That was fast
Well Imus got fired in less than a week from both his TV and radio gigs. That was faster than Trent Lott back in 2002.
A reader left a comment:
I'm waiting to Al Sharpton to apologize for his comments regarding the Duke Lacrosse players.
And Tawana Brawley and Crown Heights and so on and so forth.
Just a rhetorical question here. Why do you think that Isaiah Washington was not fired from ABC's hit show "Grey's Anatomy" for calling another member of the cast a FAG while Imus gets the sack for calling someone a nappy headed ho?
Perhaps, as Kinsey-1 has noted, we don't have a gay Al Sharpton or a lesbian Rev. Jesse Jackson to shed light on cases of hateful speech. It just shows how little impact gays have when they are politically disjointed as a class of people.
With effective leadership and a focused message, Isaiah's scalp would have been tacked up on the wall. But there is no leadership in this regard. To wit, the Junkies (right here in DC) call each other Fag every day and no one raises a stink. And the Blade has a running set of stories about which person called who a Fag but it never changes anything. Fag is pervasive and virtually unpunishable...Isaiah keeping his job as example number one that gays have no bearing in our greater culture other than as a political football (marriage) or as mincing entertainment on TV (Just Jack).
Today is a low point in the already low state of discourse present in pop culture.
posted by The Scientist's View @ 16:47
5 Comments:
The last thing we need is a "Gay Sharpton or Jackson". They are on a power trip, trying to suppress free speech, and shake people down for money.
I alway found Imus appalling and chose not to listen to him (or look at him for that matter).
Jesse and Al do more to stir the pot of racism then the KKK. The race issue is allot healthier in this country than ever before with interracial marriages at an all time high etc.
Political correctness is really scary. I would rather know how someone like Imus and Isaiah really feel than have if supressed by cash hungry charlatons.
Better the devil you know that the devil you don't. Today is a low point for free speech!
I am not sure the fact that Isaiah kept his job and Imus lost his is a barometer of gay politicial clout as I think the two acts were inherently different. Isaiah called someone he knows a fag in whatever passes as a "private" workplace in Hollywood whereas Imus did it on the air to an audience. While using the term "fag" maliciously degrades gay men everywhere (just as calling people nappy-headed hos degrades African-American women everywhere), there is something extra in what Imus did over what Isaiah did. Isaiah intended merely to demean his target. Imus also intended to demean his target(s) but also intended, by broadcasting to his audience, to make the humiliation public and somehow socially acceptable. I think the "extra" outrage over Imus stems from the latter intention...people are angry that it was said and that one man is so ignorant, but even angrier at the implication that society would find such comments acceptable. Had Isaiah made his comments in a similarly public forum, I am sure he would have faced worse consequences. I would bring up the case of that basketball player who mouthed off recently. He was banned from several events, despite our lack of an Al Sharpton and the fact that our demographic has little impact on the NBA.
Anonymous #2 (7:26 AM) makes an dintersting point, but raise this question - How does your theory accomodate Ann Coulter? She was in a very public forum and was demeaning in a broad sense.
I do agree that her comments were similar to Imus's in a sense. I think the deal with her is that it is hard to fire her since she doesn't really hold a specific job per se. Both Imus and Isaiah have specific posts. If Ann were fireable from anything other than, you know, opening her damn mouth, I suspect she might have faced a similar fate. She did suffer various losses of advertisers and publishing outlets.
The one caveat that I think makes Ann slightly different than Imus is that in the political arena, people rarely mean what they say. I think most of America perceives things coming out of the mouths of politicos as merely a tool meant to accomplish some specified end, not as an authentic statement of belief whereas, ironically, the Imuses, the Howard Sterns, and the Lettermans of the world are supposed to be more authentic, in tune, or closer to their fans. So it is almost more outrageous to hear this type of speech coming from a celebrity than a political type because you feel ilke they actually mean it.
That people feel more connected to or better represented by celebrities than politicians is a little scary....
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