Priorities
Bookworm on Apr 10 2007 at 8:59 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
I don’t have time to blog this morning, but did take a minute to check out today’s Drudge. Is it only Drudge, or is it the whole world that has elevated Imus’ big mouth to headline status, above just about everything else of actual importance?
UPDATE: More time means more thoughtfulness, and over at American Thinker, you can see what more time does for analyzing the sorry spectacle of Imus’ headline takeover.
UPDATE II: Why am I not surprised that Michelle Malkin has also figured out that the Don Imus should be at the back of the newspaper, not on the front page, above the fold.
UPDATE III: Apropos the cultural degradation I mentioned in Comment 10 (we shouldn’t be surprised at Imus’ disgusting behavior, nor should we be shocked), Michelle Malkin has assembled an all star lineup of the most debased examples of the type of culture that made Imus think he could get away with his insulting, racist crudities. Given that many of the same people are now decrying Imus have applauded this “authentic” culture, I go back to my original point that I think they doth protest too much — and by doing so they exclude more important news from the American radar.
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Imus is a shock jock and nothing he says should surprise anyone. What is important about the story is the reaction of others. For example, McCain is making a mistake if he agrees to appear on Imus’ show after this.
I disagree more or less completely.
Everybody knows what Imus is about - whether or not he is a “shock jock” is probably a personal call; he hasn’t been a “jock” (term comes from “disc jockey”) of any kind in decades, but I suppose the term once applied sticks forever - but he has been cheerfully and often enough amusingly insulting people and groups for decades. It has always been what he does.
All of which is by the way. One of the things that fascinates me about this current controversy is the large dollops of hypocrisy - enough to float a battleship - that are currently being wallowed in. The liberal culture of being offended weighs in.
Al Roker, Chris Matthews etc. - all the news boys at what’s left of NBC, have known what Imus is about for years. David Gregory, Roker, Brokaw, Lauer, Matthews, and politicos like Biden, McCain - frequent guests. Knowing what he was about has never stopped them from scrambling to appear with him. What, they just found out last week what Imus does - even though they’ve sat next to him for years?Now all of a sudden they are sitting in judgment, just as though what he does comes as a surprise!
That is crap.
I don’t understand how these guys get a pass on this. (Kind of like the problems that jerks like Henry Waxman have discovered at Walter Reed and other military medical centers. Excuse me, Henry, have you not been in congress for far too long? Are you not one of the bozos who regularly cuts funding for the military? That sheaf of letters you held up from dissatisfied constituents [military people] complaining about conditions - so; did you do anything about them? No. You didn’t. For years. So you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. But now you get to be indignant, and have the sheer brass balls to claim innocent bystandership, just as though your congressional position bears no responsibility.)
That is also crap.
Same thing here. All these clowns at NBC, in the political world, in the media world - they all know and have known for decades what Imus did. Now they’re shocked. Shocked, I tell you: shocked!
More crap.
And the idea that a self-serving huckster like Sharpton gets to sit in judgment - on anybody - is beyond vomit-inducing. Why this person isn’t still in a cage for the crime of the Tawana Brawley fraud, which actually did do real harm to people, I don’t know.
As far as individual character goes, Imus has quietly helped out a lot of people over the decades, and engaged in a more public effort to help out kids with cancer at his ranch in New Mexico, and gives tons of money and time every year helping out things like the CJ Fund for SIDS. Neither Al Sharpton nor Jesse Jackson have ever for one second of their lives helped out anybody but themselves. Not for as much as a second.
As individuals, I’ll take cranky old Imus any day. Every day. All the time.
And no, I neither listen to nor watch him. Never did much back in NY, but now that it would require me to rise at three in the morning - forget it altogether. He’s gone and off the air before I’m out of bed every morning.
And the offensiveness of his remarks. If remarks are offensive, then they’re offensive. Ah, but wait a minute. Maybe not. Not in the liberal world. Because we all know how rappers, etc. refer to women as a matter of routine. Imus tapped into that - and all of a sudden it’s offensive? And Jesse Jackson can be forgiven and get a complete pass for the rest of his life for “Hymietown?”
