"So the shock jock cowboy of the airwaves has been given the sack. Happy trails, Don Imus. Maybe you can find an internship on a radio station somewhere in Idaho and shoot skeet in the wilderness after dinner while you do some serious soul searching. If that's possible." -2Truthy There's satire and there's irony and then there are non-comedic shock jocks of the airwaves like Don Imus who capitalize on 'playfully' making hateful remarks "dressed as social satire" directed NOT at public figures but at talented and athletic young college women who did nothing to provoke the racist remarks of McGuirk and Don Imus. THAT'S what's most offensive about the Imus 'nappy headed hos' comment taken in context with McGuirk's racist lead in -- there was nothing funny nor graceful or intelligent or thought provoking about it.
To delve into the motivation and the mindset of these supremist remarks is to speculate about what prompted the comment in the first place to describe the black young women on the team:
Are these girls tough? Yes, the observation about their tatoos surely clarified that. (But can they play one hell of a basketball game?)
Are these girls black? Well.....I guess the 'nappy headed ho' part unmistakably confirmed this beyond any doubt for Imus listeners. (But why does it matter if some of the players are black? There were two white girls also on the team...I don't suppose Imus was referring to them, too, when he made the solicitous-unrelaxed-haired woman slur?)
So then, what was even the POINT of the discussion between McGuirk and Imus that warranted the 'nappy headed ho' discussion in the first place? Clearly, McGuirk and Imus seem to enjoy basketball, a game that until recently has been dominated by men. Now that women have broken basketball's glass ceiling, sexist AND racist remarks were made to bring the Rutgers team a notch down from their newly, hard won position. And for what? What did these young black women ever do to Imus for him to have chosen to describe them this way? Couldn't he have responded to McGuirk instead by saying something like "They look TOUGH out there, and have you seen that Tennessee team? HOT STUFF!" But what Imus listeners heard instead was the male dominated, women hating/women mocking belittlement directed at the black women players on the Rutgers team and this is unforgivable in its creepiness and mean spirit. Funny? Maybe if you're a Klansman.
This was a creepy, SEXIST comment directed at these black women to humiliate and belittle them (unconscious? possibly, and if so, even more troubling). The pompous, "ROWG" Imus insider has made a fortune with calculating, condescending and ignorant, shock jock deliveries on the airwaves. I am glad he got fired. Imus should join the growing ranks of millions of truly talented and educated, underemployed and unemployed Americans with advanced degrees and be humbled into learning how to be a real, decent human being.
That would be the most just outcome of his 'outting' as a sexist and racist inner circle 'ho' to the establishment.
4 comments:
HA! You called it! Now that the Rutgers team forgave him, he'll just end up somewhere else no worse for the wear.
The master pimps are the rich entertainment white guys who get the black actor guys to exploit the black women.
They should have kept him. Why fire him? He has an audience and his stuff was often funny. Who cares if he says things that are questionable? It's not like other hosts don't do this occasionally.
anon,
Why should they have kept him? To prove to radio listeners that it's OK to humiliate and degrade black women who are NOT wearing fishnet stockings or working the pole? What part about "women's lib" do you NOT get, here? There are plenty of other lesser known radio hosts who are smart and funny and don't have to degrade young black women. Nothing funny about it. Period.
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