I’ve wanted to post on the whole Don Imus situation for a while now, but I wanted to wait until I was able to put my thoughts together in a coherent fashion. This is that attempt.
Let me start out by saying that I think what Don Imus said was totally inappropriate and he most likely deserved the punishment he received. I do have a problem with how hypocritical we as a society are on this issue.
I would like to present an idea on this whole situation. What Don Imus said wouldn’t have even been considered racist had he not been a white male and the subjects of his remarks not been African American women. The first word he used describes a hair style, and the second word describes a “loose” woman. Hardly words that are racist, except for the context of this particular exchange.
But I digress. My main point I want to get across is that our society is so hypocritical on this issue. All sorts of hip hop artists use this kind of language in their songs all the time, and somehow that is ok for whatever crazy reason. That just doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s not ok for one person to say something, then it shouldn’t be for another, but maybe that is just my crazy, narrow-minded opinion.
As I listened to people talk about the subject again tonight, a couple people asked where the forgiveness was in this story, and I think they make a valid point. We’re so quick to nail people when they’ve done wrong and not even give them a chance. Then one of the panelists responded with the oh so logical answer that we as a people should only forgive Don if the Rutgers women’s basketball team forgives him. I’m sorry, what kind of nonsense is that? You should forgive, period. It should be attached to some kind of string. How can you even call that true forgiveness?
The whole situation just makes me shake my head. We live in a crazy world.