More on Imus: What About Forgiveness?

Channel-surfing a few nights ago when Don Imus's racial slur about the Rutgers University women's basketball team was the obsession-du-jour--you remember those days, don't you?--I heard one host excoriating those who had called for Imus to be yanked from the radio and cable TV. "The man apologized and asked for forgiveness and then, these people sought his firing!" he intoned.

He acted as though it was hypocritical for a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton, Christians, to seek an apology from Imus and still seek his firing. He was wrong.

Time for me to tell one of my favorite stories about forgiveness.

On May 13, 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II in Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City. The pope nearly lost his life. Two months later, Agca was sentenced to life in prison by an Italian Court.

In 1983, John Paul visited his would-be assassin in prison. There, in a corner of a prison cell with bars on its windows, Agca asked for forgiveness and the pope granted it. One of the weekly news magazines featured an image of the event on its front cover with the words, "Why Forgive?" emblazoned across the top.

In the New Testament, the most commonly used word for forgive is aphiemi, which literally means release. The person forgiven is released of the debts for their trespasses of God and others. But the person who forgives is also released, freed of the terrible weight represented by grudge-holding. That's why Jesus taught His followers to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." There's no doubt in my mind that John Paul really forgave Agca that day.

But as the news magazine article pointed out, even after forgiving Agca, the pope climbed into a vehicle and went back to the Vatican; his attacker remained imprisoned. Was the pope being hypocritical? NO!

Agca's assassination attempt was both a sin, a violation of the fifth commandment prohibition of murder, and a crime, a violation of human law. It's perfectly possible for a murderer or would-be murderer to seek and receive forgiveness for their sins and still be forced to face the consequence of crimes.

It's even possible for someone to be forgiven for both crimes and sins and still have to deal with the consequences of their wrongdoing. In the Old Testament, Israel's greatest king, David, committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his dedicated soldiers, Uriah. Uriah was off in battle when David took up with Bathsheba, who soon became pregnant with David's child. Eventually, David arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle, hoping then to take Bathsheba into his home to live happily ever after. But a courageous prophet, Nathan, exposed David's wrongdoing and to the king's credit, he took responsibility for his actions. David repented. (His prayer of repentance can be found here.)

Eventually, much of David's former authority was restored, a tribute to God's gracious willingness to forgive and restore repentant sinners. But there were, nonetheless, consequences to David's rebellion against God. Most notable was the death of the son born of this illegitimate union. And there were other consequences as well, which you can read about in the Old Testament.

The head coach of the Rutgers women's basketball team says that she is trying to forgive Don Imus. No doubt others slandered and dehumanized by his remarks are involved in the same process.

But even if Imus is forgiven by God and others, it can't necessarily insulate him from the consequences of his racial slurs. Responding to the loss of revenue from advertisers, CBS and MSNBC became the agents by which those consequences were meted out.

Will Don Imus work again in broadcasting? Possibly. But one consequence of this incident may be that it will be a more chastened, sensitive Imus who sits behind a microphone.

However that may be, no Christian leader who accepted the former radio shock jock's apology and still thought he should be fired acted hypocritically.

There may be dozens of reasons to criticize Jackson or Sharpton. Their actions in the Imus situation aren't among them.

Jackie Robinson Day

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson's entry into Major League Baseball, integrating the game. MLB is marking the day and it's appropriate.

Robinson not only opened the door for African-Americans to play baseball, he also opened the minds of white Americans to the need of recognizing the humanity of blacks. And he set a precedent which eventually, other major sports would emulate.

Along with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech and the March on Washington at which he delivered it, along with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Jesse Owens' gold medal-winning run in the Olympics held in Hitler's Germany, Robinson's major league debut was perhaps the most significant contribution to racial justice and equality in America during the twentieth century.

Robinson's fearless and dignified performance in spite of initial shunning by some of his Dodger teammates, physical abuse from competing players, and threats and taunts from racist fans, is a monument to self-control and to subordination of one's self to a higher cause. Robinson possessed a volcanic temper. But he realized that if he let the vicious racism to which he was constantly subjected incite him to respond or retaliate, he would close the door for other African-American ballplayers who deserved to be in the major leagues. In a real sense, more than a decade before Martin Luther King, Jr. combined faith in Jesus with the tactics of Mohandas Gandhi to press for civil rights, Jackson embodied non-violent social change.

Non-violent, but far from passive. Twenty-eight years old and a veteran of the Negro League by the time he reached his rookie season with the Dodgers, Robinson dazzled the baseball world with his effective hitting, occasional power, blinding speed on the base paths, and extraordinary defensive skills. Robinson's game sang, "We Shall Overcome" long before most white Americans were aware of that song.

It's difficult, if not impossible, to consider the burden that rested on Jackie Robinson's shoulders on April 15, 1947. He was the repository of black aspirations, a challenge to whites who doubted that black players could compete with whites, and a "firebell in the night," awakening Americans to the long-overdue need to address racial injustice. Had Jackson been a mediocre player, the color barrier might not have been broken for years after 1947. But, fortunately for us all--all baseball fans, all Americans--Robinson performed exceptionally well.

As a fan of the greatest game in the world, it makes me happy to know that it was baseball that led America in this important social change.

