This is a seminal moment in our country's history. Regardless of the motives of CBS and MSNBC for firing Don Imus in the wake of this scandal, it still gives pause to those who think it is okay to spew hate from their mouths.
For too long people in the broadcasting industry have been too willing to turn a deaf ear to the racist and sexist trash that have come out of the mouths of the likes of Imus and other shock jocks. Then when they go "over the top", they apologize and go right back to doing what they do. Imus had been doing that for over 30 years. The fact that he was paid $10 million to do that is institutionalized racism, pure and simple.
People who are up in arms about his firing are talking about his right to free speech. He absolutely has a right to free speech, but he DOES NOT have a right to a talk show, and CBS and MSNBC also have the right to fire someone they feel will not be profitable--apparently when Proctor and Gamble and Staples pulled out, the networks pulled the rug out from Don Imus. I am not so naive to think it was just because of his words, because if it were, they would have canned him immediately. I do believe there was a profit motive. But it was all connected, and finally people, and companies are beginning to see that they do not want to be associated with someone who makes his living by spewing hate.
There was another very interesting thing that I really didn't notice until it was pointed out to me. I read about it on Jon Landau's blog published in the Huffington Post:
"For some reason, people who make no secret of the fact that they despise Al Sharpton feel that they are doing something meaningful by engaging with him at times of crisis on racial issues. In going to him, they are seeking out someone who they think is disliked by large portions of the white audience, which they think puts them at an advantage. In the long run it doesn't. But instead of this knee jerk move, how about for once agreeing to talk to a professional news person like Tavis Smiley, an exceptional broadcaster, Errol Lewis of the New York Daily News, a terrific writer and broadcaster, the under appreciated Bob Herbert of the New York Times, or for that matter, Clarence Page, who challenged Imus on race many years ago, and was never heard from again on his airwaves. (Tom Oliphant, perhaps Mr. Page was more deserving of your solidarity than Imus is.) The assumption that the only place one has to go to make "media peace" is with Sharpton is in its own way subtly racist. And the MSM (mainstream media) encourages it."
I find this to be the case in every racial issue that comes up. When Michael Richards said the "n-word", he immediately went on to Al Sharpton's show. Why not discuss it with Tavis Smiley? Finally, yesterday on "The Today Show", Tavis Smiley, Clarence Page and several other African-American spokespeople who are not considered as "controversial" were guests on the show and spoke about the Imus issue in ways that made sense and would be extremely difficult to argue against. I wonder if that is why the MSM does not encourage racial offenders to go head to head with people like Tavis Smiley and Clarence Page?
What happened is even though Don Imus was the one who made the offensive and racist comment, it got turned around and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson became the targets. Everywhere I turn I see comments about Al Sharpton's and Jesse Jackson's history. This is NOT about Sharpton and Jackson!!!! So if they hate Sharpton and Jackson so much, then why do they engage with them about racial issues? Go to African-American broadcasters they respect! But they won't do it because the mainstream media itself is playing the "race card".
I really hope this begins a dialogue on what is and is not acceptable on the airwaves. There is no room for hate speech in this country. And I'm all for getting rid of rap music that denigrates women and using the n-word too. It's all bad. It's a new day.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Don Imus scandal - emblematic of a larger societal problem?
Unless you've been buried under a rock somewhere, you've probably heard by now about the racist and sexist comments radio broadcaster Don Imus made about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. In case you haven't, on his radio show he was talking to his producer about them, how he thought they were really "rough" looking and then proceeded to call them "nappy-headed hos". This comment was made about a basketball team that started at the bottom, perservered, and made it all the way to the finals, representing a prestigious university. To taint their accomplishment in that way was despicable, disgusting and abhorrent. Imus called it comedy.
Some people are calling for his firing. MSNBC is suspending him for two weeks. Sponsors such as Proctor and Gamble and Staples have pulled ads from his show. Bigelow Teas is revisiting whether it wants to advertise on the show.
However, what is disturbing to me is the number of people who think Don Imus should not even have been suspended. I just went to the MSNBC website to vote on whether Don Imus should be fired, suspended, or whether suspension was even too much. 33% felt Imus should be fired. 30% felt a two-week suspension was enough. But 38% felt that Imus should not even have been suspended, and that he was a shock jock, it was his job to shock people.
What does this say about our society? Granted, 157,000 voted, and it is not a scientific survey, but I've been reading a great deal about this scandal, and quite a few people feel that everyone should just get over it, Imus made a mistake, let him get his wrists slapped and move on from it.
The problem with this is that these sorts of comments are made over and over again in the public venue with no repercussions other than public embarrassment for the person saying it. Yes, we do have freedom of speech in this country, but where has the sense of decency gone where people in power can call people the "n-word" or "nappy-headed hos" and get away with it? People are trying to compare this with rappers saying the n-word and while I do not agree with rappers using that word or putting down women, I believe that this is an issue of power, and rappers do not wield the same power as a Don Imus using the phrase "nappy-headed ho" or a political candidate using the word "macaca" or even Michael Richards using the "n-word".
