The Imus Effect

Sylwia Kapuscinski for The New York Times
C. Vivian Stringer and her Rutgers players at a news conference last year. They made an impression on recruits with the way they handled Don Imus.

C. Vivian Stringer had her biggest recruiting year ever at Rutgers -- five, count 'em, FIVE McDonald's All-Americans have committed to Rutgers for next year.

Way to go Viv.

On the October morning Chelsey Lee awoke with her decision made, her destination clear, she summoned Shirlene Horne into her room and said, “Mommy, I’m going to commit.”

Connecticut or Rutgers? Geno Auriemma or C. Vivian Stringer? Horne had promised to withhold her opinion until her daughter, a 6-foot-3 center from Parkway Academy in Miami, disclosed the one that mattered most.

“Rutgers,” Lee said.

Horne hugged her and whispered, “I was feeling that, too.”

In Crawford, Miss., April Sykes, a 5-11 guard/forward ranked as high as No. 2 in the country by some scouting services, got on board the same northern-bound train as Lee, her A.A.U. teammate. A 5-9 point guard from Pasadena with the splendid positional name of Nikki Speed was also feeling Rutgers, over Duke. In Fort Worth, Brooklyn (no relation to the borough) Pope, a 6-2 forward, was resisting in-state pressure, opting to weather the comparatively daunting winters of central New Jersey.

Add Jasmine Dixon, a 5-11 guard from Long Beach, Calif., and Stringer has what every college basketball coach dreams of in a single incoming class — five McDonald’s all-Americans from across a continent she now calls her recruiting base.

Thank you, after all, Don Imus.

“He pretty much put Rutgers on the map,” said Janice Pope, the mother of Brooklyn.

[]

[] Then came last season’s run to the final, falling short of Stringer’s first title against Tennessee, followed by the seismic event of Stringer and her players, most notably Carson, standing up on national television for themselves and for young African-American women everywhere.

“Hearing E speak, oh my goodness, it was amazing,” Nikki Speed said, already relating to Carson on a first-initial basis. “We still talk about that now, but when I was watching it, I remember thinking, that’s what I want to learn, that’s how I want to carry myself, like a proud African-American woman.”

Brooklyn Pope had another thought that day, concentrated on Stringer, during the coach’s characteristically eccentric but emotionally irresistible appeal.

“When I was looking at the television that day, I was like, ‘Dang, that’s not a coach, she’s like their mother,’ ” Pope said. “She defended them like they were her own children.”

In separate telephone interviews, three of the Rutgers recruits — Pope, Lee and Speed — all spoke of the close-knit family Rutgers appeared to be on television, and later, upon visiting, in real college life.

Reject and Denounce

I watched the Democratic debate on MSNBC in fits and starts this week, but I missed the part where Tim Russert asked Obama to disavow Louis Farrakhan. (Russert and Williams are so shallow and empty, and there was women's basketball on. Does Williams think speaking ponderously makes him sound smart? I still know he listens to Rush Limbaugh and doesn't think Limbaugh gets the credit he deserves -- yes, he said this -- so I know he's a moron.) The video of the Farrakhan exchange, from TPM, is above.

Obama has no relationship with Farrakhan. It was a complete and total Pumpkinhead bullshit gotcha moment. But Russert apparently thinks this is a legitimate questioning device. So let the denouncing and rejecting begin! Let's start with Pumpkinhead. He never denounced and rejected his good pal Don Imus when he used hateful racist and sexist language about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Russert: When are you going to disavow the hateful statements of Don Imus?

Today John McCain was endorsed by a hate-spewing preacher, John Hagee. And McCain embraces this endorsement. Shouldn't he have to denounce and reject Hagee who hates Jews, Muslims, Catholics, gays, women, Hurricane Katrina victims, well, pretty much anyone who isn't in his church. John McCain: When are you going to disavow the hateful statements of John Hagee?

As others have said, it's foolish for our political press to be making mountains of such shit and ignoring the issues, but if that's what they're going to do, could they at least do it to both parties?

Attytood: Questions for Tim Russert: When will you denounce your supporter Don Imus?

Down With Tyranny: SO WHEN WILL TIM RUSSERT DEMAND THAT HIS OLD PAL McCAIN DISAVOW THE ENDORSEMENT HE GOT YESTERDAY FROM BIGOTED PSYCHOPATH JOHN HAGEE?

