Unfair to Don Imus

It's really hard to say anything anymore. Don Imus has been suspended for two weeks by CBS and MSNBC for referring to the black women who play on the Rutgers basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Isn't this is terribly unfair? How was Imus to know that referring to black women as "nappy-headed hos" is now considered offensive? What other demeaning racist and misogynist stereotypes are now off limits and how do you find out what they are?

According to respected Newsweek journalist Howard Fineman, calling black women "nappy-headed hos" was perfectly acceptable until sometime last week. "You know, it's a different time," Fineman told Imus on his radio show. "And some of the stuff that you used to do, you probably can't do anymore. I mean, just looking specifically at the African-American situation. I mean, hello, Barack Obama's got twice the number of contributors as anybody else in the race." Apparently, because of Obama's recent fundraising success it is no longer acceptable to make certain racist jokes. I'm not sure how Fineman knows this. It's possible that there is an email list that alerts subscribers to what epithets are no longer acceptable in polite society and Imus is either not on the list or hasn't checked his email.

Imus probably thought that there was no problem with devaluing the accomplishments of black women with cute epithets. When he referred to New York Times journalist Gwen Ifill, who is an African-American woman, as "the cleaning lady," none of his friends in the media objected, so it must have been OK at the time. Tim Russert, who has had Ifill on Meet the Press and Ifill's fellow Times journalist Maureen Dowd have both appeared on Imus' show many times since he said that and as far as we know never mentioned to him that this was offensive, never thought they needed to defend their colleague. I'm sure if Dowd and Russert had thought there was something wrong with the remark, they would have refused to appear on Imus until he apologized. If it has only become offensive recently, at least since Barack Obama's fundraising numbers were released, then it's a little unfair to attack Imus for saying that now and not see his remarks in their historical context.

Although many are now attacking Imus, some of his friends are remaining loyal and sticking up for him. Imus' friend Boston Globe journalist Tom Oliphant appeared on Imus after he made these remarks to express "solidarity" with the shock jock. He pointed out how easy it is for someone to be talking about black people and slip into racial stereotypes. "Now, believe me, as you well know, I don't know beans about hip-hop culture or trash-talking, or what do you call those things where you run on forever? Riffs, or whatever," said Oliphant. "But even I could see the beginning of what appeared to me to be a riff. And the train went off the tracks, which, you know, can happen to anybody." I'm sure this kind of thing happens to Oliphant all the time. He'll be talking about black people, "riffing," and suddenly he'll go just a little too far and say something too racist. Luckily for Oliphant, when his train goes off the track and he accidentally makes racist remarks, he's not on the radio so it's not such a big deal.

What is happening to Imus is a little like what happened to Ann Coulter a few weeks ago. How could she possibly have know that it was now wrong to call someone a "faggot"? When did this word become an "f-word"? Is it tied somehow to the ratings for Will & Grace or the Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain, which Imus and his good friend Chris Matthews made fun of last year, referring to it as Fudgepack Mountain? Although I believe that making fun of gay people for being gay is still no problem in general, apparently Coulter, Isaiah Washington and Tim Hardaway didn't get the memo and had no idea that the word "faggot" had suddenly become unacceptable. Someone should have told them about this so that they would have been more careful.

I know what Imus and Coulter and their friends in the media must be feeling. If you can't refer to black people as "nappy-headed," to women as "hos" and "bitches" or homosexuals as "faggots" anymore, how do you refer to them? Could someone please let us know?

I think in order to avoid mistakes like this in the future, it might be helpful if blacks, women, gays (whoops! I almost wrote "faggots" by mistake!) and other oppressed groups compiled a list of offensive terms that are no longer funny. They might also want to set up a website that could be updated with new terms as they are added to the list, which pundits, comedians and shock jocks could check to make sure they aren't saying anything that will get them fired or cause them to lose lucrative commercial endorsements. I know I would be able to breathe a lot easier if I knew what demeaning stereotypes and insults I could and could not use.

I hope that Don Imus gets his job back after his two-week vacation. I know it will be difficult for him to talk about blacks, women and gays without making fun of the fact that they are black, female or gay so I hope people will cut him a little slack for the time being until he gets used to it. In the future when he talks about a women's basketball team whose players are predominantly black, he'll have to think of other things to talk about besides the fact that they are black women, but I'm sure he'll think of something. Perhaps he could also learn to limit his use of offensive stereotypes to white heterosexual men. Is there a list somewhere of terms that make fun of somebody just because they are white, heterosexual or male that he can use? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any but I'm sure there must be some.

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Jon Swift, Don Imus, Imus, MSNBC, CBS, Rutgers, Basketball, Howard Fineman, Ann Coulter, Gwen Ifill, Maureen Dowd, Tim Russert, Tom Oliphant, Media, Politics