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I don't think jokes about people as a group in and of itself constitutes racism.
My grandfather owned a bbq restaurant in Atlanta in the 1950's and any black person whether they were a janitor or a doctor or Louis Armstrong could not sit in his restaurant. They would have to go to the back door to place their order and take it home. This was normal and an acceptable way to live back then. THAT is racism. Is there any push or popular call to do this to you? You are not experiencing racism and Chris Rock is a man who tells jokes. |
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By that logic Imus did nothing wrong. He didn't try to get a black guy to step off the sidewalk for him. He didn't tell the black guy not to come into a restaurant. He didn't force a black guy to give up his seat on the bus. He's a man who tells jokes. |
Personally, I think the only thing he did "wrong" was tell a bad joke. Either he spoke off the cuff without thinking about it first, which we all do, or he made a bad wager on how it would go over. I can understand the former, like I said, we all stick our foot in our mouths sometimes. The latter, well, I don't have much appreciation for Don Imus as a performer anyway.
But either way, the man will not suffer greatly from it. He makes $10 million dollars a year to sit and talk and tell bad jokes and he will go on talking and telling bad jokes. Meanwhile, apparently, we have to go through all this. Life just isn't fair. :p |
His job is to say offensive content to provoke people. But if you are offended and do not like his content do not listen. If it bothers you so much go to his sponsors, this is the American way and we have that right.
But what I find amazing is, his comment has the possibility of being construed as an accidental joke gone totally wrong, his history speaks for himself. While other celebs who say stuff, in heat of anger, while drunk go to rehab and can get away with it (because the joke does not offend Sharpton). A perfect example is Mel Gibson (who I will now never buy or in any way support any of his projects or anything he is in). Either way his comment can be offensive, your choice if you care about what that person says or not, and what you do or do not want to do. And I am not against the protests I just find it funny how we pick and choose about which racial issues are bigger then others. |
I've thought about this situation a bit last night, and came to a conclusion that I've not thought all the way to the end yet, so I'll toss it up like a "jump ball" here.
Suppose Imus had not used "nappy haired" but instead had said "That's a rough looking bunch of hos." I think he would have been able to fade the heat a bit more, because "hos" and "bitches" is more generic and not racially specific. He could have claimed he was riffing off a rap lyric, or thought such was now acceptable, at least to young women, due to cultural changes. But by interjecting the hair, he crossed a racial line. Ann Coulter observed in her column: "If Imus had called me a "towheaded ho" or Al Sharpton a "nappy-headed ho," it would be what's known as "funny." (And if he called Anna Nicole Smith a "flaxen-headed ho," it would be "absolutely accurate.") But he attacked the looks and morals of utterly innocent women, who had done nothing to inject themselves into public debate." But it wasn't all the team that he attacked--it was the black members and as such, he injected race into a situation where it was irrelevent. Kind of like Imus. |
This morning's Star Ledger ran an article about the history of using the term 'nappy-headed' and it's derogatory connotations.
Carolivia Herron's book, 'Nappy Hair' (Herron is black) is banned from New York libraries. Quote:
I guess this means we won't be hearing Stevie Wonder's 'I Wish' any more. It begins with "Looking back on when I was a nappyheaded little boy"...:rolleyes: |
i see the arguments that ng and shakran are making, but i dont accept the premises. it seems to me that the entire logic of "reverse dscrimination" presupposes that racism is effectively over, an element of an irrelevant past--which it isnt--and that the history of racism around which the united states was built has somehow been addressed--it hasnt and i am not really sure what that would even mean short of revolution (which i would not oppose in principle)---so that problems of discrimination based on something as stupid as skin color is not only a matter of rhetoric and unintended consequences of rhetoric.
to accept these arguments, you have to agree with one or another version of that backstory. i dont. without that backstory, the reduction of racism to a trope makes no sense. the trick is that what they are arguing about the effects of racist tropes and their appropriation/usage is not in itself wrong. so in my view, the problem is not with the arguments themselves, then, but in what these arguments presuppose. there IS NO SYMMETRY that links the situation of white folk to that of african-americans, particularly not if you take the history of the united states into account when you think about this--a history which is still relevant in that is shapes everything about the present state of affairs, like it or not. you cannot simply wish away the fact of domination and its history. you cannot wish the past away. history's a bitch that way, aint it? you dont like it, but you cant make it go away. so long as there is no rapprochement at the level or premises, the thread will simply turn round and round across a pattern of term substitution. |
I think this is what I am trying to get at...in my own rudimentary way.