MediaMatters: Will MSNBC devote as much coverage to McCain's embrace of Hagee's support as it did to Obama's rejection of Farrakhan?

Glenn Greenwald: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable

Glenn Greenwald: Interview with Bill Donohue: Catholic League denounces McCain

CryptKeeper Return?

Separated at birth.
I guess it's hard to keep a bad rich man down.

NYPost: NOT DONE YET

July 16, 2007 -- DON Imus is coming back to the airwaves in September, according to private eye Bo Dietl, who was a regular on "Imus in the Morning" on WFAN. Dietl said on Post State Editor Fred Dicker's Albany radio show, "I'm not supposed to say, but . . . if he was to be coming back, I would look to September." When Dicker asked if he meant satellite radio, Dietl replied, "Broadcast." Another source says Imus has been scouting comedy clubs looking for a black sidekick who will take the sting out of any future racial cracks like the one that got him booted off the air.

A black sidekick. How enlightened. Will Imus bring back his pal Bernie, too? Then Bernie can tell the jokes the black sidekick will 'take the sting out of'.

PostChronicle.com: Don Imus Returns: The I-Man Back On Air In September

Bye Bye Bernie

Boston Herald: WRKO dumps McGuirk drive-time tryout

Boston Globe: WRKO cancels appearance by McGuirk

After several days of criticism for inviting a former Don Imus producer to its airwaves, WRKO cancelled an appearance by Bernard McGuirk today.

McGuirk was slated to begin a three-day stint Wednesday as an on-air guest of former House speaker Tom Finneran -- an appearance that station officials said last week was designed as a try-out for the man who first said the word ``ho'' in the on-air conversation in which Imus referred to the champion Rutgers University women's basketball team as ``nappy headed hos.''

George Regan, a spokesman for Entercom Communications, the parent company of WRKO, declined to say why the invitation was rescinded. But over the weekend, a 1997 interview on CBS' ``60 Minutes'' surfaced in which Imus was quoted using a racial slur to say that McGuirk was hired for his show to tell jokes about blacks.

Wouldn't it be nice if they read it here on Main St.? Man, it would just frost my cupcakes if we helped take down stone racist Bernie. I think it's funny how they say the interview "surfaced". On Saturday (I think that would count as "over the weekend"), I linked to a TomPaine.com piece (published in 2000, archived on the web in 2004) that contained the 60 Minutes transcript:

Imus N*****-Joke-Telling Sidekick Getting Boston Radio Audition

WRKO, a Boston AM radio station, is giving a tryout to Imus co-host Bernard McGuirk. McGuirk was hired, according to Imus, "to do nigger jokes".

Plus, both the Herald and the Globe use that ugly Fox photo I used. I am so taking credit for this.

Updates

The latest news in some stories we've covered previously.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the federal agency charged with making our nation's mines safe, has issued fines for the Sago Mine disaster in which 12 miners died. Only one died as a result of the lightning strike said to have started the fire; the other 11 died subsequently. They were each wearing self-contained self-rescuers (SCSRs); there were numerous code violations in these, and obviously they failed. The MSHA issued a fine of $60 to the mine operator. Yes, $60. 12 deaths, divided by $60, that's $5 per death.

In the wake of the resignation of Boston College women's ice hockey coach Tom Mutch for an inappropriate relationship with a player, one incoming freshman has chosen another school, and a freshman was released from her scholarship. Neither is the player reportedly involved with the coach. In similar news, the women's golf coach at the University of Georgia, Todd McCorkle, resigned May 7th after being accused of sexually harassing his players. He showed them the Paris Hilton sex tape, talked about their bras and underwear, and touched them inappropriately. Like Mutch, McCorkle is married to a former player, Jenna Daniels, who is now on the LPGA Tour. But he met her while he was her golf coach at the University of Arizona, when she was 18 and he was 36. Warning bells!

Don Imus is suing CBS Radio for $120 million. Did he have a clause in his contract saying that he got to stay if advertisers bailed? I'm sure he'll donate whatever he gets to charity.

When Rudy Giuliani reported his finances this week, we learned a weird fact: He has Judi Nathan on the payroll, to the tune of $125,000 per year. So those campaign contributors are putting their money right into the Giuliani/Nathan kitty. It's all about the Benjamins.

