<p>rushing here and didn’t read all the thread, so forgive me if repeating this. What I found interesting is our local (NY based) tv news carried the Jackson and Sharpton statements. Each one sequed right into the message that this is part of a larger problem and can’t we now use the momentum to go after rap lyrics and similar problems.
Did that air nationwide or was it just Al and Jessie saying 10 secords of whatever? The media adore having Al and Jessie speaking. It works everyone up. Hey I for one am very grateful that it bumped Who’s The Father off the air for a day or two. There Is A War just doesn’t make it as news for some reason.</p>
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Amen to that.</p>
<p>And we will see, in a week or so, whether any of the agendas <em>actually</em> include reducing this kind of rhetoric throughout our culture. Or whether the sound and fury is merely pretending to care. For a convenient minute or two.</p>
<p>One of the agendas has definitely been to deflect attention away from all the hatred and vitrol spewed by white talk radio hosts. The agenda has been quite successful. No one’s even talking about them anymore; all the criticism is focused on the black community.</p>
<p>Best would be to round 'em up, and string 'em up; right, conyat?</p>
<p>You don’t see any middle ground between examining their behavior and executing them? </p>
<p>Does that speak to what you want done to the people you think are “really responsible” for what Imus did?</p>
<p>Or are you just so opposed to accountability in any shape or form for the radio hosts that you think criticizing a white male’s behavior is the moral equivalent of killing him?</p>
<p>How bizzare.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m opposed to accountability, conyat: that’s why I called for Imus to be fired. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Imus has been saying racist and misogynist things on the air for over a decade without getting fired. He never would have been fired without the public criticism of him–the very criticism you have deplored. </p>
<p>To me, it seems short-sighted in the wake of what Imus did to turn it into a situation where only African Americans are culpable. Not only by trying to claim that African Americans are “really responsible” for the harm done by Imus’ remarks, but also by trying to make misgyny and racism in popular culture all about the behavior of black people.</p>
<p>Misogyny in rap doesn’t have its roots in African aestethics. Read traditional African literature from different cultures or the works of people like Wole Soyinka. You don’t find women depicted as b’s and h’s or glorification in art of violence against them. You do find these things in rap because rap evolved here, and there’s a long tradition of misogyny in the American aestethic. So to say we’re going to fix one piece of it in rap, and ignore it–even exculpate it–in the larger culture that drives it makes no sense.</p>
<p>“One of the agendas has definitely been to deflect attention away from all the hatred and vitrol spewed by white talk radio hosts. The agenda has been quite successful. No one’s even talking about them anymore; all the criticism is focused on the black community.” </p>
<p>Who’s criticizing the black community? The only criticism I’ve seen (and perpetrated) has been leveled at Jackson and Sharpton, both of whom have long, heroic records of exacerbating bad situations rather than healing them. … </p>
<p>As for the hate-filled white talkshow hosts that overrun our airwaves, I’ve talked about these bottom-crawlers aplenty. (In several previous posts on this thread, including 166, 218, 220, and 242.) Why we’ve given a free pass to this spate of lying, hypocritical weasels is a mystery to me. Who among these American patriots of one-sided distortion has ever stood for anything other than himself or his radical brand of politics? (Ever hear of the O’Reilly Ranch for Children with Cancer? How about Rush’s Annual Radiothon to raise millions for children’s causes? Or the Hannity Hospital for Pediatric Oncology? Didn’t think so. Oh, excuse me–those were Imus charities. How utterly evil he must be.) </p>
<p>Imus was, at worst, an offensive, self-indulgant old man who shot off his mouth hurtfully and inappropriately, then paid with his job. Ironically, the airwaves remain polluted by hate-spewers far worse than Imus, who for some reason, continue to enjoy their Freedom to Spew Dangerous-Demeaning-Distorted Speech on a daily basis. … Sounds about right, huh?</p>
<p>Oh, yes. The rap thing. I’ve been appalled by some of those lyrics since Day 1, regardless of whatever American aesthetic they’ve risen from.</p>
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<p>To some people, even mentioning that talk radio is getting a free pass by comparison to rap is equivalent to forming a lynch mob.</p>
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<p>Imus also raised a lot of money for rehabilitation of brain injured war veterans–a charity near and dear to my heart. But one thing I can tell you from a long career in non-profits and social service organizations–I saw little if any correlation between whether someone’s a racist and whether they are generous in donations to charity. Some people who were extraordinarily giving also said some of the most horrible things in private. </p>
<p>To me the issue isn’t just whether Imus is a racist–it’s that companies were sponsoring his racist, misogynist remarks, and anti-Semetic remarks, and they were able to do so because it was profitable for them. Imus finally attacked a target that was popular instead of just kicking around the usual outgroup, so he had to go. But is corporate sponsership of hate radio really going to change? Are listeners going to stop making it profitable?</p>
<p>I doubt it. Because all the attention has been diverted from hate radio and back on to criticism of the black community.</p>
<p>I don’t think Imus was an aberration, but I do believe we have twin problems here–vile, degrading song lyrics, and vile, degrading high-profile personalities. Ugh.</p>
<p>The misogyny in rap may be magnified, but it’s still driven by the values and aestethics of the larger culture. Trying to change one without changing the other is like fixing the broken pipes in the kitchen while the house is still waist-deep in water from a broken dam.</p>
<p>conyat: Read all my posts and stop misrepresenting what I’ve said please.</p>
