One Guy's Viewpoint

Don Imus, So What

I never really liked and very seldom watched any of Don Imus on TV. That was probably because I seldom agreed with whatever I happened to hear coming from his mouth.

On McNeil/Lehrer the other day I heard a replay of his comments made during the NCAA women's basketball final. His statement about the Rutgers girls being big, tough, and tattooed was just an observation. No problem there. But the further "nappy" comments went, in my opinion, too far. These women hadn't done anything to deserve that. Imus himself admitted this and has accepted a two week suspension from his network.

But, as a letter writer to today's Houston Chronicle stated, "On any given day, you can find a rapper referring to young black women in terms even worse than what Imus called them." I don't listen to rappers but can accept this as true. That's from things I've read. And there's no great surge of criticism of their doing it. Imus's problem seems to be mostly that he made these comments while white. Obviously, that's unforgivable.

The thing that really pushes me into Imus's corner, though, is the way black bigots Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson rose up against him. These two guys, Sharpton and Jackson, were recently, of course, in Durham, North Carolina stirring up trouble and pressuring for a conviction of three white Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of rape. These charges are expected to be formally dropped at a 2:30 EDT news conference today. Al Sharpton was also neck-deep in that Tawana Brawley hoax some years back. Yes, if this comedy tag-team of Jackson and Sharpton are for something, I've got to be against it. It's just the way I am.

posted by Burt @ 10:16 AM