So, it’s okay for some jerk with his hat on backwards and his pants hanging around his knees to routinely refer to women and girls as “bitches” and “ho’s,” - and that’s just fine. That’s not offensive. But Imus’ much more mild version - that’s so offensive he gets to have garbage like Sharpton sit in judgment on him?
I can’t really imagine what would be so offensive it would permit a fate like that.
So, DQ, Imus is sort of today’s Rorschach (or do I mean litmus) test of American politics?
The offense is called going up against the Leftist Dogma system.
You get excommunicated if you do things they don’t like.
If they can excommunicate Book (if they knew of her) and Neo (and they do know her), who else will they get in the end?
An acquaintance who had to go to the Midwest for business commented with wonderment, ‘They’re different in the flyover states. They don’t think the way we do-Bookworm
They’re right, we don’t think like they do. Certainly I don’t think like they do…
‘Jesus was a liberal.’
Since he got crucified through a betrayal of one of his own, sure I guess he was a liberal.
How did I react to my change? With silence. You see, having lived a lifetime on the Left myself, I instantly realized that my new outlook would not be greeted as an intellectual curiosity, to be questioned politely and challenged through reasoned argument.
Contrary to your detractors Book, I saw your actions more as something befitting a reserved lady than cowardice. Fear plays a part, yes. But the Celestial Heirarchy could not function without fear, without people recognizing that there are consequences to their actions, whether they are strong or weak. You don’t seem interested in loud arguments for its own sake. Even here, you tend to take a quiet, bystander position. I think that’s just part of your reserve, your personality, Book. Remove the fear, and you would probably act the same way. Is it truly fair to call it cowardice when the fear more or less doesn’t change your behavior all that much? Certainly it is a motivation for keeping things secret, Book, but that is also part of your personality. The party line is not important enough for you to fight for it with every resource at your command. It is your personal line you fight for, and that has its own considerations, responsibilities, and duties that go with it.
conclusions. It’s not my job to proselytize, nor is it my wish to alienate myself from my community. For now, it’s enough that I smile wanly, blog ferociously, and vote conservatively.
It’s that “blog ferociously” thing that I keep coming here for.
I’m bringing this old subject up because of JJ’s comment. How the Left treats people is… predictable in a way. Why is it predictable? Well the answer to that requires psychology, entropy, narcissism, and other things. You know, the whole deal. Might actually turn out to be longer than both of my comments at the God-Science post. Could be scary. So I skip the why. Let each individual find out the why, for certainly each individual on the Left, Gore and Sharpo with Jesse, have their own slightly different variations on how they justify their actions.
A poster at another blog had a very interesting comment that seemed quite prophetic. To paraphrase:”Does all of this news focus on Anna Nicole and Imus have an August 2001 feel to it?”
Although JJ did a great smackdown [loved that "large dollops of hypocrisy"], I’ll add that when I first heard of the remark by Imus, I immediately [truly, immediately] recalled the very first sentence from Stevie Wonder’s song “I Wish” on the fabulous “Songs In The Key Of Life” album released in the mid 1970s. Here’s how the song begins:
Looking back on when I
Was a little nappy-headed boy.
Then my only worry
Was for Christmas what would be my toy.
Even though we sometimes
Would not get a thing,
We were happy with the
Joy the day would bring.
Imus has a long, long history of daily firing his staff [practically all personal friends], outrageous accusations against — and name-calling of — celebrity/sports/press acquaintances during their calls to him, etc. Imus does this stuff simply for comedic value; in short, he’s the Don Rickles of talk radio. It’s unbelievably “rich” for a motor-mouth like Al Sharpton to rail against him and demand his dismissal over this. All one need do is search one’s memory — better yet, the internet — for the long list of racially-charged remarks/accusations from folk like Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakhan, etc to quickly conclude that there are, indeed, “two Americas”. I guess John Edwards was right!