<p>I’m not going to take the time to restate what I’ve said several times already. I have said nothing that has not been supported by several African American writers and spokespeople that I know of (there are probably others)–so stop trying to paint me as a racist because I have been voting Republican lately.</p>
<p>We understand you want to muzzle conservative radio, and people are aware that this is one of the many agendas out there attempting to take advantage of the Imus situation.</p>
<p>You have the right to that opinion; but, just to let you know, consistently misrepresenting and twisting statements I’ve made does not add credibility either to you or your arguments.</p>
<p>conyat makes a very good point about the evolution of misogynistic rap…(recognizing not ‘all’ and certainly not ‘only’ rap is misogynistic). </p>
<p>We shouldn’t just question those who create vulgar music, but those who buy it as well. In fact, I think the more important question IS who is creating the market for this stuff. Turn on MTV or any MTV affiliate any afternoon and you will see blocks of distasteful programming including, but not limited to, some rap music videos. And then look at the commercials and figure out the market. It isn’t JUST the African American community. In fact, all the commercials with little white skater boys selling Skittles tells me it isn’t even primarily ANYone of color.</p>
<p>I recently chaperoned a band competition trip and it involved a long (VERY long) bus trip on a charter bus. Music and movies were made available and a soon as a pretty explicit rap song game on, the aisle was full of kids dancing and singing EVERY word of the song from memory. Amazing…our band only has two black members and perhaps two Hispanic members. </p>
<p>So…condemn misogynistic rap if you want, but recognize it only exists because our kids want it to exist. You’ll have to look further than the artists for the blame or the solution.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but my interpretation of what you and conyat have said is: Imus must take responsibility, “white” radio personalities must take responsibility, kids of all colors who listen to rap must take responsibility, Rev. Al and Rev. Jesse must take responsibility, our misogynistic, racist, commercial culture must take responsibility, our American music traditions must take responsibility, MTV must take responsibility.</p>
<p>But the gangsta rappers themselves don’t have to take responsibility.</p>
<p>And it goes without saying that Russell Simmons doesn’t have to take responsibility–of course.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/07/06/simmons/[/url]”>http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/07/06/simmons/</a></p>
<p>"To me the issue isn’t just whether Imus is a racist–it’s that companies were sponsoring his racist, misogynist remarks, and anti-Semetic remarks, and they were able to do so because it was profitable for them. … Is corporate sponsership of hate radio really going to change? Are listeners going to stop making it profitable?</p>
<p>Honestly, there must be something very wrong with me. All these years, I’ve listened to Don Imus. Not religiously, just tuning in from time to time. Yeah, I’ve found him offensive on occasion, but mostly, I laughed and didn’t take him too seriously. Undeniably, he could be utterly ridiculous and juvenile, spouting outrageous rants against just about everyone–even his own wife … even John Kerry, who Imus supported in '04 despite his usual conservative leanings. And he did great interviews–he actually listened to people who disagreed with him, without shouting them down or cutting the microphone. I can see now that he’s always danced on the razor’s edge of disaster with the type of “humor” he employed; certainly he slit his own throat with his coarse, unthinking Rutgers remark. </p>
<p>Imus always reminded me of the 1920s essayist H. L. Mencken. I’m a contrarian, I guess, in that I’ve liked these wretched old cranks. As a young woman years ago, I visited Baltimore on business and while there, I took a side trip on my own to the Mencken museum/home. Like Imus, he was sarcastic, snide, insulting, annoying, rude, sometimes irrational, but also smart, funny, and often right on the money. The “librarian” at Mencken’s home was a woman. When I came through the door, she looked at me as though I had three eyes or an extra head. After we talked awhile, she admitted surprise at seeing me there–women generally didn’t like like Mencken. She said, “Well, you know. Mencken hated women,” which, of course wasn’t entirely wrong. Mencken didn’t seem to care much for women … or men … politicians of any stripe … the young or old … the rich or poor, Americans or foreigners … fellow writers … religious folk … doctors. You name it. Sounds like a charmer, eh? Actually, he was. … No point to any of this. I’m just feeling bad for everybody right now.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, Hindoo: Imus never had “conservative leanings.” That is probably why you can stick up for him while simultaneously saying Limbaugh and O’Reilly “spew hate.”</p>
<p>In addition, conyat is apparently a Howard Stern fan. Anyone who says that conservative talk radio comes even close to the garbage these two clowns have been putting out for the last thirty years is just plain talking nonsense. And people understand this.</p>
<p>That’s probably why Limbaugh’s show has consistently been #1 and Imus’ was #14, and Howard had to get lost.</p>
<p>hh - it’s called market economics. In Republican Economic Valhalla, responsibility would be inflicted on the rappers through free market forces. And hey…maybe it will happen! The market certainly punished Don Imus and he was certainly willing to clean up his act to keep his job.</p>
<p>If it doesn’t happen, well don’t blame the rappers. They’re just playing the free market game.</p>
<p>"Just to be clear, Hindoo: Imus never had “conservative leanings.”</p>
<p>Well then it is probably killing him that his biggest defender is Tom DeLay…lol!</p>
<p>Hereshoping–Imus most definitely has conservative leanings. The fact that he loathes Bush and the idiots who got us into Iraq, and supported John Kerry because of that, doesn’t mean that his basic tendencies are “liberal.” I know a fair number of conservatives who feel the same way. … Limbaugh’s #1 ranking is a sad, sad statement on what our citizenry has devolved to. … However, I agree with you on Howard Stern. There’s not an atom of value in that worthless creep.</p>