Why Couldn't Imus Stop?

This whole Imus ordeal seems to have gotten a life of it's own. It's getting ugly on both sides as it seems that now the ladies at Rutgers are getting hate mail. I keep hearing that his dismissal is a threat to free speech and that everyone knows he is a shock jock and what his show is about. Well I, for one, did not know that. I never listened to his talk radio program and only know him from the MSNBC simulcast. I flipped between Imus, CNN and C-Span during that time span. Aside from those thoroughly lame skits with impressions of Bill Clinton and that drug fried/brain dead former Beach Boy, I never really saw the part of his show where he was saying the kinds of things I now see were a long standing pattern. I had no idea he considered himself to be a comedian.

I watched because I liked seeing the politicians, journalists and news makers. Imus had a good show from what I could see - even though his mannerisms and physical appearance left a lot to be desired. His spot seemed to be the place to be for intelligent dialog. Even when I read about some of the things he'd said in the past, I assumed it was from a time when he was battling his addictions. I kinda gave him a pass because his show had evolved into something that I could watch and wanted to watch. I wasn't vigilant enough, though, and it seems that he'd been asked, many times, to clean it up and cut the foolishness from his format. Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, asked him six years ago, to take a pledge that he would stop.

CLARENCE PAGE: Are you raising your hand, right?

DON IMUS: I have it up.

CLARENCE PAGE: Okay. Okay, number one -- I, Don Imus--

DON IMUS: I, Don Imus--

CLARENCE PAGE: -- do solemnly swear--

DON IMUS: Do solemnly swear--

CLARENCE PAGE: -- that I will promise to cease all simian references black athletes--

DON IMUS: That I will promise to cease all simian references to back--black athletes--

CLARENCE PAGE: -- a ban on all references to non-criminal blacks as thugs, pimps, muggers and Colt 45 drinkers--

DON IMUS: I promise to do that.

CLARENCE PAGE: Very good! How about an end to Amos 'n Andy cuts, comparison of New York City to Mogadishu, and all parodies of black voices unless they are done by a black person, cause you're really not very good at it.

DON IMUS: I think Bernard should be doing this. [LAUGHS] [LAUGHTER]

CLARENCE PAGE: Bernard where are you?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The pledge was inevitably and immediately broken. But for Page, that wasn't the point. The point was to make his position clear. He liked being on the serious part of Imus in the Morning, but he didn't want his presence to imply endorsement of the outrages committed in the other part.

CLARENCE PAGE: I personally feel that I and other pundits should not go on if we have serious objections to some of the show's material unless Don does give us the opportunity to address those concerns, as he did with me! Now why I haven't been invited on the show since, I don't know! [LAUGHS] I haven't troubled myself to call and ask.

Why couldn't Imus stop? Did he replace his addiction to cocaine and booze with the compulsion to spew racist and sexist comments? I'm really not understanding why he couldn't evolve - as most people do with age - and allow his show to evolve into what I mistakenly thought it was - a quality political forum.

I'm still tired of people trying to blame rap and the actions of a sub-segment of the black community on the black community as a whole. Over at Cobb last night, I addressed the so-called double standard where whites wonder why they cannot say the same things blacks do. I asked what would happen if blacks were to adopt some of the things that seem to be particular to "white culture" simply because they say and do it:

Also, many moons ago when I went to college, I learned the word "cunt." At 17 and from a black neighborhood, I'd never heard it before and didn't know what it meant. Even after the white girls in the dorm explained it to me I still didn't understand it beyond another word for the silly word "coochie" until I saw that from a "cultural" standpoint white girls were reduced to tears when someone called them that and white guys seem to go straight to it whenever they want to put a woman down. I heard that word more than I ever heard ho back then (and see it all over the blogsphere on female sites when men don't agree with them) 'cause every, single weekend part of their "cultural norm" was go binge on beer, tear up the streets where the bars were and yell obscenities at women and blacks (yeah, had a few beer bottles miss me trying to get from the library as I endured racial slurs too).

So, should blacks be able to use it on the airways because that's what white people do? I don't think it would take a whole week if one of the black hosts on ESPN called some white college cheerleaders some silly, little blond cunts. Tell me it wouldn't be OVER! But that's a common word for them, right? If everyone stops saying ho tomorrow, can we use cunt instead?

People who know me know that I am loyal to my particular TV programs. I'm not hooked on Grey's Anatomy or Desperate Housewives. I watch stupid reality shows which include VH1's Flavor of Love and I Love New York. But, at the polar opposite is me as a political junkie who will watch CNN ad nauseam and flip schizophrenically between the Sunday morning talk shows.

Though Imus had been digging this grave with a teaspoon for three decades (and finally fell in), I HATE that what I thought was a good show has been taken out of my daily line up - and over what ... his compulsion to insult women and minorities as though it were a birth right? He just lost TWO JOBS and I just wonder if those "nappy headed hos" were worth all of that? How is something like that so important to someone? I'm MAD that Imus just couldn't stop the dumb shit! This is SAD all the way around because it didn't have to happen. I don't understand why Imus COULDN'T STOP!!!