Okay, so it's been a while. As screwed up the world has become, what more can I say about it.
Therefore, I'm going to write about something considerably less significant: sports. I enjoy sports. It is a pleasant distraction from the doom and gloom gathering around us. But there is a certain aspect of sports that I dislike and it is sports fans talking smack. You see it at stadiums and arenas. You hear it on sports talk radio. You read it on internet discussion boards. People who had absolutely nothing to do with a team's success obnoxiously crowing and insulting their opponent's fans. What is the purpose of this? Is there nothing in their lives that they can be proud of other than the sports team they like winning a big game or a league title? And the language they use is comical. They use words like "we" and "us" when describing the team's accomplishments. Were you on the field (court, ice, whatever)? Did you play a down (at bat, minute, whatever)? If a player wants to brag about his team winning something, he has the right. He actually did something. But you sitting on your couch in your team shirt with a big bowl of Cheetos resting on your gut and a beer in your hand have nothing to say. I'll admit I've used those words before when not thinking about it. I try not to but sometimes it slips out. Granted it has been a rough couple of years for me. The hated University of Florida has won the last two NCAA basketball championships and last year's football title while FSU has been struggling in both sports. The AFC South adversary Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl this past season as the Tennessee Titans just managed to end up at 8-8. National League East rival clubs Atlanta Braves, New York Mets and Florida Marlins have all played for the league pennant in this century while the Phillies have played winning ball but not winning enough to make the playoffs. In short, my teams have not had a lot of recent success. Fortunately there are not a lot of Gator fans in Nashville flapping their gums. Fortunately there are not a lot of Colts fans in Nashville, although there are a lot of Peyton Manning fans. There are a fair amount of Braves fans, but there are just as many fans of other teams as well that they aren't that prevalent. Nothing annoys me more than to have some armchair quarterback yakking about what "they" did to "us". Unless you threw the touchdown pass, you didn't do anything, Jack.
And another thing...
So now Don Imus has been lynched. He hangs there from the high branch on the tree of white guilt. He has been fired by CBS Radio and NBC Universal. It must have been some major transgression to end such a long radio career. But was it? Imus made a stupid joke and used the phrase "nappy-headed hos". That's all it was. It didn't even use the verboten "n" word. Of course I'm not black, but I can understand why a black person, specifically a black woman, might be offended by the comment. However, to get canned for that seems a bit extreme. I'm no Imus fan. I tried watching his MSNBC simulcast a while back and just couldn't get into it. I didn't much care for the attempts at humor. I didn't care about all the sucking up to the politicians who regularly called into the show. I didn't care to listen to the banter with the high-ranking media members who appeared on the show. And I shouldn't care that he's no longer on the air. But I do care about how it all came down. All things being equal, it should have been forgotten. He could have apologized and gone on with his career. But what was a tiny spark eventually engulfed him and the media in general when race warlords Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton poured gasoline all over it. <sarcasm>Those two would never escalate a situation for their own person benefit.</sarcasm> The next thing that happened was the advertisers on his show started to pull out. They have the right to do that if they think that continuing to buy time on the show will negatively affect their bottom line. That's business. But was it really just fear of Jackson and Sharpton who regularly shake down businesses for extortion money. The last thing those companies want is the race pimps organizing product boycotts. So the sponsors folded under the potential pressure. Then NBC and CBS did the same. The overreaction is stunning to me. I'm not about to hoist the flag of the First Amendment on this hill. Don Imus does have the constitutional right to say what he pleases without the retribution of the government. But CBS and NBC are not required to employ him.
This whole ordeal has spawned an interesting debate about who can say what. Clearly these kind of words and worse are spewed forth in the hip-hop world. They are used by black performers. The context is just as demeaning to black women if not more so. But the moral outrage is nowhere as intense as what was brought to bear on Don Imus. In fact, when people such as Bill Cosby speak out about the baser aspects of the black culture such as all the hip-hop nonsense and the crippling subtle bigotry of lower expectations he is ridiculed by his own people. And any white person who is foolish enough to point out the same issues is tarred a racist. Let's look at the two situations. Don Imus is an old white man. He makes a lot of money for himself and the major media corporations for which he works. When he makes a negative racial remark, a firestorm erupts. Black people get upset and rightfully so. Whether they should allow the stupid comment to make them victims is a different issue, but it seems many are allowing it to do just that. White people, guilty from many years of slavery and discriminatory laws against blacks, take their cue from the black leaders and also condemn Imus. Everyone gets self-righteous and says they will never listen again and call for his firing. He gets axed and the race baiting reverends get their scalp. Now look at the case of the hip-hop performers. Their language is so much worse, but they also make a lot of money for themselves and the major media corporations for which they work. Their negative remarks cause but a ripple. The record companies do not drop their controversial artists. Why? Because people keep buying the product. If Jesse and Al brought to bear the same pressure on Sony, Warner and the other major players in the music industry and people stopped buying and downloading the music, maybe it would stop. But that won't happen. The black community won't change it because they fear that they will be perceived as acting white and the white community sure as hell won't say anything. Meanwhile the decay continues. But at least that evil raving racist bastard Don Imus got fired. Everything is better now.