Congressman Jim McGovern's Food Stamp Challenge made the front page of the Boston Globe yesterday.

Imus N*****-Joke-Telling Sidekick Getting Boston Radio Audition

Go Away. Please.
WRKO, a Boston AM radio station, is giving a tryout to Imus co-host Bernard McGuirk. McGuirk was hired, according to Imus, "to do nigger jokes".

When I was a kid, I would have gotten the big bar of Palmolive in my mouth for saying that word. McGuirk, who has made his career doing racist and sexist jokes and still thinks that's funny, is getting a job interview for his efforts. Personally, I'd rather see him eat the soap. The last thing Boston, a city where race relations are delicate to say the least, is a hard-core recist like Imus's buddy Bernie on the airwaves.

Derrick Z. Jackson has an excellent column (excerpts, below) in today's Globe about the media's collective amnesia in the face of racism. He starts with Jerry Falwell's propping up of the South Africa regime in the 1980s and ends with Bernie getting a tryout in Boston.

Boston Globe: Boston station considers hiring former Imus sidekick

BOSTON --A Boston talk radio station plans to audition Don Imus' former producer to co-host former House Speaker Tom Finneran's morning talk show, which is suffering from sagging ratings.

Bernard McGuirk, who first called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "hard-core hos" in an exchange that led to public outcry and Imus' dismissal, will audition live on WRKO-AM next Wednesday through Friday.

In response to McGuirk, Imus called the women "nappy-headed hos." Imus and McGuirk, a 20-year producer and on-air jester for the "Imus in the Morning" program, were eventually fired.

"This is show business -- it's about personality and it's about entertainment and there's no question in my mind, Bernard has an incredible personality," Jason Wolfe, WRKO's vice president of AM programming and operations, said. "He's entertaining, very witty; that, in combination with the intelligence-slash-wit of Finneran, could be interesting."

Boston Herald: Imus sidekick draws fire: To be WRKO ‘guest’

Boston Globe: DERRICK Z. JACKSON
Local and national media let racism slide

[]
Talk-radio station WRKO-AM has invited Don Imus's racist sidekick Bernard McGuirk to be a co-host with former Massachusetts House speaker Tom Finneran on "Finneran's Forum."

McGuirk kicked off the banter about the Rutgers women's basketball team that got Imus kicked out of his nationally broadcast radio and television shows. Imus called the Rutgers black players "nappy-headed hos" after McGuirk called them "hard-core hos."

This was the final straw in a career of likening prominent African-Americans to the worst stereotypes of gorillas, cleaning ladies, and pimps.

It was summed up by the interview Mike Wallace did with Imus a decade ago. When Imus challenged Wallace to come up with an example of a racist incident by Imus, Wallace reminded him that he claimed in a car ride that "Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes." After at first denying using the n-word, Imus confessed that he did and he did not care what people thought about it.

What is Finneran trying to prove by having McGuirk on? To prove that his 2001 voter redistricting really was racist? Yesterday Finneran said on his show of McGuirk's comments, "That's history. That's in the rear view mirror. That's behind us."

If Finneran really believes that "hard-core hos," said just six weeks ago, is "history," then the next thing he and WRKO should see in the rear-view mirror are their advertisers waving goodbye.

In a couple cycles of commercials for "Finneran's Forum," prominent firms such as J.C. Penney, New York Life, Salem Five, Ira Toyota, Uniroyal Tires, and Venezia Restaurant had ads. Savings Bank Life Insurance of Massachusetts has an ad on the website for Finneran's show.

Do these advertisers want to be associated with a man who Imus did not deny was "there to do nigger jokes?" Stay tuned.

On The Media

Our prostrate corporate media
A round-up of news about the corporate media and a few glimmerings of change:

Digby at Hullabaloo reminds us of what happened to Ashley Banfield of MBNBC when she criticized the media's coverage of the Iraq war.

Greg Palast in the LATimes on how the corporate media in the US no longer do investigative reporting.

Bill Moyers's new show on PBS aired Friday night; it featured Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. Watch it here.

Frank Rich gets off Imus's couch (because Imus doesn't have a couch any more, ha ha) and attacks David Broder of the WaPo for going along with Bush and the neocons. (All The President's Press, TimesSelect Wall; also here and here). (I have to take any whoo, isn't Frank Rich great feelings with a grain of salt, as Frank Rich was a frequent guest of Imus, so all that racist and sexist crap didn't bother him so much, and also, he was one of the people who pilloried Al Gore for being boring, and helped give us Chimpy McFlightsuit who is a DISASTER. So I don't have the love for Frank Rich. Wary, yet.)