In the last two weeks the newspapers have been filled with misunderstandings between the races. Danny Westneat, a columnist for the Seattle Times wrote of his frustration with the Seattle School District and his perception that the district was "obsessed with race". He was bombarded with hundreds of responses, some agreeing with him and others accusing him of "not getting it" and suffering from unexamined white privilege. He was open to discussing the issues although in his follow-up article, he still didn't seem to "get it" and did acknowledge perhaps it was due to his own white privilege. He also felt that he probably wasn't really very good at talking about race and hoped the new superintendent would be better at talking about it. Interestingly enough, one of the candidates for Seattle Schools Superintendent says about race, "We should all stop talking about it and deal with it." Okay, but how do you deal with it if you don't talk about it?
Unfortunately in our society, many people don't want to talk about it. When people of color bring it up as an issue, they're accused of bringing up "the race card". But the fact of the matter is, if a person of color is in a group where they are the only person of color, it is disingenuous to think that race might not come up as an issue if that person is feeling isolated or disenfranchised. Many white people do not understand this until I pose this question: "If you walked into a meeting, and you were the only white person, and everyone else was African-American, and you were feeling isolated and left out, do you think that part of the reason might be because you're white?" And of course, everyone says yes. However, the fact of the matter is most whites are never in this situation so it is difficult for them to envision being "the one and only" or to envision a situation where race is an issue for them. They don't live in a world where it is. Our society is one where whites are in power, whites can walk into a room or a workplace, and pretty much count on the fact that the majority of people will look like them. So when people of color bring up race, they accuse us of playing the race card, when in fact it may be a valid point.
As a diversity trainer and multicultural educator, it is my job to talk about race, as well as all dimensions of diversity. It's important that we start feeling comfortable talking about our differences as well as our similarities. Until we can start talking about our differences in a safe, non-threatening way, these problems will continue to divide us.
For an excellent blog by Jon Landau about the Don Imus scandal go to the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-landau/imus-words-recognizing-_b_45532.html
Some people are calling for his firing. MSNBC is suspending him for two weeks. Sponsors such as Proctor and Gamble and Staples have pulled ads from his show. Bigelow Teas is revisiting whether it wants to advertise on the show.
However, what is disturbing to me is the number of people who think Don Imus should not even have been suspended. I just went to the MSNBC website to vote on whether Don Imus should be fired, suspended, or whether suspension was even too much. 33% felt Imus should be fired. 30% felt a two-week suspension was enough. But 38% felt that Imus should not even have been suspended, and that he was a shock jock, it was his job to shock people.
What does this say about our society? Granted, 157,000 voted, and it is not a scientific survey, but I've been reading a great deal about this scandal, and quite a few people feel that everyone should just get over it, Imus made a mistake, let him get his wrists slapped and move on from it.
The problem with this is that these sorts of comments are made over and over again in the public venue with no repercussions other than public embarrassment for the person saying it. Yes, we do have freedom of speech in this country, but where has the sense of decency gone where people in power can call people the "n-word" or "nappy-headed hos" and get away with it? People are trying to compare this with rappers saying the n-word and while I do not agree with rappers using that word or putting down women, I believe that this is an issue of power, and rappers do not wield the same power as a Don Imus using the phrase "nappy-headed ho" or a political candidate using the word "macaca" or even Michael Richards using the "n-word".
In the last two weeks the newspapers have been filled with misunderstandings between the races. Danny Westneat, a columnist for the Seattle Times wrote of his frustration with the Seattle School District and his perception that the district was "obsessed with race". He was bombarded with hundreds of responses, some agreeing with him and others accusing him of "not getting it" and suffering from unexamined white privilege. He was open to discussing the issues although in his follow-up article, he still didn't seem to "get it" and did acknowledge perhaps it was due to his own white privilege. He also felt that he probably wasn't really very good at talking about race and hoped the new superintendent would be better at talking about it. Interestingly enough, one of the candidates for Seattle Schools Superintendent says about race, "We should all stop talking about it and deal with it." Okay, but how do you deal with it if you don't talk about it?
Unfortunately in our society, many people don't want to talk about it. When people of color bring it up as an issue, they're accused of bringing up "the race card". But the fact of the matter is, if a person of color is in a group where they are the only person of color, it is disingenuous to think that race might not come up as an issue if that person is feeling isolated or disenfranchised. Many white people do not understand this until I pose this question: "If you walked into a meeting, and you were the only white person, and everyone else was African-American, and you were feeling isolated and left out, do you think that part of the reason might be because you're white?" And of course, everyone says yes. However, the fact of the matter is most whites are never in this situation so it is difficult for them to envision being "the one and only" or to envision a situation where race is an issue for them. They don't live in a world where it is. Our society is one where whites are in power, whites can walk into a room or a workplace, and pretty much count on the fact that the majority of people will look like them. So when people of color bring up race, they accuse us of playing the race card, when in fact it may be a valid point.
As a diversity trainer and multicultural educator, it is my job to talk about race, as well as all dimensions of diversity. It's important that we start feeling comfortable talking about our differences as well as our similarities. Until we can start talking about our differences in a safe, non-threatening way, these problems will continue to divide us.
For an excellent blog by Jon Landau about the Don Imus scandal go to the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-landau/imus-words-recognizing-_b_45532.html
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