Don Imus and the Cesspool of PC and Double Standards

Don Imus is out of a job for making an unwise joke about the Rutgers lady basketball team. MSNBC and CBS have completely cancelled his program. Leaving aside the fact that these two corporations canned his program despite the fact that Imus was joking and apologized ad nauseam, far bigger issues remain. One primary issue concerns whether this kind of censorship (particularly after profuse apologies) is wise and justifiable. Another issue is the level of hypocrisy surrounding this censorship issue.

Here we have a man who has told questionable jokes for decades. He has either fired staff members when they crossed the line or apologized as in this latest case. In other cases, he has not done so because he apparently felt there was no need to apologize for an obvious joke. Now, after all these years, they bring down the entire hammer all at once after giving Imus virtually full reign to showcase his brand of humor for years. At any rate, he is gone now, so there's no point in belaboring this particular firing. On the other hand, what happens next may shape the future of free speech in this country that supposedly values open dialogue and expression and second chances.

I am personally a PC hater. It is a kind of censorship that will creep up out of the dark and bite you the moment you have a slip of the tongue or be so human as to occasionally speak without thinking. But it is not so much PC that is the problem. It is the actions of PC thugs like Al Sharpton that create the problem. Sharpton has made mistakes and is still alive and well on the radio. Jesse Jackson is still alive and well despite making some of these same mistakes. Yet they are front and center calling for people like Imus to be fired for an unfortunate joke without so much as a line of dialogue with Imus to try and fix the problem.

Even after Imus offered to go on Sharpton's show (which he did) and apologized for hours, Sharpton and his PC thug wannabees never let up the pressure until Imus got the boot. And this is the behavior of a reverend? Shocking but true.

Now, let's get to the good part. We all know of the foul language in rap music these days. Sharpton and his two faces have been asked time and again about rap music. He conveniently concedes it's an issue to discuss while refusing to call out a single rapper by name.

Let's look at this more closely. Imus makes a three-second joke that was clearly unwise and, taken out of the context of his brand of humor, can certainly be seen as racist and sexist. Although that was most likely not his intent (he apparently spoke without even thinking about it), the response is understandable. Like I said, though, it is not so much the outrage after the comment. It is the herd mentality that takes over to shut people down and the hypocrisy. Calls for Imus' firing came immediately without serious discussion. Here we have a white guy who tells a three-second joke and should be fired immediately according to the PC thugs. Yet the same PC thugs give feeble lip service to rap lyrics with a highly generic statement and a refusal to call out a single rapper.

If someone doesn't see the double standard here, it's really scary. Why does Sharpton merely have a conference on rap lyrics to see if there is a problem but immediately call for the firing of someone like Imus? Well, let's speculate a little since I can't read his mind. Let's posit that Sharpton and goons like him are afraid that the black community will not agree with him. This in turn threatens to destroy his little empire. With no black community to follow him, Sharpton is pretty much out of business. As always, it appears that Sharpton will give a little lip service to things like rap music so as not to seem too biased and hypocritical but won't cross the line to where he thinks he might alienate his target audience. In other words, he simply can't be trusted to push the issue against black offenders. Only the whites are called out by name and led to slaughter. Again, I can only speculate here because I can't read his mind, but the hypocrisy is clear. The fact that he won't call out a single rapper or label speaks volumes.

This brings us to the other dirty political players in this game - the corporations. Why they would bow this far to legal blackmail artists like Sharpton and Jackson is beyond me. They didn't let the market decide. Instead, they pulled the plug on Imus before he even had a chance to change his format. The ultimate aim of PC thugs like this is to control the media. If they don't like it, they will go after you. It is oddly much like the Religious Right. While the Religious Right seeks to force non-believers into faith-driven situations like school prayer or forced births, these lefties seek to control speech. It is quite ironic if you think about it. Both sides are attacking different parts of the First Amendment, but both are destructive in their own right.

Personally, my opinion is that the shock jocks and the rappers and everyone else should say what they want to say. If the market supports it, let them say it. My vision of America is a country where both intelligent and stupid people say what they want to say while others respond to either support or oppose those comments. But what we see here is not mere opposition. We see a kind of legal blackmail. Get rid of the people we don't like or we will boycott and harm your company. But the problem is the corporations are not on the same page. Imus goes, and the rappers thrive. And Rosie stays for jokes about Asians. For that, she saw fit to apologize for the insensitivity, and that dealt with the problem. Don't get me started on Rosie's other comments. That would take volumes.

Therefore, there is no need to have these silly arguments that you hear about rap. Rappers claim they are different because they portray real life. But Imus told a joke. In actuality, neither appears to be malicious. There is no real distinction here. We can argue over semantics or forget it and let the market make these decisions. Further, we can leave the hypocrisy and scattershot firings behind. Bring the era of open discussion back if the corporations can't police uniformly and fairly. This uneven and unpredictable treatment most likely breeds more resentment than could ever be caused by crude rap lyrics and badly worded jokes.

So here is the bottom line - most of these media corporations are only interested in money. They will not respond to any pressure unless they fear financial harm. And since people like Sharpton have shown a complete inability to treat all "offenders" the same, the best solution would seem to be to let the market decide.

If rap music like this sells, let people buy it. If Imus continues to have good ratings, let people watch or listen. If the sales or ratings go down, then the corporations can replace them. Besides, I thought that was what America was about, anyway. Please give us our freedom back, Big Business. As it stands now, two groups are being created. The ones who say what they want with virtual impunity and the ones who get accused of racism and sexism and get fired. This is certainly not the America that our forefathers envisioned.

Jimmy Boyd