Don Imus

[mjeezy]

So this boy sent out a mass IM over YIM saying:

(20:50:47) Matthew: anyone who thinks don Imus deserved to be Fired is a fucking anti american idiot. I think jesse jackson and al(not so) sharpton are the biggest fucking racist shitbags in the country. I wish they would protest something other than Black civil rights such as boycotting a guy who

Comments

[gentryw]

Imus is a jerk. Always has been. Do I think this warranted his firing? No.

What upsets me is that this was allowed to be turned in to a race issue, when it isn't. It is an issue of a jerk making tasteless comments. Simple as that. He has the constitutional right to do so, and CBS has the right to fire him in return.

The problem is when we allow ourselves to be bullied by the likes of the Al Sharptons of the world. This is not the worst thing Imus has said. But it is what got him dispatched because of the media shit storm surrounding it.

We allowed it to become a divisive issue rather than doing what we all should have done in the first place...

Rolled our eyes at him and changed the channel.

[mjeezy]

Well you are half right about the race thing. The comments were flat out raciest, Don Imus himself, I don't think he's raciest.

[gentryw]

I disagree. Just because something is said about a person of a particular ethnic group doesn't make it racist. The term "nappy headed" isn't inherently racist. The term "ho" is inherently sexist.

Let me post this question. If the girls did in fact have nappy hair at the time the comment was made would the term be racist, or merely an adjective?

If he had called a group of fat people fat or gay people gay, would it still have been viewed as such a venomous statement?

[mjeezy]

Well you're point would be better if the nappy were some empty term. However, it was a loaded term, it was used in a context to make fun of and degrade people. So yes, in the context that the phrase was used it was racist.

[gentryw]

That is where we disagree. Nappy is an adjective to describe hair, not an inherently racist term.

If I saw a black person who's hair was indeed nappy, and I make mention of it, does that make me a racist?