There is no basis for a comparision to and there is no escape from the floodlight of history. Not yet at least. And I suppose it's a bitch, but not much of one for me when I consider the alternatives. Thank you, roachboy. |
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I think you can assume he meant "nappy-headed" as a derogatory adjective based on the fact that it was modifying the noun "ho".
MM and RB, I don't think shakran believes in reverse racism. He only recognizes racism. I think. |
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There comes a point when you have to say 'enough already!!' and let it go. We as humans will always have preconceived notions based on appearance, like I'm a firey person based on my hair or someone must be lazy because they're overweight. We've come a long way, but in doing so, it seems that some things have actually gotten worse instead of better, and being oversensitive and attempting to be constantly PC are among them. I joke around with a young black man at work, such as his telling me that a manager can't leave because they're the only two black men at work; so I responded that we'll tell a Puerto Rican coworker to lay out in the sun more....or that if I get a tan, we'll compare notes. He calls himself the 'token black guy' when he goes out with his friends from work. But we don't joke on the radio, so I guess we're safe, eh? Appearance, differences, et al-they're all there staring right at us and all this PC bullshit tries to pretend it isn't. But I did not own slaves, I didn't practice Jim Crow laws, and I should not be pointed at as if I did and neither should anyone else, any more than any black person should be pointed to(or acting as) as the victim of those times. As long as that continues, the wall of division will continue to stand. And people like Sharpton and Imus seem to take pleasure in adding bricks to it. And why not? It gets them 'known', gives them more air time, more words in the newspaper. But it does nothing to mend fences. |
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As if to say, "look at how well I deal with being called a 'whitey.' Why can't you deal with it as well as I do?" I think that's an attitude that is deliberately ignorant of why it is even an issue in the first place. And I think I have voiced this same position multiple times now in multiple ways and I'm confident that I cannot say it in any other. In other words, I'm done. :) |
ng:
if you want to make that kind of separation between what you think history is and the present, i can't stop you, but i also think that it is naive. you act as though all that is at issue with that history is firmly located in some past that is separable from the socio-economic order that exists. i dont buy it: what exists in the present is as it is as a function of that history, as an expression of it: it is dependent upon it, and would not and could not be as it is without it. who you are, who i am, are dependent on that history: we as subjects-in-the-world are embodied history, both of ourselves and of the wider networks of institutions etc. that inform what our experience--what shapes it, what makes it possible--and even the smallest perceptual action, we perform the aspects of the collective history that we are part of (i am going to pretend for the sake of jamming this into a post of something like moderate size that i can stop here without explaining this more. we'll see) you cant get away from it. you--and i--and everyone else--ARE it. another dimension of the history of the states that persists is in its class structure, in the uneven access to cultural capital--to opportunities in the broadest sense. you--and i--and everyone else in the states operates with reference to this uneven distribution benefitting from it, being disadvantaged by it--generally through no fault of our own---i mean, if education is the main way in which cultural capital is distributed and most of your educational opportunities are shaped by where your parents chose to live (because of the lunatic system of educational funding the states has chosen to adopt) that is by the class position occupied by your family which was expressed in where they chose to live--this choice--which neither you or i made for ourselves---shapes fundamentally you educational options, which shape fundamentally who and what you can be. ---of course there is some latitude for mobility--if there wasn't, i sure as hell wouldn't have had access to the education that i have had and i expect the same is true for many others--but we prefer to look at the fact of mobility than at the background against which mobility stands out, and it is that background that tells the overall story, not the patterns by means of which you or i or anyone else was able (to whatever degree) to get around the limits that are of a piece with that pattern (i think that makes sense...) so you cant just set up history as a sequence of actions done by plastic figures in some diorama--your (and my) relation to it is not like a spectator who taking a break from the tedium of "real time" in some fictional autonomous "present" goes to look at and maybe feel vaguely bad about and that you get to leave behind once your period of feeling vaguely bad about it grows tiresome. you and i are embodied expressions history. and that's why its a bitch. this is what i meant: it is not like i disagree with what you say about about whether in everyday life we can develop relationships that are not fucked up because we operate against this background. and it is not like there is nothing we can do to fight explicit and institutionalized racism when we find it operating. we can and should work to make the present better. but that really says nothing about the intertwining of who we are and the past and the ways in which the social structures that shape us are of that past, reproduce that past over and over, and even less how a collective might go about anything like redress for systematic discrimination and what amounts to institutionalized violence across its history. |
That's where I disagree-I am nothing more than a spectator to the words from history.
