Imus: More Shock Than Jock by Doug Wrenn

Imus: More Shock Than Jock

By Doug Wrenn

April 12, 2007

I feel very dejected right now. I am always left out. Just like it is now becoming more apparent that I am the only man with whom Anna Nicole Smith did not have sexual relations, I am also the only person to whom Imus did not apologize.

The radio "shock jock" is now on the trendy and politically correct apology circuit for calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed ho's," besides some other derogatory descriptions.

I don't get it. The few times I have ever watched Imus's simulcast TV/radio show on MSNBC, I see what appears to be a grossly bored, burned-out old hippy, droning on about something he couldn't care less about while conspicuously wishing he was somewhere else. Maybe he's mellowed with age. I have never heard Imus even say anything stimulating, never mind offensive, but people I know, who are fans of his, tell me he has said much worse about many more people and much more often. OK. I'll accept that on face value, despite my few and limited viewings of a half-asleep radio personality re-chewing his cud, staring blankly into space, fighting back yawns and trying desperately to think of something to say while being both aired and inconvenienced, live.

The Rutgers University women's basketball team certainly did not deserve these unsolicited and indeed, offensive remarks, even if that is Imus's alleged shtick. There is no defending Imus's remarks, although I do believe they were based in inappropriate humor and not true malice, but it is what it is. Imus crossed the line. He scored a "two-for" by insulting both women, and blacks. In 2007, you just don't do that. If he made a similar remark about a bunch of Shanty-Irish Catholic boys with red hair, pale skin and freckles, while playing from any school that has "Saint" as its first name, this wouldn't even be news.

I have yet to hear any of the Rutgers team tell Imus off. Doesn't anybody tell anyone else to go to Hell anymore? Instead, we hear ridiculously exaggerated terms, like how the Rutgers team is deeply and painfully "wounded." "Wounded"? Who's bleeding? With the right trial lawyer nowadays, you can beat a murder rap, but Heaven help you if you call someone an ethnic slur. It's simply much too overwhelming to bear in our pantywaist culture of wimps. I'm beginning to think that the literal translation of "chutzpah" means, "flesh," because for those who have so willingly relinquished theirs, all that seems to remain in its former place is precariously vulnerable and thin skin. Back in the day, some pig making crude advances to a female co-worker in the workplace would rightfully get smacked across the face, put in his place, and it would be over. Now, if some poor soul simply tells a dirty joke to the wrong audience, he gets "sensitivity training," if not a pinkslip and a lawsuit. The sensationalized news media is acting like the US has just been invaded, the President has just been assassinated, or another Kennedy got arrested. What happened? Some over-glorified DJ called a bunch of college minority athletes a dirty name. The media doesn't speak for most of America. Most of America, I am sure, did not approve of Imus's remarks, but otherwise, couldn't care less. Let's face it folks, in the big picture, is this really a catastrophic event that widely impacts all of us? It's a pebble in a mountain range. Shame on Imus for his remarks, and shame on the Rutgers team for simply not telling him where to get off.

So now, instead, we do apology, after apology, after apology. In the movie, "Roadhouse," Patrick Swayze plays a club bouncer who becomes entangled in the plight of a small town under the thumb of a powerful mobster, played by Ben Gazzara. In one scene, one of Gazzara's thugs fails in his mission to stop Swayze. Gazzarra makes his man apologize several times before finally punching him out for just the sheer thrill of the power. Pay attention, Imus. While the Rutgers ladies did not deserve the rant directed at them, the two young black punks heckling comedian Michael Richards did deserve his tirade for their rude behavior and needlessly disrupting a show that other patrons paid to watch with a rightful expectancy of some modicum of peace. Instead of getting rightfully ejected from the club and arrested, the two victims of trendy color became heroes, and Richards, after his 550th putrid public apology, checked himself into rehab, in keeping with the latest obligatory trend for wayward entertainers, and presumably for an addiction to Insultalism. It's a simple rule, really; treat others as you would like to be treated, and if you don't want to be insulted, shut up and watch the show. But in our cowardly and politically correct era of today, while some things may truly be "black and white," tolerance is not. I bet there might have even been some black patrons who secretly wanted those two idiots to shut up, too, but if they spoke up, they would be castigated by some members of their own race as "Uncle Tom's." Ordinarily, people of any color pay money in comedy clubs to see and hear the professional on the stage, not the two loud-mouthed, anti-social, egotistical drunks in the front row. And for all the dog and pony show Richards put on, much like the prolifically apologetic, but punched-out hood in "Roadhouse," what did it get him? I can recall a high school English teacher admonishing the class to never repeat the word, "very" in a sentence, because "very" means very, and the repetition of the word does not increase its impact on the sentence. In the same way, shouldn't it also be the same with an apology? Shouldn't one, "I'm sorry" be enough?

