Another one bites the dust

I neither have heard of him...nor understand what the remarks mean..,
We all speak English but obviously I need a translation.
Here....many I have heard people calling others "a stupid or other word "Git" .Old Scots tells me the a Git is a Get...Another name for a Fatherless child(known Father that is.Many who use it don't understand the old meaning...Because I do I find that objectional.
Mountain ash

It was when the sponsors starting pulling out that they cut part of his show. GM, American Express, etc. so I don't think it was public pressure as much as losing money. He brought in over eight million in ads.

YEAH!!! Someone not afraid to stand up for what's wrong. I'm thrilled Imus got pulled. I've seen him on TV but never listened to him...(I was channel surfing). I'm glad that he wants to apologize but when someone says "I'm not a bigot or prejudice"...and then says what he did...I'm sorry, but you are. You can't say something like he did and not be. Just my view.

I agree with Josie on this one. Racism and sexism are despicable, regardless of which race and gender they come from.

Jessie Jackson who called New York "Hymie Town" is upset about someone else's language?? Al Sharpton, who would use anything whatsoever (including lies) to jump on TV and scream about racism?

Racism is bad. Hypocrisy and double standards are equally bad.

This morning Al Sharpton (who retains the title of "Reverend" despite his long history of intense bigotry) stated, "WE are going to be watching THEM from now on. No one is going to be given a pass..."

Now that WE are being watched by the team of Sharpton & Jackson, who, once notified, can whip up a national ethnic "victim" firestorm at the drop of a hat, I guess we better watch our backs. Our jobs could be next. Most of the girls at Rutgers had never even heard of geezer Don Imus before S & J announced to the media and students that they were pathetic victims of white society of whom they felt Don Imus is a prominent spokesperson. (He is not) S & J were relentlessly threatening sponsors of the Imus show, until CBS and NBC felt a heightened need to remove themselves from the tempest in a teapot by removing Imus from their coat tails.

I do not worry that Don Imus and his arrogant but philanthropic self will find a new path on satellite radio. More power to him. What concerns me is the damage S & J did to 1) portray these young women as victims (they are not) and 2) over the course of JUST A FEW DAYS, S & J persuaded the public consciousness and commercial enterprise that we have a national crisis on our hands, which could only be resolved if Imus's head was hung on the nearest pole. The real danger is that so many fell for it.

I don't know about you boomer women, but I for one am concerned that one segment of society can freely celebrate skin color as more than just a color, openly use racism, exploit women, disrespect authority etc, all under the guise of "We can because we're victims, you can't because you're not." The rest of us watch silently and wonder if Martin Luther King meant this as the definition of freedom in "I HAVE A DREAM."

I've watched Imus for a few minutes every now and then as I channel-surfed and if he had an interesting guest. I could never take more than a few because Imus is such a hateful mean-spirited person. It made me cringe.

I believe that a "good person" does not become a nasty mean person only to make money. If you're a good person, you are also decent in your job. Imus's wife is probably the "good person" in that family.

I'm waiting for Sharpton and Jackson to apologize to the Duke boys who they crucified on the airwaves.

Dianne,
I go with that one and those boys were not guilty and those families what they went thourgh . I went with a boy years ago from Duke . Nice guy ......

Renee

Josie, I couldn't have expressed it better. My sentiments exactly! I've always cringed when Jessee Jackson and Al Sharpton are referred to as "reverend". I've known a lot of reverends in my lifetime and neither of them qualify in my opinion.

Frankly I believe we have gone completely full circle and the racial tables are completely turned. The overriding opinion of black girls I work with is, "If he had been a black man saying those things, he would have been fired immediately."

I wake up in the am with nappy hair....so what?? I've been lovingly and teasingly called a "ho". To answer MountaiAsh's question, a "ho" in popular vernacular means a prostitute but really it means a hottie, a loose woman, a sassy woman, a gutsy woman a woman with attitude a lot like the women on Sex In the City.

I don't see the problem, frankly.

Have you all seen the Geico commercial with the Cavemen? I love Geico commercials anyway, but this one just isn't very funny to me.