Family members died in the Holocaust. Should I hold that fact against my German neighbors? No. They had nothing more to do with those deaths than I do with slavery and racial inequality. Simply put, we really need, as a collective society,to read, learn and get over it. Playing victim for the victimization of ancestors is fruitless and groundless. |
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And mixedmedia/roachboy, let's go over this one more time, because I'm typing things and they just aren't getting through. Let's try to understand this point before I get carpal-tunnel eh? There is absolutely no such thing as reverse racism. Period. No such thing. There is no reverse racism. Reverse racism does not exist. I do not believe in reverse racism. Reverse racism is a fiction. Please stop telling people that I am making a reverse racism argument. I am not. Reverse racism is fake. Reverse racism is nonexistent. I am making a racism argument. Racism exists. Racism can be practiced by anyone, no matter what race they happen to be. I am fighting against racism. I am not fighting reverse racism because reverse racism does not exist. Quote:
I interpret racist remarks as being racist remarks. You don't seem to understand this, but the fact is that as long as people continue to think and act and speak as though skin color means anything at all, this country will continue to have problems with racism. I'm not willing to accept that. It doesn't matter if you're black. It doesn't matter if I'm white. It doesn't matter if we're both red or yellow or whatever other bullshit color people have come up with in an attempt to make a category out of something that isn't a category. Everyone, no matter what color they are, needs to stop comparing their color to the color of everyone around them. It doesn't mean anything. Quote:
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Hell if I trace it far enough back I bet I'd find some of my relatives who were tortured during the crusades. Should I swear an oath of revenge against the Christians? No - it won't help anything. I'm getting tired of you people acting as though I don't understand that black people were treated terribly in this country. Yes, I do understand that. No, I do not think that can be used as an excuse for black people to behave badly. It is not an excuse to spew racially venomous tirades from a public stage. It is not an excuse to call a jew a hymie. That crap simply doesn't fly with me. I'm terribly sorry that this country was full of assholes for 150+ years, but how long must we go until we finally let go of the wounds of the past? Are you suggesting that society will be better off if, now that things are at least on the right track, we have to wait another 150 years for people to finally get the racist bullshit out of their systems? Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me it's far better to have people making racist remarks than it would be for people to stop looking at race as something that matters when judging people? |
i think then that we just agree to disagree on this.
from what i put up above, it's probably obvious that i do not see any way that you can make such a separation between yourself and the collective history that shapes you. i should say on the way out that it does not follow from this that we are simple repetitions of that history--we have agency--but that agency itself leans on the past. another way: a society is not an accumulation of objects that only happens to cohere because these objects exist simultaneously. to my mind, claiming to be a spectator with reference to history requires that you also understand society as a collection of objects..and that who you are and what you are are functions of your experience, which you can think about as separate from social determinations. i mean, you can, i guess: you can, but to my mind, you'd be wrong. but we could go round and round about this: i am not sure that i am communicating terribly well what i am trying to say here. i find that i am shifting in and out of work-mode as i write this, using alot of compressed arguments that make sense because of what i do with them for a living, but which i suspect are not being translated well as i write this. 2. the victimization trope seems silly to me. i dont know what you mean by it, what it refers to--if i understand your position correctly, it seems to me that you arent really in a position to reject the idea that victimization has some descriptive power because much of what you have put up in this thread turns on a version of it. we dont agree on this one. shakran: i suspect that had this same conversation unfolded in 3-d over a beer or 6 there'd be no misunderstanding of your position. like i said above, it seems that such differends as exist here are mostly functions of reading what you wrote with a particular tone in mind. i misread them a bit first time through. the arguments about the relation of the history of racism in the states to the present still stand, to my mind, but i guess i was talking more directly to ng than to you, though i initially took myself to be talking to both because your positions seemed initially quite close to each other. they arent, not really. |
Well, the other shoe has dropped. The article seems to give Sharpton and Jackson a good bit of credit...
