From the Kansas City Star’s Jason Whitlock, “Imus isn’t the real bad guy”:
Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It’s embarrassing.
Well, were Whitlock not black, I’d call him a racist. Else how to account for his insidious attempt to turn the revelation of institutionalized white racism into a condemnation of hip hop culture?
But because he is black, I suppose I’ll have to be content to call him an inauthentic male whore doing the bidding of Whitey—for which I will then scold him as not behaving like a black man ought to behave.
Of course, it would be better if a black person would do the latter —lends more credibility to the critique, you understand—and that way we whites could get back to real business of rushing around trying to show how guilty we feel by inviting our black friends over for a combination barbecue/racial consciousness raising seminar. Then, after beating ourselves up all day for the collective transgressions of all whites—because make no mistake: if we whites believe anyone represents “whiteness,” it’s Don Imus—we can spend the evening alone in our redeemed wan-ness with a nice glass of red Zin, soothing ourselves with delicate ego strokes and a series of proud pats on our backs.
Until, that is, Pat Boone slips up and uses the phrase “tar baby.” At which point, we’ll just start the whole charade over again. Which, hey, I happen to like red Zin. So, you know, I’m cool with that.
(h/t Terry Hastings)
What sucks is seeing Imus become something of a martyr for free speech. Had he kept his job, he’d have just been another asshole on his way to the dustbin of history.
But by turning him into a representative of whiteness, we’ve given him a dignity he doesn’t deserve.
Well, NOT IN MY NAME!
Someone pointed out on the radio yesterday that Imus’ problem was that he apologized.
That was when the fecal matter hit the rotating cooling device.
Ann Coulter on the other hand, with the faux outrage attacks from the left about her f****t comment, laughed and pointed back at them.
Who still has a job?
PAT BOONE IS MY MASTER!!!!
Imus’s problem is that he didn’t just apologize to the team, then shut up. The apology parade is what doomed him.
He might come back, but he’ll never be more than a shadow of what he was. He’s shown weakness and the pack will drive him out. He’s now the bully who had the stuffing knocked out him.
Actually, I think he’ll be back rather quickly. He can generate too much revenue not to get a gig somewhere. My bet will be satellite radio where subscriptions not advertisers call the shots. When he resurfaces, enough of his old listeners will tune in.
Imus wasn’t funny.
This is.
Well I, for one, am sure feeling a lot of non-Boone April Love out there. “Thanks again, Imus. It’s all your fault.” Or mine – by consensus, of course.
Imus is white?
Imus apologized. that was the right thing to do. Regardless of who else uses that language, it’s offensive and it’s wrong. At that point a suspension/slap would have been reasonable.
Where Imus really lost it was when he turned to a racialist huckster like Sharpton. Imus figured he’d trade some national exposure for absolution. Instead he was sandbagged and got hung out to dry.
He didn’t get fired for what he said, he got fired for mismanaging the fallout.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
This is the most important point of all. Whether we like it or not Sharpton and Jesse have a profound impact on the black community at large (especially Sharpton). Imagine what a change they could really effect if they went after the truly destructive lyrics of so many hip hop artists!
They have to know how badly this impacts the black youth. The only explanation of why they don’t is that they would rather blame “the white man” than fight the good fight within the community they claim to love so much. They would rather be media stars than stir the money pot that is the hip hop industry.
ESPN made a really stupid decision when they got rid of Whitlock as a columnist. The fact that they got rid of him and kept the guy he was feuding with (“Scoop” Jackson, an utterly unremarkable ‘authentic’ black sportswriter whom Whitlock had mocked for nonsense in a similar vein to what he writes about here) just compounds the idiocy.
Imagine if, instead of going to Al and Jesse, the media went to Bill Cosby and Juan Williams for comment on matters like this.
All that aside, I remember firing a nastygram off to Whitlock when he wrote that the Chargers had no business being in the 1994 AFC Championship because the Chiefs were the better team. Given that they won that game (and then got embarrased in the Super Bowl), I think I’ll forgive him.
