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loquitur · 04-17-2007, 02:47 PM

FWIW, <A HREF="http://boldface0.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-might-as-well-pile-on-too.html">here</A> is what I had to say about Imus on my blog:<BLOCKQUOTE>
If you spend any time talking to me you know I'm not a prude. I like bawdy jokes as much as the next guy -- probably more, much to my dear wife's chagrin -- and one friend of mine who thinks I look overly serious when I wear a suit finds it anomalous that I still enjoy Cheech & Chong. In other words, I'm not the sort of guy who would find a "shock jock" all that shocking. I just don't shock that easily. Potties, severed limbs, poop jokes -- these things are more likely to draw a yawn from me than anything else.

But even with this taste for declasse humor, it never even occurs to me to make derogatory racial comments. It's not that I think the thoughts and suppress them: I just don't think that way at all in the first place. And when I hear them from other people I cringe. And I can't imagine I'm the only one, either. If you're my age or younger, you likely as not grew up in an environment that hammered into you on no uncertain terms that people had to be treated as individuals, with respect, no matter what their background.

To me, this whole contretemps means that Mr. Imus has been carrying around some pretty serious racial baggage for a long time. Think back to Mel Gibson: he was stopped by cops, he was drunk, and he let loose a string of anti-Semitic insults. Presumably, he doesn't spend his days saying bad things about Jews when he's sober, but being drunk loosened his tongue and allowed out the stuff that in normal circumstances he'd keep bottled up inside him. But Gibson had an excuse. He was drunk. What' s Imus's excuse?

Imus's excuse is that he is a shock jock. He made his name and his fortune by saying outrageous things. The more outrageous, the less decorous, the more likely he'd be able to keep his ratings high. In other words, he made good money from letting his guard down. And because he had his guard down, he might just as well have been drunk for all the inhibition he had. Whatever censor he might otherwise have had between his mind and his tongue he had to deliberately suppress in order to let the outrageousness flow and the ratings to rise.

But if you do that, and you disinhibit yourself at the same time you're harboring some ugly thoughts in your head, sooner or later you'll slip up and let some of the ugliness show. Imus isn't catching heat for having bad thoughts. If he had evil racial ideas and kept them to himself, never acted on them and never talked about them, he would still have his job. In fact, because we don't have a thought police in America, there's no reason he can't have all the bad thoughts he likes, so long as he keeps them to himself and doesn't do anything about them. But if you are walking around with ugly thoughts in your mind at the same time you're deliberately setting about to suppress your sense of decorum, well, how can anyone be surprised that something as revolting as "nappy-headed 'hos" comes out of your mouth?

04-17-2007, 02:47 PM	#158 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	FWIW, <A HREF="http://boldface0.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-might-as-well-pile-on-too.html">here</A> is what I had to say about Imus on my blog:<BLOCKQUOTE> If you spend any time talking to me you know I'm not a prude. I like bawdy jokes as much as the next guy -- probably more, much to my dear wife's chagrin -- and one friend of mine who thinks I look overly serious when I wear a suit finds it anomalous that I still enjoy Cheech & Chong. In other words, I'm not the sort of guy who would find a "shock jock" all that shocking. I just don't shock that easily. Potties, severed limbs, poop jokes -- these things are more likely to draw a yawn from me than anything else. But even with this taste for declasse humor, it never even occurs to me to make derogatory racial comments. It's not that I think the thoughts and suppress them: I just don't think that way at all in the first place. And when I hear them from other people I cringe. And I can't imagine I'm the only one, either. If you're my age or younger, you likely as not grew up in an environment that hammered into you on no uncertain terms that people had to be treated as individuals, with respect, no matter what their background. To me, this whole contretemps means that Mr. Imus has been carrying around some pretty serious racial baggage for a long time. Think back to Mel Gibson: he was stopped by cops, he was drunk, and he let loose a string of anti-Semitic insults. Presumably, he doesn't spend his days saying bad things about Jews when he's sober, but being drunk loosened his tongue and allowed out the stuff that in normal circumstances he'd keep bottled up inside him. But Gibson had an excuse. He was drunk. What' s Imus's excuse? Imus's excuse is that he is a shock jock. He made his name and his fortune by saying outrageous things. The more outrageous, the less decorous, the more likely he'd be able to keep his ratings high. In other words, he made good money from letting his guard down. And because he had his guard down, he might just as well have been drunk for all the inhibition he had. Whatever censor he might otherwise have had between his mind and his tongue he had to deliberately suppress in order to let the outrageousness flow and the ratings to rise. But if you do that, and you disinhibit yourself at the same time you're harboring some ugly thoughts in your head, sooner or later you'll slip up and let some of the ugliness show. Imus isn't catching heat for having bad thoughts. If he had evil racial ideas and kept them to himself, never acted on them and never talked about them, he would still have his job. In fact, because we don't have a thought police in America, there's no reason he can't have all the bad thoughts he likes, so long as he keeps them to himself and doesn't do anything about them. But if you are walking around with ugly thoughts in your mind at the same time you're deliberately setting about to suppress your sense of decorum, well, how can anyone be surprised that something as revolting as "nappy-headed 'hos" comes out of your mouth?