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I'll also agree with some of the comments on Digg.com and say that I think ti is extremely hypocritical for Sharpton to organize protests and media pressure over 3 words and remain relatively silent in the face of the much more egregious values explicitly communicated by hip-hop culture. |
I agree with the comments equating Imu's comment with those by Jessie Jackson, Chris Rock, etc. and I have very little respect for Sharpton. This entire incident and national discussion just brought to the surface yet again the fact that we, as a nation, have a long way to go in race relations.
What troubles me are the comments that blacks shoudl "get over it, "let go of the hate" and the "wounds of the past", equating affirmative action with racism"...... Despite the progress made in our lifetime, if you are black in America today, you are far more likely that those of us who are white, to still be a victim of racisim and in a much more meaningful and damaging way that through ugly and ignorant jokes or public comments...b e it in the form of job discrimination, "driving while black", redlining by financial instititutions, treatment in the criminal justice system, and numerous other ways. I absolutely agree that we must move on...but we also must recognize that institutional racism is not the simply the slavery of 150 years ago, or the "whites only" signs of 50 years ago. It is the practices that continues today, and until we, as the white majority, accept and understand that the feeling of victimization is real...We cant simply say..."get over it and move on". |
This may touch off another powder keg, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone could possibly argue that affirmative action isn't racism.
I guess we don't like to say this so bluntly because supporting AA would imply that one believes that not all racism is bad. It would be saying that racism is a tool that can be used to uplift and (ostensilbly) remedy as well as oppress and subjugate. That's not so PC. A non-racist version of AA would tie benefits to socio-economic status, not race. Of course, such a thing would likely look a lot like the current version of AA. But then again, this thing doesn't exist. |
Uber....Title 9 of the Education Act, providing equal funding for women's athletic programs is an affirmative action program. The Rehabilitation Act requiring handicap access and non-discrimination in hiring qualified handicapped persons is an affirmative action program. Programs and laws requiring equal pay for women are affirmative action.
Affirmative action means providing equal opportunity...but I do agree that race-based programs to "level the playing field" in emplyoment and education have been abused. |
i'll make no bones about it - i like the guy...
what he said was wrong - flat out wrong!!! he's said some shit that my wife (who also likes him for his being candid) and i have looked sideways thinking "well now, that was nasty" but we have big shoulders and can read thru it... what i don't get is he has rob bartlett on doing bill clinton calling hillary his white house "ho" when they were dealing with vincent foster's death... bartlett doing roberto gonzales as inept... yet you don't hear anyone bitching about that... or larry kinney doing ted kennedy and chappa... what you have here is sharpton and jesse jackoff going on a tirade for their own spin... i don't like the hypocracy and the media bullshit condemning one individual when they are the feeding trough for the same... as clapton said... "before you accuse me, take a look at yourself..." |
Point taken dc - although I'd have to say the program you brought up would be sexism. Good, bad, or indifferent, it's sexism.
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Shakran,
I've been giving this a lot of thought this evening, and I think I've come to the conclusion that we are debating this argument in two completely separate arenas. I feel like you are making an idealistic argument about racism that, theoretically, I can agree with. While I am making a completely different argument about the realities that distinguish what you are calling racism today when contrasted with the institutionalized racism of our past and why it colors our present making it, popularly, more offensive when black people are denigrated by a white person than vice versa. Not HOW things should be, but what THEY ARE and why it shouldn't be difficult for anyone to comprehend why they are that way. And I will grant you that I mistook what I am supposing to be a "tough love" kind of attitude towards American blacks and their need to move out of the past with a dismissive attitude towards that past. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. When I started on this subject I was not responding to a statement made by you. Your initial contributions to this thread seemed to center on Imus' right to say what he said. Therefore, your responding to my post seemed to come out of left field and maybe you can understand how it was interpreted by me to be a negation of my simple explanation about the dynamics at play in race relations in America. Surely, you do not deny the simple reality of why we react the way we do? You can wish for things to be different and still see the way things are, yes? I would love nothing more than this not to be an issue. But it is. Do I have to feel guilty about it or responsible for it to realize it? No, I don't. And I have grandparents who directly participated in the racist system - who were against the de-segregation of the south. But I don't feel guilty. I feel understanding. It doesn't mean I feel satisfied. It means I can make the logical connections and understand why we are behaving this way. That is all. There is no basis to extrapolate from this that I am accepting of racism in any form. Then there is the subject of comedy and its role in perpetuating racism. A concept that, personally, I just flat-out disagree with. And unless you can come up with some proof of that, it's just your opinion against mine. Now that this is all said, I am officially taking leave of this conversation. You can respond, but I'm not going to address it. Not out of anger or frustration, but just because my time is precious and I don't think I have anything else to say about it. Hopefully there isn't any doubt about where I stand. And I'm under no compulsion to make anyone see things my way. Bye :wave: |