On a happier note, Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe, who wrote the story about Bush's use of signing statements, won the Pulitzer Prize. Go Charlie go.

Oh. My. God.

I turn on the TV this morning and there is racist Michael Smerconish -- shaved head Philadelphia radio shock jock -- sitting in Imus's studio. Out with the old white male racist, in with the new white male racist! Those black and female faces on MSBNC in the days following the ouster of Imus were just token window dressing. Now we're back to GE's favorite form of news: conservative shock jock.

Smerconish's guest is the mad Camille Paglia, who is nervously babbling that our education system is failing boys and that we should allow them to go straight into factory jobs. Factory jobs? What factory jobs? What parallel universe does she live in?

The only good thing about having Paglia on television is that she talks so fast you can't understand her. And she's such a period piece. She announces that she's a Madonna feminist. Does that mean she is going to Africa to adopt a baby? Sheesh.

I read on dailykos last week that the major corporate media was encouraged to take control of the news by Karl Rove in 1999. I guess Rover was very persuasive.

dailykos: Rove Met With Jack Welch in '99 to Create Media Cartel. W/Poll

Patricia Goldsmith, Smirking Chimp: Restore Fairness, Return to Reality

[] As Rep. Louise Slaughter said in a 2004 interview with Bill Moyers, after fairness was defeated,

AM radio rose. It wasn't even gradual, Bill. I mean, almost immediately. And I should point out to you that when we tried to reinstate [the fairness doctrine] again in '93, one of the reasons we couldn't was that Rush Limbaugh had organized this massive uprising against it, calling it "The Hush Rush Law."

Slaughter goes on to explain that the law wouldn't have hushed Rush-that would take more than an act of Congress, I'm afraid-but it would have mandated that time be given to people who represent other sides of any issue discussed by Limbaugh. The same is true for Hannity, O'Reilly, and even Imus. They just wouldn't have the airwaves all to themselves the way they do now.

[]

[I]n 1999 Karl Rove reached out to GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch, promising radical deregulation for the broadcast industry (GE is the parent company of NBC). This fit right in with some of Welch's thoughts and ambitions. He had long felt that the news division at NBC wasn't living up to its full profit potential. According to a a must-read article, "The Media Cover-up of the Gore Victory Part Four: Democracy, General Electric Style," by David Podvin and Carolyn Kay, that conversation led to some important changes:

Toward that end, Welch said that he would finally deal with a longstanding grievance of his: the ludicrous idea that news organizations should be allowed to operate in conflict with the best interests of the corporations that own them.

. . . The new dimension that Welch introduced was the concept that mainstream media should aggressively advance the political agenda of the corporations that own it. He did not see any difference between corporate journalism and corporate manufacturing or corporate service industries. . . .

In general, he saw corporate news organizations as untapped political resources that should be freed from the burden of objectivity.

. . .

He began to aggressively, but very discreetly, evangelize the gospel of corporate media as a corporate lobbying tool.

. . .

Welch told associates that he enlisted two members of the GE board to assist him in shaping the coverage of the election by other news organizations. . . . They quietly encouraged the executives of the mainstream media organizations to rethink the relationship between news divisions and business organizations.

And a cartel is born. A cartel can be a group of corporations within one industry who meet to set prices.

So, MSNBC, owned by NBC GE, has performed an elaborate corporate charade in firing Imus, but has gone back to furthering its corporate interests by putting a conservative on the air to shape the news in its corporate interests. Wow.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same 2.0

That's Gerry Callahan on the left, next to John Dennis. What do these five have in common? Hmmm.
The local Boston talk radio station that carried Don Imus's radio show, 96.9 WTTK, is looking for another show for the Imus time slot.

And what new voice are they considering? Of course they're not considering a new voice. They're not considering a woman's voice. They're not considering a black voice. They're looking backwards to an old voice, an old pair of voices with their own long, sad history of racist and sexist comments.

