IMUS IS NOT A BLACK HIP-HOP ARTIST

This time, Don Imus, the radio shock-jock, has really let his mouth overload his ass. By now, unless you live under a rock, you have heard that he denigrated the Rutgers women's basketball team, which reached the finals of the NCAA tournament, by referring to the players as "nappy-headed hos." His racially charged remarks constituted a hurtful insult to the eight black team members.

Imus, who I do not believe is a racist, was trying to be funny. Like his good buddy Kinky Friedman, he has told racial and ethnic jokes on many past occasions. Imus should have taken a page out of Kinky's book. At the start of the last Texas gubernatorial race, Kinky's polling nmbers were amazingly high (just below those of the incumbent governor), but his candidacy quickly flamed out when his past jokes came back to bite him in the ass. His long ago nightclub comedy routine came to light and did not sit well with the Texas electorate.

Imus' problem was that he sees himself as both comedian and political commentator. Politicial notables and media personalities have been frequent guests on his radio program. Had Imus stuck strictly to his role as a shock-jock, as has his arch enemy Howard Stern, his reprehensible remarks about the Rutgers players would not have created the same degree of outrage that is now swirling about him.

Imus, reduced to the pathetic image of a groveling tortured soul, has apologized daily to no avail. Leading the charge in demanding that he be fired are those paragons of hypocricy, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who make their living by fanning the flames of racial hatred whenever and wherever the opportunity arises, only to depart without extinguishing the fires they lit. No one demanded that Jackson be fired as head of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition when, in 1984, he made his infamous anti-Semitic "Hymietown" crack about New York City, and when he called Jews "hymies" - and he was not trying to be funny at the time.

Politicians and media personalities continue to suck up to Sharpton, despite his leading role in 1987 in the Tawana Brawley hoax which ruined a falsely accused prosecutor's career and led to the suicide of a falsely accused cop. (See my blog DEMOCRATS AND MEDIA PERSONALITIES SUCK UP TO A CHARLATAN, January 28, 2007.) Sharpton has never apologized for his reprehensible role in that hoax. To this day he continues to insist that Brawley's false accusations were true and that he became involved only because she came to him for help. That is a bald-faced lie. Sharpton and his two cohorts initiated their involvement with Brawley after the police investigation became public, and that involvement is what marked him a leader in the black community. Nor has Sharpton ever accepted responsibility for the eight deaths he caused in 1995 after he organized and led a protest against a Jewish landlord.

Since Sharpton and Jackson have loudly injected themselves into the Imus flap, it should be mentioned that they also led the black outrage in the Duke University "rape" case. The accusations by a paid black exotic (nude) dancer that she had been gang raped by white Duke lacrosse players at an off-campus team party also turned out to be a hoax. Just today, the North Carolina Attorney General droped all charges and announced that the accused players had been completely exonerated. Are Sharpton and Jackson going to apologize for their role in stirring up the black community against the falsely accused players? Don't hold your breath!

Imus is not a black hip-hop artist. Where is the black outrage against the hip-hop pop culture in which black rappers freely rap about "bitches," "hos" and "niggas?" Although Sharpton and Jackson have denounced "gangsta" rap, they have never organized any demonstrations of black outrage against the offending rappers or their record label companies. Nor have those two charlatans ever led any protests against black comedians like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock for the frequent use of the same vocabulary in their comedy routines.

Today, MSNBC announced it will no longer simulcast Imus' broadcasts. In the end, as with MSNBC, he may still get fired by CBS. Imus could also lose his radio show because some of his biggest sponsors are withdrawing their ads or because his audience might desert him. Thus far, Aetna, American Express, GEICO, General Motors, Proctor & Gamble and Staples, among others, have pulled their ads from his program. As always, money talks, bullshit walks.