Al Sharpton does not represent all blacks. He represents the ignorant who don't know any better and the connivers, who are always working an angle. Sharpton does not represent all blacks any more than Hitler represented all Germans. Imus apologized on his show (from what little I saw), then again on Sharpton's radio show, and now I believe he is off to Rutgers, which is the only place where he truly should have apologized. Al Sharpton is nothing but a predatory racist, with blood on his hands from Freddy's Fashion Mart, and the stink of the faked Tawana Brawley fiasco all over him. When innocent people died and reputations of decent people were maligned, I never heard the thug called Sharpton, who I refuse to call "Reverend" ever apologize, so who does he think he is in demanding explanations and apologies from others? Who elected Sharpton, and to what office? Shame on Imus. He's more shock than jock. That pudgy, black bull dog with a bad pompadour and a Cracker-Jack box clergical collar is no one to whom I would ever give the time of day, let alone any of my own precious time. Sharpton is a shakedown hood who made his bones by racist threats and false accusations, fortified by cowardly whites and aspiring politicians, kissing his less-than reverend, but otherwise profound backside. While a remorseful but still feisty Imus gave as well as he got while appearing on Sharpton's show, his presence there was still as gratuitous as it was revolting.

In both the talentless sewage known as rap lyrics, and in the far-too common speech among the urban underclass, blacks routinely refer to themselves as "nigger," while the rest of the cowardly, white elitists stutter, stumble, tremble and blush at even saying the pasteurized phrase, "the n-word." Not only do these blacks have no respect for each other, but they also have none for their women, to whom they often flippantly refer as the equivalent of a female dog (Figure it out because I won't go that low to spell it out for you.) or "ho's, short for whores, and as radio pundit Mike Gallagher correctly noted in a Fox News interview, "ho" in that context is not short for "hostess." Woe be any white who calls a black any of these "wounding" names, however. I also remember a white teacher who got into hot water a few years back, because she genuinely complimented a young black girl in her class for her nice "nappy" hair. The teacher was obviously not aware of the unwritten rule that only blacks can say "nappy," even if meant as a compliment, and no one of any color can ever say "niggardly," which as I recall, got another teacher in hot water in another news story. President Bush, Karl Rove and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) have recently gotten in trouble recently for complimenting '08 campaign rock star, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) for being "articulate." Biden even went so far as to making a reference that Obama was nice and clean-cut, or words to that effect. Now compliments are taboo. Many blacks were up in arms because they perceived the compliments to infer that they are normally not articulate or clean. Well, folks, for starters, if more of you spoke more like normal, decent people and not prison recyard gangbangers, which is the root of some of the anti-social, obnoxious and depraved speech and sloppy, goofy styles of dress that you convinced yourselves are your "culture," then maybe that guilty perception wouldn't be in your paranoid minds. Just like what Sigmund Freud said of a cigar, sometimes, believe it or not, a compliment is just a compliment. Would you have preferred that they said Obama was filthy and illiterate? By the way, he is articulate. As a matter of fact, he puts many of your cherished so-called rap "artists" to shame who couldn't put two sentences together with a tow truck, a crow bar, a tub of grease and a dictionary. Since when did blacks acquire an entitled monopoly on certain words? For blacks who promote this ignorant and divisive anarchy, I'm no Don Imus. From this unapologetic white man, cram it up your "booty"!

