5 Responses

1. pg says:

   May 2, 2007 at 9:30 pm

   I’ve got to imagine that the end result of this will be a settlement.There’s no way that Imus is going to get his job back by suing for it. For one thing, he wasn’t fired for what he said–although that’s the earnest face that both CBS Radio and MSNBC put on it. He was fired because major advertisers were pulling out…and the one thing that Imus had going for him was that despite less-than-impressive ratings, advertisers wanted to buy time on his show.And, just so that I’m not being hypocritical–I should point out that I spent a lot of time explaining what Imus said and showing that, in the context of how it was said, it was nowhere near the offensiveness of what Michael Richards said at the Laugh Factory……but it’s not an incident I want to champion as a defining moment in the battle for our freedom of speech. What Imus said was stupid, ill-conceived and insulting… Personally, I don’t think he should have been fired. I also think that others say far worse with far more dangerous intent and aren’t put through the apparatus that Imus was put through. I also think that an apology should have been enough.But it wasn’t…and he was fired…and, with the exception of this clause in his contract, his employers had every right to fire him.So it goes.pg

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2. John says:

   May 4, 2007 at 4:51 am

   I am a standup comic, and a 25 year D.J. an I don’t think that Imus or his producer should have been fired.A suspension should have been enough.An off-hand comment shouldn’t cost these man their jobs, even if it did hurt a feeling or two. If you listen to the playback you can easily tell that Imus was using the term in a humorous vein, and not “hate speech”

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3. Jeff says:

   May 5, 2007 at 3:25 pm

   No matter how you slice it, the fact of the matter is that he never violated any FCC rules. Notice that FCC never said a thing about it. It was the supposedly aggrieved masses that made the stink. Funny, I always thought NAPPY was a hair condition, not racist. And, a couple months ago comments were made about Barrak Obama being “articulate”. Al Sparpton, among many others, made the stink claiming that the word, when being used to describe a black person, was racist. Just because they are black don’t mean they can’t speak good!! I heard many people, Al Sharpton included, describe the members of the unfairly attacked and ravaged team as articulate. It never ends. I should note that Al Sharpton, who led the charge to get Imus fired, doesn’t posess the genes in him to be nappy. Have you ever noticed his hair? Looks like a devil in black man’s skin to me. At the end of it though, what was said was not offensive at all although everyone is free to take offense at it. What would have been offensive was, when the crap slammed the fan and those girls were being trotted out for a dog and pony show and crying about how they can no longer enjoy their great achievement and all that mess, to remind them that they were second place and second place is nothing better than first loser. When they win they can come talk about achievement. Until then, they are just nappy headed losers being exploited for something much bigger than they can grasp the consequences of and those consequences hurt all of us. That’s offensive. When you step onto the big stage like that, you open yourself up to criticism of every manner whether you like it or not. Noone HAS to like those girls and noone HAS to talk nice about them. Not everyone liked Micheal Jordan and damn near everyone hated Ali when he was fighting. Most people wanted to see Foreman knock him toothless! Put it in our perspective…There isn’t a comic alive that wouldn’t trade places in a second with Dane Cook or Carrot Top so how come is it then that they get derided so openly? Why don’t we have to celebrate the success of those comics? Why is nobody chastising someone that says Dane Cook is a hack and sucks? And who the hell are all these people to call for a man’s head because they don’t agree with the joke? Bill Hicks is considered one of the best and most folks I know can’t see the humor. Should Bill Hicks have been banned forever because people didn’t think he was funny? That is the route we are going and the route is cloudy and ugly and changes underfoot faster than we can walk. Sooner or later people are going to have to call BS on this PC mess and tell folks like Al Sharpton to eat a dick and die. Compassion cannot be coerced.Until some other time…Oh! What do you get when you take two white women and eight black women and stick them into the space for five? A slave ship! Now THAT’s offensive.

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4. pg says:

