Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

Radio-talk-show host, Don Imus, lost his job when CBS and MSNBC buckled under the pressure from the two self-appointed leaders of our black community. Imus’s career hit the wall when he uttered three racially inappropriate words on his simulcast talk show.

Imus’s producer was describing, in politically incorrect terms, how tough the tattooed Rutgers women’s basketball team looked in the prior night’s national championship game. Imus agreed and responded with: “That’s some nappy-headed hos there; I’m going to tell you that.”

No one questions Imus’s ignorance and lack of character in making a derogatory comment about these young athletes when he should have been applauding them for being good enough to compete for our national championship. But, how serious an offense was this anyway? Doesn’t the FCC keep close tabs on this kind of stuff?

Oprah hosted a panel to debate the seriousness of this serious “nappy-headed ho” issue. Her elite black panelists argued that Imus deserved everything he got for this and his many past demeaning racial comments. One black sports journalist was concerned with society’s seemingly double standards. A double standard that permits gangsta rap artists to use the terms “bitch” and “ho” to refer to young women who are obviously neither and punishes Imus for using a two-letter word that has become integral to today’s rap music vocabulary.

Regardless, the interesting aspect of this little episode is not Imus’s three inappropriate words but the intensity and hypocrisy of his two whistle-blowing critics. Had they not loudly cried foul, this insignificant little event would only have been noticed by the pea-brain listeners of Imus’s radio drivel.

The “nappy-headed hos” in this story are not Rutgers’s basketball team but Imus’s two self-serving, headline-grabbing opponents, the reverends Jesse and Al. I’m not talking Martin and Malcolm here; I’m talking about the two limelight-seeking hypocrites that have appointed themselves America’s racial conscience. They both jumped on this important civil rights issue with all of the zeal that a KKK lynching might warrant.

They found a racial issue, albeit a little one, but a racial issue none the less, without a champion. We, the public, weren’t as upset as we should be. Even if we knew about Imus’s “ho” calling thing, we weren’t pissed enough. Let’s hang this racist bastard!

These two yoyos, Al and Jesse, run around the country waiting to jump out in front of any parade where they can insert themselves as the grand marshal. The irony of this little story is that both of these accusing hypocrites have been recorded making far more serious racial goofs than Don Imus. Nobody thought to fire them for their racial slurs. Maybe, it’s because we never hired them in the first damn place.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson found himself in Imus’s shoes when he criticized Nixon’s war on poverty by saying: “Four out of five [of Nixon’s top advisors] are German Jews and their priorities are on Europe and Asia;” that he was “sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust;” and that there are “very few Jewish reporters that have the capacity to be objective about Arab affairs.”

Later, he found himself again in deeper doo doo when he referred to Jews as “Hymies” and to New York City as “Hymietown.” Maybe “Hymie” is less offensive to New York Jews than “ho” is to young female athletes? Or maybe there is a difference?

More recently the Reverend Al Sharpton was quoted as saying to a college audience, “White folks was in caves while we was building empires … we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”

We’ve never heard a word of protest from a white caveman or one of “them Greek homos.” Not even one of them called for the silencing or firing of Rev. Sharpton. Here’s clearly a cause looking for a champion.

We should fire these two nappy-headed hos.

©2007 by Bob Rockwell