OP-ED; IMUS SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FIRED

The Madness Must Stop

Let me begin by stating that this is not a defense of Don Imus. What he said was both reprehensible and indefensible, but this must be clear: he should not have been fired.

Don Imus got his stripes as a “shock jock” in the 1970s and 1980s, and statements like this were his calling card. His reinvention as a bastion of the establishment brought Imus a newfound credibility from a source he had previously disregarded.

With this newfound credibility came responsibility. Imus interviewed many members of the press, as well as politicians. The interviews were highly substantive and nuanced: some even compared their experiences on Imus to “Q & A” on C-SPAN.

With that being said, a profile on Imus aired on “60 Minutes” in July 1998; Mike Wallace interviewed him. In the piece, Wallace accused his program of being racist, to which Imus responded, “Give me one example of one racist incident.”

Wallace replied: “You told Tom Anderson, the producer, in your car, coming home, that Bernard McGuirk is there to do n----- jokes.” Imus protested and said that he had never used the word himself, but Anderson, who was at the interview, said that Imus had in fact used the word. Imus backed down.

When Bob Herbert of the New York Times indicated to MSNBC that he was going to refer to the piece, “they began acting very weird.” The same day the column ran, April 12, Imus was removed from MSNBC’s broadcast schedule.

As I mentioned earlier, Imus had a long record of misogyny, racism and anti-semitism.

What matters now, however, is what comes next. Since the “establishment” had such a close relationship with the Imus program recently, they have been extremely quiet on the issue.

Frank Rich, also of the New York Times, appears to be the first to attack the future head on. In his column published April 15, he admitted to his own hypocrisy on the issue: he has been a regular guest since the 1990s.

Rich called the slurs “burlesque” but admitted that the slurs didn’t bother him previously; Rich is Jewish, but he saw Imus as an equal opportunity offender. With Imus’ firing, Rich argued that edgy comics, once again, are going to be marginalized. Let us remember the example of Bill Maher, he said.

Rich’s fundamental argument is one held by many journalists, including this columnist: no speech should be censored and more speech leads to better speech.

Immediately following Imus’ firing, discussions are being held over the influence of hip-hop music on today’s youth. Mainstream hip-hop is chock full of examples of misogyny and racism: the word n----- is tossed about regularly, women are either bitches or ho’s and the lyrics portray an image of increasing drug abuse and crime.

Not all of the artists are black, either. For every 50 cent, there is a Bubba Sparxxx with a song like “Miss New Booty.” For every D.M.X., there is an Eminem.

Most important is the audience consuming this dose of hateful music. According to Russell Simmons, President of Def Jam Records, 4 out of 5 hip-hop records are bought by white suburban teens.The white kids are listening to “street” music, because they think it makes them “harder.” They are looking for that edge that their suburban, upper middle-class lifestyle is not providing for them. What they don’t realize is how detrimental it is to their interpersonal development.

The question now becomes: who gets the right to say these words? Why do “artists” get the right to say it but “shock jocks” and the “establishment” cannot? When are the words wrong?]

All of these questions are now being answered in the wake of Imus’ fall, or at the very least, the attempt is there. My resolute belief in free speech calls for a theoretical defense of Imus. He has every right to say what he did, regardless of whether someone agrees with him.

As does Rush Limbaugh when he claimed Michael J. Fox exaggerated his Parkinson’s disease to win votes for a referendum in Missouri. That does not make his speech acceptable; rather it just makes it accessible, even if it isn’t true.

The free market will decide if people will tune into hateful communication, regardless of the medium. If there is a demand for it, a supply will be provided.

But if the country has truly moved on from the problem of racism and sexism, then the public will not tune into it, and it will fall by the wayside. Until this happens, we can assume that the divide has not been closed.