The First Amendment guarantees our right to speak freely. It does not guarantee any right to not be offended. That's the whole idea behind free speech. Just like many blacks have dubbed themselves The Word Police (or in some cases, just "Reverend"), they brought much of this hypocrisy onto themselves, as it is all rightfully backfiring. Just like a rabid dog, their racebaiting divisiveness is turning onto its owner with impunity. The problem is not just some blacks, however, and yes, it really is only some blacks, but the problem extends to the left of people of all ethnicities and races. The same people who wish pornography to be freely available to all who seek it, and vehemently defend publicly-funded art museums depicting Catholic icons in human and animal waste don't want Don Imus to call some female basketball players "nappy-headed ho's." Likewise, Americans have a "right" to view images of hedonistic group sex, but a Nativity scene on a town green at Christmas (That's right! I didn't say "Holiday"! Deal with it!) is "offensive." OK, so which is it? Is all free speech allowable, even if it is offensive, or is that another issue to which only blacks and liberals hold the self-created deed of ownership?

Despite the contempt with which I hold Al Sharpton, I am glad that even he has a right to free speech. Al Sharpton has the right to demand that Imus be fired. However, he does not have a right to be heard or obeyed. As shocking as this may sound, Al Sharpton does not dictate policy to the fourth estate. MSNBC has announced that Imus's show will be suspended for two weeks. I think that is appropriate, but while I have the right to say that, I also do not have the right to be heard or obeyed, either. Whatever Monday morning quarterbacks like Pompadour Al and I have to say, the call still rightly belongs to Imus's employer, and maybe the FCC, which seems quiet and content on this issue so far. Likewise, consumers served my MSNBC's programming can also make a free choice as to whether or not to watch or listen to Imus's TV and radio shows, or whether or not to support his show's sponsors. Likewise, his sponsors have the right to choose whether or not to continue sponsoring him, and several big-name and frequent political guests from both major political parties can choose whether or not they wish to continue appearing on his show. The bottom line here is that participants from both sides of this argument can scream and shout all they want, and yes, Al, even protest (but preferably without rioting) and boycott, too, but your demands don't mean anything unless you have the authority to make the call, and you don't have that authority. You're just another schmuck with a bullhorn and a bad haircut in a biracial tower of babble.

All this bristling and hypersensitivity to each little bruise, scratch and boo-boo life throws at us makes me queasy. Those girls did nothing to deserve those insults, but I just found out today that a family member is gravely ill. Like I said, in the big picture, this whole blown-up saga is much to do about nothing. We all have bigger fish to fry. We're at war with two countries, and are being possibly threatened with nukes by two more. I'm not even counting China because we're getting so far in debt, China won't need that expanded military to take us over. All it has to do is just call in our debt. Meanwhile, uncounted millions of illegal immigrants continue to enter and roam our country without anyone knowing who or where they are as they incessantly commit violent crime, resurrecting once contained infectious diseases, and possibly plotting with terrorists getting smuggled in with them as our happy and dopey President hands our national security and sovereignty over to Canada and Mexico on a silver platter. Our jobs are going overseas, and our factories are becoming apartments and condos with fern plants where the punch-clocks used to be. We're making fewer computer chips and serving more potato chips, and we have the obesity, diabetes and heart disease throughout our population to prove it. We're killing our very youngest and our very oldest among us while the overall quality of life for those lucky but otherwise struggling survivors in the middle ever deteriorates. Just look around. Ladies, smack Imus or even just tell him off, but do something and then move on. Few doubt that you are aggrieved, but even fewer want to hear about this trite episode for the next three months. Buck up before we all become like the British Navy. We're almost there already, and Iran is still watching.

As for Imus, this normally opinionated guy has no real strong opinion about him. I neither like nor dislike the guy. I don't know enough about him, and I really don't wish to know, either. I think Imus was being a shocking once again, and also again when I wasn't watching, but he crossed the line this time, partially because he picked on a bunch of innocent kids who did nothing to provoke his insulting diatribe, and secondly because our politically correct society of today agrees that we are all created equal, but some are more equal than others. OK, so Imus didn't get that memo. He's not all bad, either. He has done truly fantastic charitable work for deserving kids, and he even seems to have much more passion and vigor for that job than the one for which he is far better known. Imus screwed up, but it doesn't make him a bad person. He should apologize to the Rutgers women's basketball team, and not to me, not to Al Sharpton and not to anyone else butting into this blown-up incident, whether they are male, female, black, white, green or purple. If we all just take one step back, and maybe a deep breath as well, this ugly, unfortunate, but still comparatively minor incident will most likely become resolved between the legitimately involved parties sooner rather than later.

Or Imus will check himself into rehab.