BostonHerald: 96.9 eyes ‘Dennis & Callahan’ for Imus slot

"Dennis and Callahan" is a local sports radio station which is most famous for a September, 2003 bit in which they compared an escaped gorilla to a poor black kid bussed out to suburban schools. Classy:

METCO Controversy

On September 29, 2003, during a segment called 'headlines', where they read and comment about current news stories, Callahan and his morning co-host John Dennis made what were taken to be racially insensitive remarks while discussing a story about an escaped gorilla.[3] The gorilla had escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo and had been recaptured at a bus stop. According to newspaper articles, the exchange allegedly was: [4]

Callahan: "They caught him at a bus stop, right -- he was like waiting to catch a bus out of town."

Dennis: "Yeah, yeah -- he's a METCO gorilla."

Callahan: "Heading out to Lexington."

Dennis: "Exactly."

METCO is a state program that buses inner-city Boston students to nearby suburban schools. Many perceived the comments to be comparing poor, mostly African-American children to gorillas. WEEI general manager Tom Baker suspended both hosts for two days, then extended the suspension to two weeks after the Blue Cross-Blue Shield (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts) pulled $27,000 in ads and in turn donated that money to METCO (another report alleged that Blue Cross increased its advertising by $27,000 one week later [5]). Dunkin' Donuts responded by ceasing all advertising that involved the voices of John Dennis or Gerry Callahan. [6] Both hosts apologized and were sent to sensitivity training.

Are they sexist? I've certainly always thought so, from the fact that they very rarely have women on their program and never cover women's sports. According to the blog 'The Starting Five', during the Imus controversy (I didn't hear it myself) Dennis and Callahan claimed the Rutgers women's basketball team were guilty of extortion, and that they were anything but victims because they certainly had hip hop songs like 50 Cent on their iPods. Well, thousands of iPod owners probably have offensive lyrics on their iPods. Does that mean national TV/radio hosts can attack them with impunity, with racist and sexist taunts? Apparently Dennis and Callahan think so. And they're in line to get the Imus slot.

We may be having a national conversation on racism and sexism, but the guys in the suits filling the airwaves aren't listening.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

Gwen Ifill, still not invited on morning TV
Gwen Ifill, moderator of PBS's "Washington Week", listens during a taping of "Meet the Press" at the NBC Studios in Washington April 15, 2007. REUTERS/Meet The Press/Alex Wong/Handout (UNITED STATES).

I turn on the TV this morning to see whether Abu Gonzales has had the good sense to resign yet. (Silly me! He is an idiot and will never resign. Bush will never leave Iraq. Gonzales will never resign.)

On MSNBC, David Gregory is now hosting the morning show. He is interviewing Tim Russert. Stretch and LilRuss.

So do I have this right? Don Imus lost his job because he made offensive sexist and racist remarks, and now his show has been replaced by his old white male guests?

When we come back, David Gregory will be joined by Dr. Keith Ablow. The following hour, Mary Matalin. Then Mike Barnicle. White men and a white woman who was one of Imus's regular guests.

What happened to all those new faces we saw on TV last week discussing the demise of Imus?

Imus Reactions

Don Imus
Colbert I. King, WaPo: Standing Up to Imus

Still, Don Imus's media friends find ways to keep him in their good graces.

Those colleagues proved to be more devoted to Imus than to the people he has slandered. They silently averted their gaze from his record to go on his popular show and sell themselves.

LATimes: A talk powerhouse is shut down
The firing of Don Imus by CBS brings an abrupt end to a radio forum that attracted media and political heavies.
This article contains Don Imus's final shot at women (which CLANKS OFF THE BACKBOARD, like all the rest of shots):

But Imus made it clear elsewhere that he didn't intend to fade out quietly. He called the "Conway & Whitman" show on Los Angeles radio station KLSX (97.1 FM) Thursday and complained that he had been fired while he was doing a charity show. He vowed: "I plan to be on the radio. I plan to work again. I'm not going to sit around like an old woman."

LATimes: EDITORIAL
Responding to racism with dignity
The Rutgers women's basketball team shows class.

Independent (uk): The sacking of Don Imus: The rise (and fall) of the shock jock
The right-wing US broadcasters who fill the air with invective operate way beyond the conventions of good taste. But now one of them has gone too far

Times (uk) Online: The ‘perfect storm’ that brought a shocking radio career to an end
Don Imus was a renowned shock jock — then he insulted a black girls' sports team
In England, they're still girls.

