one another's struggles... rather than picking each other apart.

BIG heights and BIG blessings

Puckalish, this isn't about black men or blaming them for what a white guy said. I came here outraged at Imus and mentioned exactly what you said, that his comments insult ALL women. I made the further comment that I hope this debate will go further than Imus and mentioned rappers. This isn't blaming them entirely.. but they are part of the problem too. Frankly, I think white and black men are all too happy to collude and bond over demeaning women. This instance is a chance for women of all colors to realize that we have a lot in common.

mandy,

thanks for the link... ms. stringer is both eloquent and unbending...

does anyone know of a way to voice support for the rutgers team and let the women on it know that they have more supporters than detractors?

get together with people of color and/or women and let's start working together. --Puckalish

ooh ooh ooh!

ajm, you're totally right but let's keep the focus on this asshole imus. you will find another thread about what you're talking about soon i'm sure!

hautedonna: I know that was a really bitchy and pathetic attempt at sarcasm, but you really have no idea how close to the truth you are.

if i were to rank this situation according to forms of inequality, it would be homophobia (those girls are tough, have tattoos, aren't feminine like the other team), racism then sexism.