The recent Don Imus controversy proves that racism is still alive in the United States. The persistence of race hatred into the twenty-first century, makes Robinson's rookie season sixty years ago, when he endured constant taunts and threats for being a black man in what was thought to be a white man's game, all the more remarkable. It also reminds us that, sadly, sixty years is just the blink of an eye.

Imus: What Took So Long? Why Just Imus?

Don Imus' comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team was both racist and sexist. And frankly, shocking to me.

I live in a conservative enclave of southern Ohio. Several years back, we did a demographic study of the area within a five mile radius of our church building and found it to be 98.2% white. But I can't imagine any of my acquaintances or friends around here making comments like those Imus made from a New York City radio studio a few days ago.

Imus got the axe because his tasteless comments finally registered "objectionable" in the financial marketplace and in the marketplace of ideas. He was voicing a morally despicable notion that, finally, in the twenty-first century, could not be accepted by the public. That's good.

But I have two questions:

• What took so long? AND
  
• Only Imus?
  

Imus has been an equal opportunity dispenser of hate for some time now. Back in May, 2005, I asked Is Don Imus' Fifteen Minutes Up? The immediate occasion for that post was his assault on MSNBC news reader Contessa Brewer. But I also recalled his Clinton-era appearance at the White House press corps dinner in which he spoke nastily about Bill and Hillary Clinton's personal life. I wrote that, as of that moment:

...the high and mighty Washington elite [still] bow and scrape to him, apparently deeming his classlessness to be hip or something. Isn't it time the guy got the axe?

But to me a deeper issue than what happens to Don Imus, deeper even than the racism and sexism reflected in his most recent comments, is the nastiness he and a number of others have been allowed to spew for so many years now.

Imus is gone. But there are many supposed entertainers, artists, and satirists left in music, talk radio, television, movies, and video game production who are making big money through nastiness. They promote a culture of physical, psychological, and emotional violence that disdains the humanity of groups and individuals. They coarsen our culture, degrade our discourse, and balkanize us all. These folks have every right to spew their junk. But the rest of us also have the right to turn them off, tune them out, and ask Big Media to deprive them of their platforms and any income derived from their invective.

Satire is a legitimate thing. Putting down self-absorbed power mongers in politics, business, or the arts is a necessary step in improving our common life. Satire can also puncture the inanities of current fads and social conventions, also useful.

Imus was, questionably, seen as a satirist. But Imus and others have used their media platforms not to satirize or even entertain, but to vent hate and stereotyping against whoever they want to pick on.

Don Imus is off the air because advertisers and an aroused public said, "Enough!"

When will we say the same thing about the Michael Savages, Snoop Doggs, Rosie O'Donnells, the creators of games like Grand Theft Auto, and others who, each in their own ways, use hatred and disdain of others as part of their schtick?

[See here, here, and here.]

[UPDATE: Moanna asks if my reason for including Rosie O'Donnell on her list is attributable to my listening "to those those who misquote her as she speaks out for the right of all Americans to question their government and make choices in their lives."

I respond:

No, Moanna, I include Rosie O'Donnell in that list of media hate mongers because of her racist stereotyping of orientals and her hateful lumping of Christians with radical Islamic-based terrorists.

To poke fun of [sic] Chinese people on national television with the "ching chong" stereotyping of past generations or to say that all Christians--who account for much, if not most, of the charitable giving and serving in the world today and are so involved because of Christ's call to love their neighbors as they love themselves--represent the same sort of threat to the world as that of Osama bin Laden is not only factually inaccurate, it's hateful.

That's why I include Rosie O'Donnell in that list of haters.

On the Christian front: Perhaps O'Donnell was exposed to a form of Christian faith that was all about rules and nothing about grace. I'm sorry for that and would love to acquaint her with the God revealed in the Bible. But before she spews hatred, she ought to know what she's talking about.

Thanks for your question and for reading the blog.

God bless you!

Mark Daniels

[THANKS TO: About.com's phantom Conservative Politics: US editor for linking to this post.]

The problem with satire...

is that few are good at it.

Remember Don Imus' appearance at the White House correspondents' dinner ten years ago? Bill Clinton was president and Imus delivered a rude, graceless "speech" not even worthy of the witty repartee one might encounter during a 2AM stop at the White Castle for a bag of slyders following a night of barhopping.

Stephen Colbert appeared to be emulating Imus' grimly unamusing example in his appearance before the same group this past week.

I agree with the assessment of Richard Cohen writing in today's Washington Post that Colbert was lame and unfunny. I also agree with Cohen that Colbert's performance was even less than that:

Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.

Satire is a difficult form of humor, something requiring subtlety rather than a sledgehammer. It requires good judgment. The satirists in Shakespeare's plays--the jesters--were able to deliver their barbs at royalty while making the royals laugh.

Good satire can humble the powerful; bad satire humiliates the would-be satirist.

In their appearances at the correspondent dinners, separated by ten years, Imus and now, Colbert, were rude and crass. That's not satire.

Isn't Don Imus' Fifteen Minutes Up?

Michelle Malkin ran this piece detailing Don Imus' inappropriate comments about an MSNBC news reader. Imus' comments at a White House press gathering during the Clinton years were in horrible taste and he's majored in nastiness ever since. Still, the high and mighty Washington elite bow and scrape to him, apparently deeming his classlessness to be hip or something. Isn't it time the guy got the axe?