Anderson (IN) Herald-Bulletin: EDITORIAL: Imus should have been fired long ago
Out there in the heartland, they get it.

Patriot-Ledger: OPINION
OUR VIEW: It was always about the green
Their final analysis: Blame the audience. (Right! We made him say those things. Sheesh.)

Rich Lowry, NYPost:
BONFIRE OF PROFANITIES
WHY LIBERALS GAVE SHOCK JOCK A FREE PASS
Still thinks the corporate media is liberal. Not.

theday.com: Go Right Ahead And Filet Don Imus, Just Be Sure To Skin His Corporate Bosses, Too
Excellent suggestion: Make Imus advertisers give to the United Negro College Fund!

Apology Accepted

Don Imus, at left on steps, leaves the governor's mansion in Princeton Township, N.J., Thursday, April 12, 2007, after meeting with the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus was fired Thursday from his CBS radio show over remarks he made on the air about the team. Imus left without commenting to reporters, but C. Vivian Stringer, the team's coach, spoke briefly on the mansion's steps. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)
MSNBC: Rutgers coach, players accept Imus’s apology
Deidre Imus says fired radio host told team ‘I feel awful’ about comments

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - The Rutgers women’s basketball team accepted radio host Don Imus’ apology Friday for insulting them on the air, saying that he deserves a chance to move on but that they hope the furor his words caused will be a catalyst for change.

“We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept — accept — Mr. Imus’ apology, and we are in the process of forgiving,” coach C. Vivian Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife.

“We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget,” the statement read.

Get Well Soon, Jon Corzine

Jon Corzine was in a bad car accident last night, while he was on the way to monitor the meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Post-Chronicle: Gov. Jon Corzine "Critical", May Be Months Before He Walks Again

Jon Corzine was a very visible supporter of the Rutgers women's basketball team long before the Imus remarks. He was courtside at several of their games, in his red Rutgers hat. It sounds much worse than what was originally reported, that he had a broken leg; now they're talking about three to six months to walk normally.

NYTimes: New Jersey Governor Is Injured in Car Crash

myfoxny.com: Surgeon Talks About Corzine's Operation

Things I Shout At The TV

Armstrong Williams says, Al Sharpton has never apologized for Tawana Brawley.

I Shout: "Some people take payola from the Bush Administration for paid opinions, yet they're back on TV as if they're serious journalists! Some people are stone hypocrites!"

David Gregory says, People are upset that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson brought Don Imus down.

I Shout: "PEOPLE! You're upset, Imus-buddy. Don Imus CHOSE to go on the Al Sharpton radio show! Don Imus conferred this credibility on Al Sharpton and now all Don Imus's friends are mad about it! Why didn't Don Imus call all his black female guests! Because he didn't have any! Why didn't Don Imus go on a woman's radio show? Because there isn't a woman's radio show!"

MSNBC host says, Why should black rappers be allowed to use the word ho.

I Shout: "Don Imus is 67 fucking years old, for Christ's sake! Is his conduct guided by stupid guys in their 20s? Didn't your mother teach you what my mother taught me? If everyone else jumped off the cliff, would you have to, too? I don't care what everyone else does. I care what you do!"

Craig Crawford says, These women at Rutgers didn't even know who Don Imus was before he said this. They never even heard it.

I Shout: "You moron, YOU didn't know who the Rutgers women's basketball team were until your buddy Don Imus was losing his job! You didn't care who Don Imus hurt until he got caught! I don't care who you are, either! Get off my TV!"

Rutgers Women Getting Hate Mail

Rutgers women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer, center left, accompanied by university President Richard McCormick, left, athletic director Robert Mulcahy, right, and members of her team, talks on the steps of the governor's mansion in Princeton Township, N.J., Thursday, April 12, 2007. They had just met with radio personality Don Imus who was fired from his radio program Thursday following controversy surrounding his remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)

I've gotten a lot of angry comments on this blog while blogging about Imus's racist and sexist comments, and you may notice, I've had to delete a few.

Anger is at the heart of racism and sexism. People who attack others on the basis of their immutable characteristics are angry. Angry that things aren't like they used to be, angry that 'we' (the other) don't know our place, etc. Racists are angry at blacks. Sexists are angry at women. That's why we call what Imus said 'hate speech'. It brings out crazies like the ones who are now sending hate mail to the young women on the Rutgers basketball team. Hating them for saying, this hurt me. Wow.

