I have spent the last few days working on a piece about the disgraceful way that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, CBS Radio, and NBC television came together to end the career of radio legend Don Imus, who was given the death penalty for an admittedly clumsy joke told during 10 seconds of an unscripted four-hour radio show.
Let me be clear. What Don Imus and his producer Bernard McGuirk said was absolutely, unequivocally wrong and there is no justifying his comments.
Over the days, I’ve struggled with the piece because when one looks at all of its many facets, one can write a book about it. In an attempt to boil it down to its most base elements, I will, for now, not comment extensively about the disgraceful behavior shown by Imus’ so-called friends in politics and the media who were shocked, shocked to find that there was gambling in the bar. (Though I will make special mention of Keith Olbermann who I have praised extensively on this site in the past few months. That the same man who has written notes to Imus that began, “Dear Morning Radio Deity,” can turn on him as dramatically as he did, considering that every time he leaves a job, the employees who had to work with him have nothing but bad things to say about the man, puts Olbermann on a special pedestal of hypocrisy.)
Before we begin, it is important to remember several things:
1. The women of Rutgers University’s basketball team carried themselves with grace and dignity and should be commended; however, they are public figures by dint of playing for a national championship. Granted, they did not engender and thus, should not have been subject to the same enmity lobbed by Don Imus at the likes of President Bush or John Kerry. But they are public figures. And, as someone who covered sporting events for many years, and has been in locker rooms of both male and female athletes of all colors, races, and creeds, it is not a stretch to believe that many of the players on that team - black and white - listen to hardcore rap to pump themselves up before games; rap which contains lyrics that make Don Imus’ statement look tame by comparison.
2. Don Imus is an equal opportunity offender. Could he go over the line at times? Certainly. But that line crossed racial and religious groups of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Why do the Irish not riot in the streets and call for Imus’ head when he brings “Cardinal Egan” on to give his sermon of faith and devotion? Simply, because it is a joke. Remember, the Imus in the Morning Program was always advertised as a comedy show.
3. The sports talk hosts who have jumped on the bandwagon to bash Don Imus should be kneeling at his feet and thanking him. Without Imus, they would not have a job. When Imus was brought to WFAN, the station - the first sports station in the country - was struggling mightily. Its advertising base was minimal, there were few listeners, and many believed that the station would fold. Imus’ arrival brought millions of listeners who stuck around after his show and listened to WFAN. The financial success of WFAN encouraged other radio companies to take the chance on an all-sports format.
4. Snoop Dogg needs to shut the hell up. I’ve always liked the guy, but this week, in response to the Imus affair, he said, “It’s a completely different scenario. (Rappers) are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about hoes that’s in the ’hood that ain’t doing shit, that’s trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthaf-ckas say we are in the same league as him. Kick him off the air forever.” This comes from a guy who, if he were not a celebrity who gets the benefit of the doubt from starf-cking judges in California should have been in jail a long time ago for his drug use and propensity for driving violations. And Condoleeza Rice also needs to pipe down. She said that she was "glad" that Imus was fired. She is the last person who should talk about firing someone for their actions. At least Don Imus didn’t take this country into an ill-fated war that has cost tens of thousands of lives; a war that was based on faulty information.
Those facts aside - and I will stop with those four because there are about thirty such points that could be made, which would turn this into a book-length piece - the biggest tragedy here is not that Don Imus lost his job - though that will impact negatively the lives of many sick children he and those associated with his show have helped through the years - but rather that when people think about the firing of Don Imus, they will also think about the actions of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who were elevated wrongly to the level of kingmakers in the past week when they should have been ignored for their divisive racial invective.
That Al Sharpton has the power to demand someone’s head for an off-color comment and get his demands met falls just short of criminal because, while Al Sharpton’s official title might be Reverend, he behaves in the exact opposite way in which a man of the cloth would be expected to behave.
The bible teaches forgiveness. Al Sharpton teaches hatred. He doesn’t believe in redemption and, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, he certainly does not believe in improving the social status of the African-American community. Al Sharpton is, and always has been, worried about one thing: Feeding Al Sharpton’s wallet and ego. He is as much a Reverend as is every Hassidic Jew a rabbi.
Let’s not forget who Al Sharpton is. Al Sharpton is a racist divider and has been for years. He was the man who perpetuated the Tawana Brawley affair. He was the person responsible for inciting the Crown Heights Riots. During his eulogy for Gavin Cato, the child who was killed after being stuck by a car driven by a Hasidic Jew, Sharpton did not preach unity. He did not preach forgiveness. Instead, he said, “Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights. The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid.”
And those with short memories should be reminded that Al Sharpton found himself in front of the cameras in Durham, North Carolina, in April 2006, after an African-American stripper claimed that she was raped by members of the Duke lacrosse team. Ironically, during the same week that Don Imus became a target of Sharpton’s hate squad, the members of the lacrosse team who were charged in the case had all the charges they faced dropped after it was determined that the stripper was lying. Shockingly, Sharpton did not apologize for inciting the African-American community in Durham and turning them against these students. Then again, as Tawana Brawley proved, Sharpton’s track record has proven that he does not apologize when African-American “victims” he supported turn out to be liars.