damn mixed, i think you just beat me to the punch. i've been waiting this one out a bit, unable to express my thoughts coherently in any useful way that would elevate or move the conversation forward. i want to agree with the spirit of many of shakran's points, but i simply can't buy the notion of "wiping the slate clean" in any meaningful way. i think roach stated the basic presuppositions of why this isn't possible. i agree with shakran and uber that i'd like to see aa policy moved towards socio-economic status, but i also can see easily why it has been traditionally race/ethnicity-based. i don't think think, from the perspective of a white southerner with ancestry from irish immigrants of about 1900, that this is entirely about personal "guilt," but rather a recognition of historical perspective. ergo, mixed's comments in her last post reflecting what i think i meant to say.
on the role of comedy, i'd definitely have to say that someone like chris rock, or richard pryor, or for that matter eddie izzard, is a little different than someone walking down the street calling someone else a nigger or a cracker. i believe comedy, when its well-done, brings light and exposure to perspectives that we don't often like to admit to as a society. sure, they probably could perpetuate racism/sexism/gender issues to an extent, but i think they are more of a hyperbolic cultural expression of a cultural phenomenon. that's a little different than a political commentator, or a lecturer. as far as imus, i'm surprised to see he's been fired. i agree with hanxter and others that its hypocritical to pay this guy to serve this function for 20 or 30 years, and then to fire him because of this particular situation. its not as though something of this nature was predictable. |
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If somebody already linked this story, then I aologize. I'm way too damn lazy to read through 4 pages of posts from the beginning.
Why bother fixing the problem when it's so much easier to fix the blame? Quote:
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Imus...Time to Cash In
Although I don't listen to Imus often, I think this is the best thing that could have happened to him.
Now he can say good by to CBS...move over to Satellite radio, and make millions more than he was with CBS. He should be thanking Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, and all the other Reverends for giving him this great opportunity to move on. It is sad that Jackson and Sharpton feel that only black people can say what they want, when they want, against who they want and be insulated by the fact that they are poor depressed black people. |
Skydriver, if it were only that simple. Sentiments and racial politics aside, the chances of Imus landing on satellite radio aren't very good. His arch-nemisis Stern is a major shareholder and would probably never conceed a slot to Imus. With the proposed XM/Sirius merger, there won't be a competitor to try.
Infortunately, Imus is most likely taking a big paycut somewhere else, if he comes back at all. |
I agree with the OP. I bet we will see Imus on Sirius within the next 3 months.
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so do I. Stern is above all things interested in making money. Remember he started as a rock / country music jock until he figured out being the Asshole of the Airwaves would make him a lot richer. If he thinks Imus will bring money to the company he owns stock in, he'll roll out the red carpet for him.
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Begging your pardon....I thought that this used to be the "POLITICS" forum....now...we enjoy not just one.....but TWO "Imus" threads. This new one seems more like a topic for "E" Entertainment Tonight, than it does for this forum.
I propose a "deal". I won't start a new...."What did Imus eat for breakfast this morning", or..."What will Imus wear today....say today.....do today", if this thread can be moved, merged, closed....smashed into bytes....any or all of the above? Does anybody even want to "do" a politics forum at TFP, anymore? I am immersed in what I perceive to be unprecedented crimes against the US constitution, and the country and it's government, by the most corrupt, secretive, compromised, American executive branch in my lifetime, and maybe even in the last 5 generations.....do I have to watch while most posters "gravitate" to the two Imus threads, too? There are plenty of other places to escape to, on this forum, and on the rest of the internet. Why do it here, too? ENOUGH, already?? |
Good point Host. This post should be in entertainment or general, as should the other Imus thread. I view the entire forum by hitting the "new posts" button, which means I often don't notice what forum it's in (which has gotten me in trouble before for mouthing off in the ladies lounge ;) ) - - so my lame defense is that I didn't realize this was posted in politics.