The reason I brought it up is to point out how ridiculously sensitive we have become in the US to words and opinions.

While ugliness isn't appropriate or acceptable, its like the word police are lurking around every corner. Words were meant for expression of ideas. Believe me, Eubonics are very descriptive. I hear it every night and I'm not supposed to be offended?!

All I hear about are how frivilous white girls are and what "ho's" all of them are and how stupid and how we don't have spirit and attitude like black women do."

I hear it all the time yet I don't jump on the race bandwagon and use it as an excuse for non performance or just plain social civility.

I've been following this news item, and have discussed it in class with my students. I think that it's appropriate that people be sensitive about words and opinions. Words have a spirit and have a power to create, destroy, and fashion social reality, so I don't think we're overreacting.

I also think that there's a line between free speech and hate speech.

But still I see this case as something slightly different than either.

This isn't the first time that Imus said the same thing about a women's basketball team. He's the original shock jock, and has been making money for his station for many years. Similarly, rap music makes money for whatever station. Here's the difference: People who heard Imus complained to the station, and the head honcho at CBS found out about it. Advertisers were pressured. So the station was in danger of losing money.

But the audience for for rap music is mostly suburban, middle-class white boys. Can you imagine _them_ complaining to the station about bad language? Never! so the advertisers aren't worried about losing that target.

The real issue is this: The public ultimately still owns the radio waves. Don Imus has become very rich from our airwaves. There are plenty of more responsible, intelligent people in the world besides him who could create a decent radio program, so who needs him?

I never watched Imus anyway. His whole program seemed to be nothing but a hate fest. I think his language was deplorable, but I am opposed to any form of speech police and I think his employer had every right to protect the advertiser dollars that keep his business alive. Whether advertisers would truly have been affected is open for discussion, but I think they feared it and pulled the plug on Imus.

I see what happened to the Duke La Crosse team as much worse. Those boys lost one of the most important years of their life and it was all for nothing but a political campaign. The D.A. who attempted to railroad them should not only be disbarred, he should be prosecuted.

There are so many wrongs in the world. God must be even more disgusted with it all than we are.
smile

I agree Smile. Where do we draw the line of expression, though? For one a word would mean something and to another it would mean something entirely different.

What a dicotomy our world is. We can't agree on many things at all, so why would we agree on the interpretation of words??

On the one hand relativism reigns...no ultimate truths, no right or wrong, just what is right for one or another but no ultimate truth.

Yet, a word earns a permanent description even though it may not mean the same thing to me as it does for someone else. So where is relativism where race and words are concerned??

Maybe we should just go back to grunting, but then someone would take offense to the tone of your grunt or the look from your eyes or the way you hold your body when you grunt.

I have no use for the radio show host. I don't care how much money he makes off of being rude and stupid. However, he has the right in this country to make his money any way he likes as long as it is legal, right?

Well, New Leaf, that's what I was saying -- that when the audience objects, action is taken. The black audience who were offended by Imus complained in large numbers, and he was canned. The audience of black rap videos isn't expressing offense, and probably aren't offended, so the audvertisers aren't going to pull out, and the station isn't going to lose money. The public doesn't really care about CBS per se, but only how it affects them personally. If the _parents_ of the white suburban boys complained (and could prove that they were able to prevent their sons from watching VH1) then perhaps the advertisers would respond.

And I continue to disagree with what Smile says about whoever has the money gets to control the airwaves. The public ultimately has the money -- en masse we have the power and the broadcast air spectrum continues to be public property. It's not okay with me that the networks have continued to control the broadcast spectrum since 1926.

Finally, hate speech is just one of many many kinds of speech not protected by the First Amendment. The "Speech police" have been with us all along.

Well, I guess I am putting my foot in my mouth again, but what about Russ Limball ? He contines to bash the Demacarts an any thing policial with this party . He has gotten away with a lot on the airways .Only thing they could get him on was drugs and he is still back on the air again . I find what he says very afensive and when I went to my friends house that is all she had on the radio and I told her I disagreeded with his so called polical views . Freedom of speech bashing the polical party that you don't like .

Only a matter of time with him .