RWS – Going after gangsta rappers is like insulting Islam. . . dangerous. Just like the MSM, Al and Jesse will steer clear and only go after “safe” targets.
Just don’t be niggardly with the cheese and crackers.
(pause while a Media Matters minion takes a screen shot)
Uh oh…….
Could someone enlighten me as to what Mr. Whitlock meant by this statement?
I asked a Jewish friend what Jews would do if a group of Jewish kids started making music that relied on Jewish slurs and bragged about Jews killing Jews and called Jewish women bitches and hoes. Let’s just say the situation would be handled and there wouldn’t be a follow up album.
Is he suggesting someone would bust a cap in their asses?
> Is he suggesting someone would bust a cap in their asses?
No, he’s remarking that there would be enough cultural pressure to not allow that type of behavior on a wide scale.
Cultural mores
applied
intellect puddles
selective
ripples faintly
lazes
yawns
scrotum scratch
hydrogen peroxide
ethnic cleansing
which, everyone knows, for joooos “cultural pressure” means cap busting asses.
See: Beastie Boys
Haha, maggie.
I’m not sure I understand “cultural pressure.”
Take Jimmy Iovine, the guy behind such acts as 50 Cent and Death Row records, for example.
He has no problem putting their records out, but if someone from his own confession, say Matisyahu, started using “rap” lyrics, Iovine would refuse to put out his music?
As the widely popular Nietsche once said,”Religion is the duck of death of the people.” Those words permeate many important chiastic literary works, none moreso than the Roble Directory.
Similarly, the poignantly well-spoken Beavis’s striking insights about the dialectic inherent in Village People impudently permeated the publication run of the Far Side. Now, though, scholars focus on dialectic—it proves both more
nefarious and relevant to modern times. Both the Worms manual and “Too Dark Park” use unique birds, albeit in omnisciently contrasting ways.
A few quick questions, alphie;
1) Approximately when did the Roman empire fall?
2) Quickly, what is the relationship between Wallace, Bruce, and Bannockburn?
3) Briefly, how and where did Napoleon end his life?
Have you ever heard of Google?
AP:
Jet Magazine:
SF Gate:
You don’t need Google when you’ve got a narrative, AJB.
That’s the beauty of it.
Whitlock seems to be saying everyone can make money offa rap except blacks.
Which isn’t really such an original idea, when you think about it.
Not really the original thinker he claims to be.
Alphie-follow your own links you assclown. The video was a less racy Jewish version of this . He didn’t (that I could hear) use a derogatory slur against jews(or any other race or group for that matter) He never refers to Ho’s, bitches, sluts, cocaine, pot, 420, bling or any of the other crap that spews from the mouths of the most popular rappers. So your comparison is irrelevent………much like you!
“If you play the theatrics too much, you get in the way of your own cause.” -Al Sharpton
Sweet, sweet irony
Brain hurt, John.
What are you on about?
Posted by alphie |
Mediocrity writ large. With a big crayon. On construction paper. This is the fate all of the left wants of us.
I could point out Alphie’s motivation for these things once more, but it would be superflous, and too easy. Coule he be a conservative moby?
Yes…because I use it. You should try it sometime.
You made the comparison son,…..so you tell us.
And if you were part of the Jackson-Sharpton axis, you would have the options of: (a) declaring him to be an Uncle Tom; or (b) simply declaring him to be not authentically Black.
john,
You missed the point of my comment. Which was that Whitlock seems to be spouting some very nasty stereotypes of his own.
Reread it and report back?
You never mentioned Whitlock in the post I was responding too…..sooooo why dont you go and reread your bile and report back.
Like?
Just one alphie…..just one quote were Whitlock is “spouting some very nasty stereotypes of his own”.
Gotta give Al credit.
Once every five years or so when he gets in front of a conservative black audience he panders to them.
Al could make a difference if he was loud and cosistent on the gangsta culture and rap/hip hop.
He isn’t consistent though. There is no money in it.
Russell Simmons, Kanye West and P. Diddy make a lot of money off of this culture. Some joooos and hispanics do too.