Joining Rev. Al this week in the fight against Don Imus was another standup man of God, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson has honed his special brand of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy for nearly half a century. During the days of the Nixon administration, Jackson claimed that Richard Nixon was not paying sufficient attention to the problem of poverty in the United States because “four out of five [of Nixon’s top advisors] are German Jews and their priorities are on Europe and Asia” and later said that he was “sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust.” A decade later, he referred to Jews as “Hymies” and New York City as “Hymietown.”
Age has not made Jackson wiser and it has done nothing to put a dent in his legendary hypocrisy. In 2001, Jackson, who had been married since 1962, admitted to having an affair with a staffer, which resulted in the birth of a baby girl born out of wedlock. Jackson paid the staffer $36,000 for moving expenses and contracting work and $3,000 per month child support out of the coffers of The Rainbow Push Coalition he headed.
While the most troubling aspect of the Imus affair should be the comments Don Imus made (and apologized for) on his radio show. It is that these two racist, anti-Semitic hypocrites are presented as touchstones who have their fingers on the pulse of and who represent the African-American community. Instead of focusing on the behavior of rappers like 50 Cent, who recently was invited to speak at the U.S. Embassy in Angola for an event on H.I.V. and AIDS awareness, and said to a group of young people and their parents, “Have sex, have lots of sex, but have safe sex,” and then had his bodyguards throw hundred-dollar bills into the air as he was leaving, Sharpton and Jackson focused on an easy target - a 66 year-old white male.
It is no surprise that Sharpton and Jackson ignored the rappers in the African-American community who sing about hos and bitches and disrespect women. To point out his inability to impact those who create the misogynistic music would be to advertise his own failures. Amazingly, after hearing of the decision by CBS Radio and NBC to fire Don Imus, Jackson called the firing "a victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation."
Dueling hypocrites Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are very quick to push for the firing of those with whom they disagree. That they do not care about the way the firing will impact not only their target, but also those associated with the target’s business - some of whom are African Americans - is understandable. It’s hard to get fired when you don’t have a real job, and as both Sharpton and Jackson have proven through the years as heads of organizations whose purpose is to line the pockets of its principals, their parasitic existence allows them to avoid the working world.
Through the years on his show, Don Imus promoted African-American candidates like Harold Ford Jr. for the United States Senate, made the Blind Boys of Alabama a household name, introduced millions to the inspiring sermons of the late Bishop G.E. Patterson, played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech every year on Martin Luther King Day, and raised awareness and money for children - primarily African-American children - suffering from sickle cell anemia. Don Imus has raised tens of millions of dollars for children’s charities over the years. His charitable organizations are widely respected for utilizing a higher percentage of donations for its intended purposes than almost any charity in the country. Neither he nor members of his family make a penny as administrators of the charities.
Yet, Don Imus should be fired, right Rev. Al? By the way, when is the Al Sharpton radiothon for children with sickle cell anemia taking place?
It’s easy to talk the talk. Like him or not, Al Sharpton is charismatic in much the same way P.T. Barnum was. And the Barnum comparison is appropriate because this week, Al Sharpton proved that there’s a sucker born every minute.
I don’t believe for a second that the firing of Don Imus will lead to improved race relations in this country in much the same way that the O.J. Simpson verdict and the Rodney King trial divided people along racial lines; however, Sharpton and Jackson should be pleased because controversy will bring funds into their organizations and Rev. Al will be able to buy another bespoke suit.
It is time for the people of this country to stand up and revolt against this blatant racism and hypocrisy. I realize that when these sentiments come from a 34-year-old white male, some will be quick to point out that it’s easy for me to say. While I am a 34-year-old white male, I am also Jewish, and when I was 13 years old, my left leg was broken in two places as a result of anti-Semitism. I was attacked because I was a Jew and when the rabbi of the congregation I attended at the time came to me and asked permission to speak about what happened to me in his upcoming weekly sermon, I implored him not to do so because I worried that doing so would inflame the vocal members of my congregation.
He did not accede to my wishes and did speak to the congregation about what happened to me. The next week, I got many calls from well-wishers who were, rightfully, upset. And yet, despite being upset, they were no riots in Lakewood, because, I later found out, my rabbi preached forgiveness that week. He told the congregation that I wanted to forgive my attackers, which was true, and he agreed that that was the proper thing, the Jewish thing, to do, saying that violence only begets violence and hatred only begets hatred
The point is simple. There are wonderful spiritual and cultural leaders in the African-American community, in the Caucasian community, in the Asian community, in the gay community, and in the communities of spiritual and cultural groups all across this country, who work every day to better their followers; who work every day to spread the message of peace, of tolerance, of love, of understand, and, most importantly, of forgiveness. It is those people who should be at the forefront when people like Don Imus say things that are offensive and wrong.
It is those people whose voices should be heard preaching forgiveness and unity. Unfortunately, this week, the voices that were heard the loudest, and the voices that had the most impact came from hate mongers who are no better or more socially responsible than Nazis or Ku Klux Klansmen were. When voices of racism, of hate, and of divisiveness are heard above all others and are legitimized by actions like those taken against Don Imus by NBC and CBS radio, our country is in serious trouble and it makes me sad to think that I, like approximately 75% of the hundreds of thousands of people who responded to (admittedly unscientific) polls will not be able to listen to the Imus in the Morning program because a vocal, hypocritical pair of “leaders” overwhelmed the will of the majority by making threats that were nothing more than financial terrorism and blackmail.
Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, Hypocrites, Politics, Religion
Before I post my take on the Don Imus firing, I had to pass along this piece from Pravda, entitled 