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There's more to the political world than the crimes of G. W. Bush. The relationship of the commercial world to free speech is a political topic. My compromise is that I'm going to merge this thread with the other.
P.S. Tilted Politics IS just another forum on TFP. Part of what shapes the life of threads is where they are posted. Since this is in Tilted Politics, it will get different responses and different responders than it would in Entertainment or GD. |
All I know is on Foxnew's show redeye the other night they managed to somehow tie the Imus flap back to the global war on terrorism..... So Fox thinks its political.
Anyway this story has been monopolizing the network news for the past week and needs to go away quickly because it is pushing all other news to the background. For instance did anyone know that there was a major bombing within the green zone yesterday? You hardly hear about these things because Americans are frankly more interested in gossip about who said what to whom and who is the father of whom. Sorry for the rant ;) |
As I said before, I'm really curious to see how Imus' next employer pre-empts the Sharpton posse when they pick him up. Someone is sure to give in to the temptation of an unemployed guy who once earned his network $15 million.
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If he gets picked up on satellite I don't see what Sharpton can do. He can't go after the advertisers because their are none. He can have people boycott them but I don't think that would be terribly effective because I'm betting that a large percentage of people who have satellite radio don't care about this story enough to cancel their subscription.
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Very interesting article, warrrreagl. This is exactly what I have thought since I first heard this.
Thanks for posting that. |
i think this is a political thread--it involves a number of explicitly political issues, and enables a broadening of the purview of the political in this space--conflicts over the implications of racist remarks involve all kinds of political factors--social norms are political matters---the mobilization of either pressure or the appearance of pressure is a political matter.
i havent look at the other thread because i didnt see the point to another thread, but that's just me. btw: i think that the networks are cowards. this even though, like i have said, i think what imus said was deplorable---and i think his schtick is tiresome----in general i would rather drive tacks into my hand than sit through his performances. but he shouldn't have been fired over this. it would in many ways be better for him to have been hauled over the coals for his idiot remark and then continue: who knows, perhaps the controversy would have had a salutary effect on his thinking and maybe his audience would have benefitted from the effects. |
I find the responses to these racism threads odd, to say the least. Always have and my suspicion is I always will...
Is it willful ignorance or just plain ole not knowing how shit works that compels people to post info that is flat out incorrrect factually? ng added an extra 150 years to our "normal" racist/slavery timeline...yes, I'm quite sure EVERYONE in this forum knows our "US" country isn't 300 years old and slavery didn't END until 1865...so the notion that whites are somehow being called to pay for the "sins" of others' actions over 300 years ago is absurd and hyperbolic on the face of it. Shakran, in answer to your question of whether it's going to take an extra 100 years for anyone to "get over it" is most likely...yes given that it took just shy of 100 years between black "freedom" and the ability to attend "white" schools! And you ought to check your facts on Dr. King and not use him in this type of argument...given that he was a proponent of affirmative action. Perhaps reading up on the how and why of that would alter your opinion on the matter...unless you walk away thinking he was racist in theory! Which leads to the next point...even setting aside the notion that whites benefit disproportionately from a social/political/economic context based on our history (which I don't, and fail to comprehend how anyone can...yet they are doing exactly that in this very thread without ANY explanation for how one can be seperated from our collective history other than "I don't believe that"), racism didn't end in someone else's time...blacks were still being lynched as recently as 40 years ago. Our civil rights era just started kicking as little as 50 years ago. Are you people so young that your parents or grandparents weren't DIRECTLY involved in personal and structural racism? Finally, AA programs are not, and have not, been primarily based on race/ethnicity. They are based on disadvantaged minorities. Someone correctly pointed out a number of programs that directly benefit women and persons with disabilities. In fact, women are the largest group to have benefited from AA programs... Now, one might wonder the impetus behind the sentiment that blacks are stealing white jobs...and I don't mean *I* wonder about you. I mean you should wonder about yourself. And juxtapose that sentiment against roachboy's argument and self-examine whether you really have or can seperate yourself from our collective history and culture... EDIT: forgot to add, uber, that your response to those AA examples appears bullheaded. Just an observation... The response to women benefit is that AA is sexist? Assuming your assumption was correct that socio-economic status is not relevant to AA beneficiaries, what would prevent your or anyone else from arguing that it then was "class warfare" or "classism"? Not that it would change much, in case anyone didn't know it already, blacks and women, particularly black women, are the poorest in this country. |
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I think the biggest looser in all of this is going to be the kids at Imus's ranch. He used his show to raise funds for the kids who are ill will cancer. Without his show it is likely that this camp will shut down.