Point is that the black community suffers from too many incidents of “friendly fire”.
People like Al and Jesse could make a difference but instead have chosen to attack whitey.
They will win.
Just learn to deal with it, already.
Have you ever heard of a “Sister Souljah moment”?
For my money Sharpton has been “sufficiently” outspoken when it comes to youth/gangster hip hop culture.
What bothers me is that he’s basically out there all the time with this stuff. It doesn’t matter who’s ox he’s goring, if he can get in front of TV cameras for any reason whatsoever he does so. Even when he’s does manage to sound the right notes there’s just too low a signal/noise ratio. ‘Stopped clocks’ etc.
Imus is just the latest target of Sharpton’s outrage du jour. Imus went down hard because he apologized immediately and profusely, which only added to the scent of blood and further supported the idea that his comment was a career-killing offense.
Remember this nappy ho thing took a while to boil over. Like the Danish Mohammad cartoons the initial speech was only moderately destructive: the orchestrated outrage campaign is what caused it to go wide.
Sadly, the takeaway from all of this is just how market-affecting this kind of campaign can be. Imus went from everything to nothing in like 36 hours. Bam.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the tanning salon.
John,
Whitlock is saying Jews (such as Clive Davis, David Geffen and Jimmy Iovine) have no problem making money off blacks singing lyrics that they’d never let “their” people sing.
That nasty stereotype.
Strangely enough, Alphie, your posts above seem to indicate that you’re saying that as well.
I know, seen68 and not heard, but it seems worth pointing out.
Orthodox benefactor upon the fish defiles the savagely treasonous, ingenuously obtuse nose beside no vestal oddity, until the privately rubber, drastically pentagonal spaceship stole your antidisestablishmentarianist.
The feeble hair hoarded no resounding shark.
What sardonically procedurally jumps his generally ergonomic tongue before the imperial point? Its pair later creates the flying arsenic.
Right, alphie?
A simple yes or no would do.
I’m a capitalist, not some fuzzy-brained librul moralizer, A. Pend.
I don’t care if white people make money selling rap music to white teenage gansta-wannabes.
I do reserve the right to mock my kids and their freinds for their musical taste, though.
And I don’t feel the need to pay for any of their Itunes downloads I don’t want to listen to.
HA!
The voraciously lunar colonel enhances the always immortal nation-state. One forest renovates no masochistic organ for your war to my mercury. The composer slaughtered the lucid, rotational kernel from the vestigial, generally contemporary star.
Thus I refute you!
Whitlock is saying Jews (such as Clive Davis, David Geffen and Jimmy Iovine) have no problem making money off blacks singing lyrics that they’d never let “their†people sing.
If Davis, Geffen, and Iovine disallowed rappers from singing what they wanted, wouldn’t that be censorship?
And, is there really a bunch of Jewish performers dying to sing about ‘hos and bitches?
I think Screech might be willing to give rap a shot, Carin.
Too little, too late for Sharpton. He has had 3 decades to speak out against these horrid lyrics. Now he does it? When it makes him not look like such a hypocrite for going after Imus.
Sorry. Ain’t buying it.
Three decades ago would put us back into the dreaded days of disco, RWS.
I don’t know about Rev. Al, but Jesse Jackson did indeed speak out against disco lyrics back then. Us Pink Floyd and Led Zep fans appluded him for his courageous stand against that crap.
Just think, if you right wing moralists had only voted for Algore back in 2000, Tipper would be leading the charge for nice lyrics today from the White House.
2000’s
1990’s
1980’s
That said…Wiggle wiggle doodle flop. Bouncy audio carrot frame. Would Ernie call Gulf of Mexico for snowglobes? No, ballpoint foot powder generations for Shaw.
Biscuits and tomatoes, my cougar. Biscuits. And. Tomatoes.
well, duh!
Sharpton has been speaking out against rap languange and rap culture for some time now. At least a few years. He’s a hypocrite for going after Imus, but not on that bit.
During the disco era I think Brother Al was too busy explaining how blacks used to out-philosophize them Greek homos to worry much about music.