   May 7, 2007 at 6:05 am

   What Jeff said made me think 15 long winded things. You can agree or disagree…you can even choose not to bother to read them…but here they are…1) Again, Imus was fired because advertisers pulled out from the show due to the negative publicity generated by this event (which ballooned beyond proportions due to Imus’ previously made insensitive remarks AND the proximity Imus had with powerful figures.Doesn’t matter about the FCC–this wasn’t an obscenity issue, this was an issue of this evaporation of market value. 2) The term “nappy,” when describing hair, is 99 44/100% of the time used to describe the hair of people of African descent. It’s use in the Imus incident WAS, in context, a racial identifier…but not in and of itself racially insensitive. But one could say that “red” is a color and not a racist term and still be offended by the term “redskin.”In the context of how Imus used the phrase, “nappy headed hoes”–he was being insensitive and those so described were insulted. One can argue semantics all day but you can’t argue away that it was about how people perceived what was said more than what was actually said…3) Calling Barak Obama “articulate” IS offensive because it is a commonly used backhanded compliment (as articulated eloquently by Chris Rock.) It indicates a presumption that an African-American is expected not to be able to speak clearly or be understood easily, usually indicating an assumption of a lack of intelligence.It is disingenuous not to acknowledge this–again, argue semantics all you want, but the intent and impact are clear.4) There’s no point in bringing Sharpton’s secondary racial characteristics into this discussion. 5) If someone takes offense at something, you can’t say it isn’t offensive. You can say that it shouldn’t be offensive, but you can’t say that it isn’t. (See, I can play semantic games too.)6) In what Imus did, there was big risk and for that big risk there was, for many years, big reward. I don’t consider his being fired to have “hurt” all of us. In fact, an economic libertarian would suggest that the market place handled the situation perfectly–without any government intrusion (until after Imus was fired, and then karma came down like a horrible bitch on the Governor, didn’t it?)7) Just as people don’t have to be nice to the Rutgers Womens Basketball team, neither do the Rutgers Womens Basketball team give up the right to be insulted by what people say about them. Imus, to his credit, said that they had every right to be insulted, every right to demand an apology from Imus, every right to not accept that apology and every right to demand that he be fired. (Imus was just surprised that the market place responded more to those demands than to whatever value he offered to those who had been his advertisers.)8) You’re just simply wrong about everyone hating Ali when he was fighting, Jeff…especially when you use the Ali-Foreman fight as your example. The two best examples of audience-polarizing fights for Ali were the first Ali-Liston fight and then the first Ali-Frazier fight.In Zaire, it wasn’t that people wanted Foreman to punch Ali’s teeth out…it was that people EXPECTED the then ferocious Foreman to punch Ali’s teeth out–and that’s a very different thing.And it wasn’t, even in the Ali-Liston/Ali-Frazier fights, always a racially split matter regarding Ali’s popularity. I, for one, grew up as a HUGE Ali fan…and I hated Frazier for taking Ali in Ali-Frazier I…all as a white kid from Wisconsin. 9) You’re also absolutely wrong about how there isn’t a comic alive who wouldn’t trade places with Dane Cook or Carrot Top. I wouldn’t. So…you’re wrong.Seriously…there’s no way in HELL, I would want to be forced to live either Dane’s or CT’s life…even if you think that it’s all great, it’s just not at all appealing.Sorry–that’s your own trip, Jeff.10) The deriding of Dane/Top/LTCG/Mencia isn’t any different than the deriding of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or anyone else who is famous…There’s easy sociological reasons for why we pick on those who might be richer or more famous than we are… In comedy, I’ve heard it called the “hierarchy of superiority”–where you should ONLY pick on those “above your station” otherwise, if you pick on those less fortunate than you, you’ll be seen as a bully. That’s exactly why Imus’ comments about the Rutgers Womens Basketball team stung but his comments about Hilary Clinton were accepted with little question.Besides, there are plenty of reasons for not liking the comedy of Dane Cook, Carrot Top, Larry the Cable Guy and Carlos Mencia. Don’t you dare tell me that just because they’re popular that they’re automatically good and above reproach. I mean, Britney Spears can’t fucking sing, dude…and Spiderman 3 is a shitty movie.11) Jeff wrote <>Why is no one chastising someone that says that Dane Cook is a hack and sucks?<>Because an argument can certainly be advanced (note–I am NOT necessarily advancing this argument, just pointing out that it is a legitimate point of view) that Dane Cook IS a hack (especially if you take the definition of “hack” as in “to steal material” and you believe the various stories about the Louis CK and/or Demetri Martin bits that sound quite similar to what Dane does…AND that he sucks (because “sucks” is a qualitative word describing someone not liking something…and I know PLENTY of people who don’t like Dane Cook’s style. “He yells stuff, he repeats stuff, he just does goofy act outs for stating the obvious.” A fan of Mort Sahl is probably not going to be a big Dane Cook fan–does that make his opinion wrong?