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Anyway, good of you to try to persuade that the opposite of what most here posted, is more accurate, more fair, more just. How can you ask people to consider the wrongs that their parents and grandparents committed against fellow countrymen, and other peoples of the world, when they see not the wrongs that they themselves are committing every day? Do 6 percent of the world's population, have the right to take 25 percent of the total daily petroleum output, using borrowed money, bidding up the price of that petroleum, with the net effect of making the price of that fuel, even for essential uses such as cooking and for producing cheaper and more plentiful food, so high that it is out of reach to the majority of the rest of the world's inhabitants? How much better would the lives of the world's poorest be, if US residents consumed only the average daily petroleum that is used by the average western European? We don't see cause and effect, we don't want to think about it, and we don't come here to be reminded about specifics by misguided liberals, because we know what we know! |
Surely, host, you have noted that it is not conservatives here who are arguing about present race relations and ongoing socio-economic factors and the relevance of their relation to the past?
I'm not ready to stop talking about this issue, but I think I'm going to dwell on it and start a new thread. I can't seem to shake the disturbing sense that the chronic loss of attention span in this country has caused its people - young, old, liberal, conservative, rich, poor - to conveniently minimize its role in its own history. |
mixedmedia, I don't know of any conservatives who would write in the vein of the opinions posted by smooth and myself.....the idea that there is a need and a responsibility to redistribute the power and it's associated influence, privilege, access and networking, and the wealth that it keeps on bringing to the entrenched powerful....away from them, and to capable but "unconnected" have nots.....including everyone who is not a WASP male, according to a combination of need and legitimacy and scope of past injustices and "takings" by the largely WASP male establishment...
"Poilitics" seems to me to be about the "business" of the preservation of wealth and power, vs. the redistribution of both, by any means necessary. Conservatives tend to be against redistribution, and everyone else seems generally disposed to some degree of redistribution. I referred to myself as an "old liberal". I think that anyone who is against affirmative action, and does not see a need to replace it with some at least equally activist methods of redistributing entrenched wealth and power AWAY from the largely WASP male establishment, is supporting the continuation of that establishment, and that means supporting continued inertia of even more wealth and power accumulation by that group. Most especially since the Supreme Court, and Federal Appeals Courts have been stacked with conservatives who no longer see the courts or the constitution as institutions with a bent to protect the least of us from the concentrated wealth and power.....today, unlike in the time of Justices Thurgood Marshall and William O. Douglas, the current judges view the "least of us" as the aggressors against a minority of rich powerful, WASP males..... So.....if you accept the idea that it is "high time" for everyone to "make it" on their own, because injustices happened a "long time ago", you are, IMO, a conservative when it comes to the core political struggle in the US, and in the world..... I am confused about your other comment: Quote:
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Whitlock is a darling of the right, but why does that make him more relevant than Ms. Crawford, who refers to Whitlock, in the bottom quote box that follows, as "Uncle Tom"? IMO, Whitlock's "column" is pure spin....intended to take the blame off of the man who insulted members of a college sports team...... with racial slurs, and intended to take the focus off the real, larger problem....the still growing concentration of wealth, power, and opportunity into the hands of American WASP males! Quote:
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is the trend of "the haves" to "look away"....(even denying that it is an unsolved and increasingly ignored crisis.....) from race/gender based socio-economic disparity and injustice in this country.....and that is worth posting in protest of....insistently and frequently. "The Haves" want to focus on their own agenda, a "Fair Tax" that will shift the last 2-1/2 percent of total US assets from the bottom 50 percent...to....WASP males.) |