What? He said it, not me!
I don’t recall very many disco releases in 1987. In fact, disco seems to have died/transmogrified into techno some time prior. Neither do I recall the disHonorouble “Reverend” Jackson having damn all to say about disco during this time period, nor Led Zeppelin (real fans are smart enough to spell the entire name) and Pink Floyd fans being sober enough to listen to anything that fucking asshole had to say.
Making shit up is one of your favorite habits, isn’t it?
2007 – 30 = 1977
Stay in school and don’t do drugs.
Coule he be a conservative moby?
Yes.
Moby Dope.
I’m a capitalist, not some fuzzy-brained librul moralizer
THAR SHE BLOWS !!!
I always did hate math. But oddly enough, I don’t recall that rotting sphincter Jackson saying anything about disco in 1977, either.
Care to elaborate on that, cupcake?
Dick is appropriate, too.
I knew I wasnt haulcinatin’ about Rev. Jackson fightin’ ABBA & the BeeGees demon lyrics, Rage:
During the 70s, music underwent drastic changes, and attempts to censor music continued to thrive. The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s PUSH organization launched a campaign against disco music, insisting the music promoted promiscuity and drug use. Unable to build the momentum and attain the media attention he needed, however, Jackson abandoned his effort.
The 70s: Good drugs and bad music.
So he had an inconsequential effect and gave up, then? No wonder I never heard of his effort. Kind of contradicts your claims that Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd fans were lauding him. That was a pretty sizable group, even then. Seems they would have made more of a splash.
If you can remember, you weren’t there.
Does anybody else want to tell Randy? Because I’m off to do some drinking.
Everytime anyone responds to alphie, baby Jesus cries.
Fight threadjacking!
IGNORE THE ALPHTARD!
I kinda wonder—getting back to the point of Imus apologizing—if the whole thing would have blown over had Imus walked off the Al Sharpton show by saying, “You’re right; I don’t know why I’m apologizing to you: You never apologized about Tawana Brawley”, after Sharpton had refused to accept Imus’s apology.
Yeah, Imus definitely blew it; but I did notice that CBS let him stay on the air long enough to do his charity fundraiser….
I don’t know why alphie is trying to turn this thread into a defense of Sharpton/Jackson (okay, yes I do know why, but still…). Whitlock didn’t put the blame solely on them. In fact, he could have left them out altogether and his piece would have still stood. The part I wanted to highlight is that the victim culture is self-perpetuating.
And it doesn’t matter if he may have thrown around “nasty” stereotypes about Jews elsewhere. His point here is well expressed and important.
Besides, I don’t think the bit alphie posted suggests some nasty jew stereotype, anyway—unless you want to say that capitalism is somehow wrong when engaged in by Jews. That they don’t want their kids listening to rap, and would put the kibosh on it (some Jewish parents would, others wouldn’t—instead, it kind of happens naturally: many Jewish parents are insistent about education and studying, which doesn’t leave their kids a whole lot of time to get into trouble) isn’t hypocritical at all. If I worked for the tobacco industry I still wouldn’t want my son smoking; if I sold Hyundais, I’d still rather my son drive a Jeep; if I boxed for a living, that doesn’t mean I’d condone my kid going around beating the shit out of neighborhood boys and girls.
And etc.
But nice attempt to bolster your Buchananite credentials again, alphie. But I’m not buying it. You might have a problem with the kikes, but it ain’t coming from the right.
Should have been written thusly:
The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s PUSH organization launched a campaign against disco music, insisting the music promoted promiscuity and drug use. Unable to build the momentum and attain the media attention he needed, however, Jackson abandoned his effort in pursuit of more profitable ventures.
alphie,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hip_hop_music#Roots_of_hip_hop
So yeah, three decades ago.
Jesse and Sharpton may have given some token attention to the problem of extreme violent and sextist lyrics in the past, but NEVER have they brought on the anger they brought to bear on this.
Glee ensues.
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!
So that’s what a Buchananite looks like …
I thought they were taller.