Sure I rant all the time, but I haven't been labeling anything explicitly as a rant recently.
Thank Imus for renewing the rantotheweek feature here at Newflower.
I'm coming to the story late, but have to share that I agree with the journalists who've called his labeling of the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team "nappy headed h*s" an "assault on human dignity." His apology is insufficient, particularly because he's also characterized it as "some idiot comment meant to be amusing," defending the comments as thoughtless but ultimately harmless -- or no more harmful than any other hateful comments he's made about countless groups. One commenter noted that this is what happens when sexism and racism are mapped onto one another.
Imus's "apology," MSNBC's apology, NBC's apology, the promise to monitor his show more carefully . . . none of these are good enough. I do hope politicians and journalists will boycott his show and that his audience will tune him out.
*Updated 12 April: Imus fired by NBC and CBS. See? Rantotheweek really works!*
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2 comments:
Absolutely, so you keep ranting! I am so glad he was fired, it was really the ONLY response CBS could have had to this.
But I'm disappointed - not surprised, but disappointed - that in one online poll I saw, the majority of responders thought he was just doing his shock jock job.
Interesting, I'm watching Today right now, and they have a panel discussing the issue, and they're pretty hot on both sides. It's clear they were hand-picked (white males on both sides of the issue, black women on both sides of the issue), but at least they're talking about it on a well-watched show. I hope it opens up a lot more discussion.
There's something wrong with the existence of the job "shock jock."
I was surprised that some considered it a free speech issue. Of course he has free speech -- but no one owes him an audience for that speech.
If they hadn't fired him, I would like to have seen possible guests refusing to be on his show, which would have resulted in the same thing in the end.
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