Don Imus, Are You Serious?

Don Imus calls Rutgers University basketball team “nappy-headed hos” and gets a two-week suspension off the air… yeah, that’ll fix it.

See, here’s where we are with the issue of race in America—we’ve created and insist on perpetuating a culture whereupon white neo-liberals set the tone with this kind of “I’m cool with race and if you’re not that’s not my problem, because I’m cool with it” attitude. Nobody is actually talking about anything—it’s like, the antebellum North: Slavery is over, let’s move on, get a job and pull yourself together, black people. So when folks like Michael Richards and Don Imus (albeit total dumb-asses the both of them) spew some egregious, racial epithet in a public forum, all hell breaks loose—like nobody else in the country is thinking the same exact things they said. And then the morning shows bring in the usual suspects (Al Sharpton would be out of a job if this were to change) to talk about how these comments are going to set us back another million years, and how we’re still struggling with our sense of self as a race (we, meaning black folks; I’m black). And the hideous loser who made the comment then launches a celebrated “apology tour.” And in some instances, like with Imus, some sort of good show, grand-scale punishment is issued (by whom I really don’t know): two weeks off the air, Imus. Take that! That’ll teach you not to badmouth emotionally fragile, self-loathing black girls (even if in this case most are probably 6 feet tall and 150 pounds) with hair issues that go back centuries!

Can someone please talk about something that will actually change something on the subject of race? As part of his mea culpa Imus told Sharpton he helps sick black kids at his charity ranch in New Mexico. You help sick black kids? That’s your response? Don Imus, are you serious?