I wasn’t planning to say anything about this incident, because flaps about politically correct or insensitive speech don’t register very high on my outrage meter, especially when there is so much else to get outraged about. But the angle that interests me most about the Imus incident is why so many outrageous, demeaning things can be said in other contexts, and most people just shrug their shoulders unless the comment is made about a sports figure.
My guess is that the nerve that Imus hit or that Jimmy the Greek hit, or that Rush Limbaugh hit (in his Donovan McNabb comment) jangled the American public because it points to an ugly subtext of white resentment about black dominance in sports. Oh sure, blacks are better than whites, but that’s because they are thugs, or were bred differently, or have been given special affirmative action passes.
And it’s for this reason that I think the outrage is justified because one of the few places where the playing field is most nearly level is in sports. And it’s symbolically important for American to believe that nothing matters except how the athlete performs on the court or the field. And decent Americans, when they get a whiff of the kind of petty resentment of good ‘ol boys like Imus and McGuirk, are rightly sickened. Those Rutgers women and their coach proved they were anything but the kind of thugs that Imus and McGuirk wanted to believe them to be. Imus was exposed for the petty, resentful, small little man that he is, and it’s right that people would want to turn away in disgust.
Should Imus have been fired? I think that the networks and sponsors have good reason not to be associated with this kind of good ‘ol boy resentment. I sure wouldn’t want to be.
There are a ton more petty little men and women sick with bilious resentment who have their constituency and the support of sponsors and networks. Cretins like Limbaugh are concerned that the speech police are going to come after them next, but I don’t think it’s going to happen so long as they reserve their vile commentary toward politicians. It’s apparently ok for Coulter to call Edwards a faggot, but it isn’t ok to call a 19-year old student athlete a whore. Black rappers can get away with it so long as they demean just black women in general rather than anybody in particular. And that’s probably the way things will remain. There are lines, and Imus crossed one.
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