kids say the darndest things
So I have a similar point here as Michelle Malkin, and you know how that makes me crazy. But I'm going to expand on it so its a little more substantive than reverse racism (I swear, i was only checking out the New York Post for job related reasons, Lisa can vouch)
So Imus called the Rutger's Women's Basketball team nappy headed hos. As an addendum that I feel like putting at the beginning of my post because i'm crazy like that, I had never heard of Imus until this happened, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yay! Suddenly has has tons of free publicity, and since he is a shock jock, bad publicity is, really, good publicity. Suddenly more people know who he is and more are going to seek him out, either because they secretly agree with him or because they just like to watch train wrecks. Advertisers are threatening to withhold ad funding, but its not going to happen. They are coming out on the record as opposing his remarks, but arent going to do anything beause there is no reason to. He is only going to gain listeners because the type of people who would boycot his show for political and social reasons are probabily already listening to NPR.
But I digress.
I love how people are pretending to be offended by this. How can you be offended by language you hear every day? Etymologically, ho is taken from the word whore (and yes, still does sometimes have that connotation), but it has become so entrenched in modern lingo that the association isn't always there. Now, very often, it simply means girl. I hate the word as much as anyone else and agree that the only way to make progress is to attack the problem of sexism and racism at a structural level, but why are we suddenly so angry at Imus for saying it when everyone else hears it on a daily basis? Its in music lyrics, the hollywood rag sites I read when bored, hell, its sometimes even used for a term of endearment. I agree we need to do something about the misogynist underbelly of american culture, but Imus is simply a product of that environment. He was an easily targeted whipping boy because he was stupid enough to take the word out of its nebulous context as a song lyric or private conversation and give a face to the name. By getting mad at him, we are saying its OK to be sexist and racist (we will give you a record deal!), just be vague about it.
Should he be fired? Of course not. He is an idiot, sure, but he is doing his job. And we need people like him so that there can be dialogue, call and response. He didn't threaten anyone, he wasnt advocating violence. If people still want to listen to him, they will. If they don't they won't, and he will get the boot for bad ratings. But of course, instead of dialogues about the roots of misogyny and racism, structural problems, and discourse on how to address these pretty deeply entrenched problems, all we hear on the news is how he doesn't want to be fired, how this has ruined the team's stellar year, and how advertisers want to pull out. In other words, the flow of finances instead of the flow of ideas
So Imus called the Rutger's Women's Basketball team nappy headed hos. As an addendum that I feel like putting at the beginning of my post because i'm crazy like that, I had never heard of Imus until this happened, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yay! Suddenly has has tons of free publicity, and since he is a shock jock, bad publicity is, really, good publicity. Suddenly more people know who he is and more are going to seek him out, either because they secretly agree with him or because they just like to watch train wrecks. Advertisers are threatening to withhold ad funding, but its not going to happen. They are coming out on the record as opposing his remarks, but arent going to do anything beause there is no reason to. He is only going to gain listeners because the type of people who would boycot his show for political and social reasons are probabily already listening to NPR.
But I digress.
I love how people are pretending to be offended by this. How can you be offended by language you hear every day? Etymologically, ho is taken from the word whore (and yes, still does sometimes have that connotation), but it has become so entrenched in modern lingo that the association isn't always there. Now, very often, it simply means girl. I hate the word as much as anyone else and agree that the only way to make progress is to attack the problem of sexism and racism at a structural level, but why are we suddenly so angry at Imus for saying it when everyone else hears it on a daily basis? Its in music lyrics, the hollywood rag sites I read when bored, hell, its sometimes even used for a term of endearment. I agree we need to do something about the misogynist underbelly of american culture, but Imus is simply a product of that environment. He was an easily targeted whipping boy because he was stupid enough to take the word out of its nebulous context as a song lyric or private conversation and give a face to the name. By getting mad at him, we are saying its OK to be sexist and racist (we will give you a record deal!), just be vague about it.
Should he be fired? Of course not. He is an idiot, sure, but he is doing his job. And we need people like him so that there can be dialogue, call and response. He didn't threaten anyone, he wasnt advocating violence. If people still want to listen to him, they will. If they don't they won't, and he will get the boot for bad ratings. But of course, instead of dialogues about the roots of misogyny and racism, structural problems, and discourse on how to address these pretty deeply entrenched problems, all we hear on the news is how he doesn't want to be fired, how this has ruined the team's stellar year, and how advertisers want to pull out. In other words, the flow of finances instead of the flow of ideas