Interesting comments all, but let’s not lose sight of how truly offensive the comment was. It’s one thing for one to call oneself a nappy-headed boy. It is quite another for a man to call a very specific (and undeserving) group of young ladies “hos,” nappy-headed or otherwise. These are basketball players, for crying out loud, not publicity-seekers who have voluntarily put themselves in the public eye. Again, no one can be surprised; this is what Imus does. But I don’t think Imus should get a free pass on this, nor should those who choose to appear on his show after this.
Sorry - if the remarks are offensive, then be offended when they’re made by Snoop, Jay Z, Ludacris, Pig Bog, or any of the rest of the fashion plates. You don’t get to just be offended by it when Imus says it.
If that’s the case, then the remark is in fact not at all offensive in and of itself, and you’re just being offended by somebody you don’t happen to like. That’s a little convenient, isn’t it?
I don’t think the fourteen year old girls in the neighborhoods are publicity-seeking, or much ask for, or deserve to be referred to in such terms by the above-mentioned gentry and the rest of their pals, either. Maybe they deserve it even less than basketball players.
I suspect the excess the CO2 emissions in the atmosphere has no effect whatsoever on global warming, but is the root cause of extreme idiocy in the human population. The infatuation with Anna Nicol Smith, and now this storm over a burnt-out vulgar wreck like Imus, are evidence of this CO2 induced imbecility.
I think Zhombre’s onto something. You can’t have a culture that encourages, indeed, glorifiers shock tactics, vulgarity, rudeness and other cutting edge “humor” and “commentary,” and then profess to be shocked when someone steps over an increasingly invisible line. I think what Imus said is rude and disgusting, and I agree with DQ that future guests ought to think twice about appearing on his show. But no one should be surprised that this is where our pop culture has ended up. I guess that’s why I find it bewildering that the media has gone so crazy about this one. It’s just the latest point on our race to the bottom of the slippery slope.
There is a superficial answer to the issue of why Imus is getting pilloried for using what in a large part of the young Black community is a descriptive, not derogatory, phrase.
He is white.
There is a continuing, and coroasive, tollerance of free speech on one side of the color line, or rather the liberal/conservative line, and freedom to castigate the same speech on the other side of that same line.
And why is that? It is because if a conservative (usually white) uses a potentially derogatory word for a black, then you can freely bash the conservative for being a bigot, and decrease his desire to debate at all. This creates an American liberal version of dihiminitude.
If a liberal fails to protest a white using a “derogatory” phrase for a black, then the lib looses one of the biggest clubs he has to bash conservatives with. The libs must protest Imus’s behavior now, despite their prior love of him, because his use of “nappy” and “ho” push those words further into the realm of accepted speech by whites, and inherently reduces libs ability to control conservatives.
Jo mentioned to me yesterday she had heard an interview with some of the Rutgers team. The girls asked the question of the reporters, why the reporters didn’t talk about the team when they were working hard and winning games as much as the reporters do now after Imus’s comments. The team did not seem as much offended at Imus as they were at the media.
This could be a good trend.
If you want to increase entropy (ie expend energy) by decrying offensive speech, fine. What is necessary is to actively stop destructive action. Name calling is not destructive. Sticks and stones…
Al
Hi JJ,
Please help me out. Maybe it’s because I don’t pay much attention to what the folks you list say, but I don’t remember them making such deplorable comments about specific individuals. Do you (or any other readers) have examples of such comments? As for me not liking Imus, I have no opinion on the man, but I certainly do not dislike him any more or less that I dislike any of the other people you named. Insofar as any of them have directed utterly uncalled for offensive attacks at any specific individuals I condemn them all.
I don’t know whether name calling is destructive or not. I tend to think people are either destructive or not, whether their target is themselves or others. It is after all, the people that matter.
DQ-
Shifting the ground to specific individuals doesn’t alter the matter. If the words are offensive, then they’re offensive. Who speaks them is - or ought to be (and in a legal sense, is) - irrelevant. I don’t know (haven’t yet heard a tape) that Imus named any specific basketball players, either.
