Imus and Rutgers

OK, so the dust has settled around the Don Imus / Rutgers Lady Scarlet Knights basketball team controversy, and I thought I might wade in with my thoughts...

Don Imus is pretty famous for his sarcastic comedy. The fact that boomers find his show and his schtick funny and attractive to a wide demographic means that lots of 'powerful' people, politicians and captains of industry appear as guests on his daily radio/simulcast broadcast.

Somehow that has lent more weight to his opinions than is warranted, but it is what it is...

What must be remembered is this: He is a comedian! When he says things, they are intended to be funny... whether they are or not is a matter of taste (or, sometimes, lack of it) but, at the end of the day, he is a radio DJ/Comedian! ...one that needs an audience to survive!

His comments were thoughtless and crude, but most of his comments are! When the 'reverend' Al Sharpton or his pal Jesse Jackson get on TV and use Imus' comments as a springboard to pontificate about race relations in America... that's definitely opportunistic, and kinda sickening!

The fact that Imus and his cohorts say insensitive things is well-documented; the fact that charletans like Sharpton and Jackson use it to project themselves into the national spotlight is predictable. The fact that MSNBC and CBS have chosen to fire Imus and disassociate themselves from him is a little surprising, since he and his brand of humor has made them millions per year in advertising revenue...

What made this particular comment so explosive? Maybe it's that the target was a team of amateur african american female athletes... I don't know...

It certainly wasn't the first time he and his crew had made racially insensitive remarks...

I heard one talking head say that this whole mess could serve to 'clean up' the rhetoric and raise the dialogue to a higher level... I'd like to believe that. But I rather doubt it... as long as people continue to buy music (primarily rap and hip-hop) which demeans and denegrates females (especially african american females), this dialogue will stay in the gutter where it has been for a long time...

So, should Imus have been fired? I don't know or care, really... for now, I am scratching my head wondering how a few words from a famous satirist could cause such a stink...

But, oh well, welcome to the 21st century... and political correctness on steroids!