Newark Star Ledger: Deidre Imus: Stop hate mail to Rutgers team

Deidre Imus, co-hosting the WFAN Radiothon this morning on 660 AM substitute for her husband, called the women of the Rutgers basketball team "courageous and beautiful," just hours after she and her husband met with them last night at the governor's mansion in Princeton.

She expressed horror that team members have received hate mail in the aftermath of the controversy created nine days ago when her husband called them "nappy-headed hos" on his "Imus in the Morning" radio show.

"The hate mail being sent to them (the Rutgers team members) must stop," Deidre Imus said. "If you want to send hate mail, send it to my husband."

WABC-NY: Imus off the air completely

Wear No. 42 For Jackie Robinson (Updated, below)

Barton Silverman/The New York Times

Willie Randolph said he once borrowed a biography on Robinson from a library and “I saw how one life can make such a tremendous impact.”
I wonder what Jackie Robinson would have thought of seeing America in 2007, 60 years after he broke the color barrier in baseball, debating whether it was OK for a white man to call a team of female, mostly black athletes "nappy-headed hos"? I bet he rolled over in his grave.

I want one of the No. 42 shirts.

NYTimes: A Gesture of Respect Grows Into a Movement

By BILL PENNINGTON
Published: April 13, 2007

Sixty years after Jackie Robinson shook the baseball establishment and broke the sport’s color barrier, an unforeseen grassroots movement by today’s players has suddenly shaped the way Major League Baseball will commemorate the anniversary. Hundreds of players will wear Robinson’s No. 42 retired by baseball 10 years ago in ballparks across the country on Sunday, the anniversary of Robinson’s first appearance with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

While the tribute has received baseball’s approval, it grew spontaneously from a request by the Cincinnati Reds’ Ken Griffey Jr., who asked earlier this month if he could wear the number on April 15. What has evolved since is surprisingly organic for a group of famous, feted athletes with multimillion-dollar contracts.

As word of Griffey’s gesture spread, small groups of players decided to also wear 42 that day. Soon, there was a representative from every team. The Los Angeles Dodgers then decided to have their entire roster wear 42.

Now, there are six major league teams that plan to have everyone in uniform wearing No. 42 — players, coaches, manager and bat boys. Those teams are the Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros.

And the number of jerseys having a new 42 sewn onto the back remains fluid, but seems to be increasing by the day.

Jackie Robinson and his son David being interviewed at the "March on Washington"
August 28, 1963
From the National Archives

Update: Did you know that Bill Russell was a pallbearer at Jackie Robinson's funeral? And that he was Jackie Robinson's favorite athlete? Robinson was a revolutionary.

Kudos to Larry King

I've been pretty critical of Larry King in the past. While we were in Germany last summer, the Larry King reruns on CNN International were mostly embarrassing tabloid gossip -- Anna Nicole Smith type of stuff.

Tonight I'm channel surfing and Larry King has Serena Williams and Ashley Banfield on. Serena Williams describes how she felt when the Imus show referred to her as an animal when she was an 18 year old teenager. Ashley Banfield tells of Michael Savage calling her a slut on NBC, which she watched, in shock, live from her office at NBC. She went down the hall to complain to the former NBC president and was told, basically, to let it go. Very powerful stuff.

Wow. I can't believe I'm watching this on cable television.

I have to call this "The Imus Effect". Racism and sexism being discussed on national TV.

Next!

Time to get ALL the sexist, racist crap off the airwaves. Media Matters compiles some of the filth of Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and John Gibson, and gives the contact information for each network.

Media Matters for America: It's not just Imus

Weird Things I Learned This Week

Tom Oliphant had a brain aneuryism in 2005 and took voluntary retirement from the Globe. I'm still PO'd about his "solidarity" comment, though.

Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr once sued Don Imus. Imus said horrible things about Carr's wife on the air because Mike Barnicle told Imus that Carr said Imus would die before his kid graduated from high school. Carr hired Alan Dershowitz and sued: "[].... under the terms of the settlement, I’m not allowed to reveal what happened.... [] And now she owns a condo in Florida. Is this a great country or what?"

Don Imus Ousted By CBS Radio

Don Imus

CNN reporting that Don Imus has been fired by CBS Radio.

Bye bye.