(In fact to my way of thinking, if one of the rappers mentioned in a “song” was indeed referring to a specific woman in those terms, that would make it a more palatable comment: it leaves open the outside chance that he might actually know her as an individual, and she might in fact be a whatever-he-called-her.)
They don’t do that. They just indict womanhood in general.
I pay less attention to them than you do, but I do know some names - 50 Cent; Snoop Somebody-or-other; Ludacris (his highly original spelling first caught my eye); JZ; a few others imperfectly remembered. Do they name individuals? Beats the hell out of me, I don’t know. (Though, as above, if they had that might be better than the generalized spewing of this crap all over every female from 8 to 80 years old.)
But, despite the lawyerly attempt to shift the ground to the naming of “specific” women, the point remains: if the words are offensive, they’re offensive. Just as offensive when issued by Snoop, Cent, etc. as they are from Imus.
If, on the other hand, you are only offended in some cases, then you are not offended at all: you are up to something political.
JJ, legally there has always been a difference between latitude in addressing public and private figures. You can say hateful things about the President with impunity (as long as you don’t threaten him), but you can’t say hateful things about your neighbor — he can sue you for defamation. I think DQ has a point that the same standard applies here. These hateful things are in the air, and the difference between polite and vulgar discourse has vanished, but even Imus must know that you don’t target perfectly innocuous women athletes for a racism-laden screed.
My point, and one I’ll cling to, is that there’s a larger problem here, which has to do with the breakdown between polite and vulgar. Certain things never used to be said in regular company. We all knew that, within ghettoes, African-Americans insulted each other with impunity. So did Jews in the Lower West Side, and Italians, and Irish, and whatever. But these were sort of like mini-Vegas situations — what happened in the ghetto or poverty-stricken neighborhood, stayed there. Gangster Rap culture, however, suddenly elevated this private, crude discourse and made it normative. Indeed, the cultural critics praised it as authentic. (I think that’s Malkin’s point.)
Now you and I, ordinary people, know that this is still language meant to shock and offend, that it belongs to inside groups, and that polite people, whether within or outside of such a group, don’t use it. Imus, however, makes his living — a very good living — from being an obnoxious jerk, who insults people left and right. He has no boundaries. I think his lack of boundaries got entangled with the commercially (Hollywood and Wall Street) promoted breakdown of ghetto boundaries. It was an ugly Venn diagram waiting to happen.
As it is, and as I’ve said before, I think Imus’ behavior is rank and disgusting. But that’s not necessarily because he used racist terms. It’s because only an unusually mean, vicious, vindictive, crude, rude man, would attack perfectly nice athletes. It’s just icing to this distasteful cake that the Venn diagram of pop culture saw him launch this unfounded attack in racist terms that used to be considered as unbefitting polite society.
Then we disagree. I will hold to the view that the offensiveness of speech is a function of its offensiveness; not a function of who said it.
http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html
Offensiveness isn’t something set in concrete. It’s not a standard by which you can do much with.
Hi JJ,
Offensiveness of speech is not a function of the speaker (I know that many hold to a double standard; I do not). But it is very much a function of the target of the speech. Generic comments, that insult everyone and no one in particular are offensive but do not harm individuals. Specific comments that insult specific people harm specific people. When those people are not folks like politicians (who have sought the limelight and are generally considered fair game, rightly or wrongly), the offensive is particularly objectionable. This is not a lawyerly shift of ground. It is real injury to real people. It is deplorable, in a way the rap videos, bad as they are, are not.
P.S. For goodness sake, please quit accusing me of being up to something political. I’m not.
I suspect most sociologists would disagree with you, particularly as to the effect on the black community, also real people.
I did not accuse YOU of being up to something political - unless you fit the definition. For Sharpton and Jackson to be offended by Imus but not any of these other folks - that’s pure politics. For the coach of the basketball team to be offended by Imus but not by the rappers’ general discussions regarding young black womanhood - that’s politics.
JJ’s refering to “you” in the hypothetical non-singular manner.