…but, the Rutgers Basketball team were not “nappy headed hoes”–in that not all of them had nappy hair, not all of them were African-American, and no one–not even Imus–is suggesting that they’re prostitutes.Your analogy doesn’t hold any water–they’re totally different scenarios and incomparable.12) Just as people have the freedom to express themselves by telling a joke, so do people have the freedom to express whether they like the joke or not. One of the best descriptions of the freedoms that we are guaranteed here in America compared to our responsibilities in exercising those freedoms is the aphorism “Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.”Imus, whether he meant to or not, hit those girls in the face with what he said. Sometimes, if you accidentally hit someone, you can apologize and all is forgiven. That’s harder, though, when you’ve shown a history for hitting people, apologizing but not changing the behavior that causes you to hit people…in fact, you’ve celebrated hitting people and getting away with it in the past.This time, the apology was NOT accepted…and some companies felt like they shouldn’t pay money to support someone who hits other people (because enough controversy had been drummed up to coalesce public opinion into a picture of Imus into a berserker, hitting far more people far more often and far more strongly than he actually did.)Imus isn’t banned forever. He isn’t banned at all. He just doesn’t have the job he used to have…and trust me, that happens in radio ALL THE TIME for far less than this incident.13) There’s a odd nature to your argument regarding “what if no one found Bill Hicks funny, should he have been banned forever?”If no one found Bill Hicks funny, he probably wouldn’t have gotten work as a comedian–and I don’t see a problem with that.The fact is–plenty of people found Bill Hicks funny…that’s why he could do what he did. No one has a “right” to have a career as a comedian without the ability to make an audience laugh. I mean, at the end, Lenny Bruce found it tough to get gigs–not because he was controversial but because he’d stopped being funny. Same with Mort Sahl.14) I’ll make this statement regarding political correctnes
   s (a fad that lingers on as an awareness of language sensitivity, but is not the pressing concern that it once was…): There are more comedians who go on stage every night and bitch about political correctness (usually before making a very easy, mildly shocking comment) than there are people who actually want to enforce an artificial code of political correctness. Complaining about things being “too PC” is hack (as hack as complaining about things that are hack.)15) <>Sharpton should eat a dick and die.<>Nice homophobic closer there, Jeff… (I’m ignoring the race-baiting joke you tagged on after the above command to Sharpton.)See, there’s still a reason for people to hold our feet to the fire for what we say–The Ice-T truism “Yeah, there’s freedom of speech–just watch what you say”–because people say ignorant shit like that…and saying ignorant shit like that belies an inability to understand and appreciate how someone else feels.A lack of empathy–a fierce hold on one’s own views without compromise. It’s a simple equation: Ignorance + Arrogance = Intolerance. How the fuck are we all supposed to get by on this ever shrinking planet if we won’t at least try to understand how others feel and what’s important to them?You don’t have to be pro-Sharpton. Heaven knows that I’m not…You can say that Sharpton is a hypocrite, you can say that he exaggerates situations for self-aggrandizement, you can say that his gift for hyperbole and self-promotion know no bounds…and you make a cogent argument that puts his own efforts into a more nuanced, three-dimensional perspective…Instead…you think he should perform a homosexual sex act and catch a sexually transmitted disease that is an epidemic on our planet, one that threatens huge sections of the world’s population that might not be so threatened if there weren’t such a predominance of similar ignorant viewpoints as you’re expressing here…and, what would make you happiest is if this scenario would have his life ended as a result.…and all to support the right of an old bitter white man to make a casual insult a group of young, vibrant African-American women without consequence.See–that’s why I can believe both that Imus shouldn’t have been fired but also that his situation should NEVER be championed as an example of some great human rights injustice needing to be rectified. Who really wants to stick up for a bully’s right to be a jerk?pg–Well, other than the ACLU…and thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for them taking THAT gig–seattle PS–Of course, the NRA is standing up for the rights of potential terrorists to get all the guns they want. Somehow, that seems more vital to the world’s problems than whatever Imus might have said or how much money CBS will have to give him to keep him from suing them…

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5. pg says:

   May 7, 2007 at 6:12 am

   Just re-read what I wrote and one particularly flippant thing I said needs further clarification…The thing about karma coming down like a bitch on the Governor.What I meant by that was in reference to the previous statement about how an economic libertarian would suggest that the market self-corrected for what Imus said without needing any governmental intervention. The injured Governor, in trying to broker the face-to-face apology from Imus to the Rutgers team, was an intrusion into this…and my flippant remark was to suggest that his unfortunate accident was some sort of “economic libertarian karma” paying him back for forcing the “government” into this situation.Flippant, hard to understand and in the end…not funny.That’s what open mics are for…you think a joke might work, but then you try it…and you realize that it doesn’t work at all.pg

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