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1) Imus said something stupid. 2) It was wrong and on some level, executives may have acted based on values considerations. 3) Commercial pressure certainly drove him out more than values in any case. 4) Sharpton has an amplifying platform from which to speak and he uses that at times in ways that raise issues of ends vs. means There is a problem with racism in this country, both in terms of past behaviors and in terms of vestigial structures. HOWEVER, there is also a problem with a parallel culture in this country that operates alongside the mainstream culture of success and achievement. Having lived in Harlem in a high crime, low employment neighborhood and having friends in Spanish Harlem, I've seen this first hand. It's a real problem and calling people who realize it "Uncle Toms" perpetuates that part of the equation. The discussion about what remedies to apply to the situation is distinct from the one about whether any remedies are needed. Conflating the people who hold these distinct views also doesn't help. I haven't seen a single person in this thread (maybe in this forum?) say that there aren't inequities in this country. I haven't even seen anyone in this thread clearly state that remedying inequities is a bad thing. I HAVE seen people question the "conventional" or "liberal" wisdom about how that could or should happen. There's a huge difference there. BTW, I'm glad you've joined our conversation. :) |
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what is this "mainstream culture of success and achievement" you speak of? i remember hearing a parallel characterization in the big lebowski--the other lebowski, the non-dude lebowski, said it. but he was a character in a satire. these "parallel cultures"--what are they? informal economies? what problems are you talking about? for whom are there these problems? obviously a messageboard conversation tends to be about generalities...but there is a kind of line past which i no longer understand things: once they float at a sufficient altitude, i cant see them. what it sounds to me like is that you are juxtaposing a mythological construct--this "success and achievement" business--to a reference to a vastly more complex social reality that involves everywhere, all the time "parallel" forms of activity...what it sounds like is that you have an aesthetic preference for this myth of unity and are disturbed by evidence that it is only a myth. or you could be talking about social spaces that seem transparent to you, that you move through effortlessly and that you characterize with this curious phrase "success and achievement"--and to which yuo juxtapose more closed-seeming spaces that are not about you. it's hard to tell. maybe the term culture is the problem. anyway, please explain, sir. |
I think the problem was in saying success and achievement. That was what I was talking about, but I didn't want to be talking about it in the way that it looks after the fact. I'm talking about the dominant culture in America in which a certain set of values tends to manifest results that display themselves in things like education, relative stability, safe neighborhoods, and a level of economic fluency (not always success or prosperity). The news isn't all good, in that materialism, a focus on self to the exclusion of others, and entitlement are also transmitted.
The parallel culture in particular that I referred to (and there are obvious problems with that characterization as well) is one in which values manifest themselves in behaviors and results that are quite different - higher crime, lower employments rates, lack of education, less economic fluency and mobility, etc... I definitely used the word culture on purpose though. I'm not one that thinks that the problem is "self-victimization", which I saw in some thread around here. I guess that could be a part of it, but I tend to look at the system - what things are valued and the social pressures surrounding these people. A large part of this is media. We talk a lot here about the saturating power of media in the context of women's body image or commercial pressures, but there are other standards propagated to people who are just as susceptible. Hip-hop or thug culture are two examples among many more. To be more succinct, I don't think what I'm talking about is determined or defined by race, although there is a huge overlapping incidence. It's more tightly encapsulated by geography and class. Obviously I'm making a generalization - there are more finely defined strands of what I'm referring to as culture within the large streams. There are individuals who exist within these islands of culture and are able to exit. It's not a hard distinction. |
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A few things that might give you more insight of the factors in the argument you are making: 1) primarily, it's what would be called a culture of poverty, which has been empirically studied out of the dominant texts because a) researchers found that people cycle in and out of poverty; the most impoverished rarely stay there intergenerationally b) researchers found that poor parents, by and large, are supportive of 'decent' values and try to instill them in their kids. No one *wants* their kids to be in danger or in prison (perhaps you could point to *an* example or two, but hopefully we don't start picking nits to make our points) c) (and I'd think you would have experienced this first hand given the context you just wrote you grew up in) That the poorest are often the most hardworking, intent on succeeding, capitalist, horatio algersist people I meet. Whether their social context buttresses those beliefs is a sererate question that ought not denigrate their value system (as if it were different than "ours")... there is a branch of criminological theory that interrogates this disjuncture between desire to succeed and means to do so called "strain theory" kicked off by Robert Merton, followed by Cloward and Ohlin and Cohen. So if you are interested in such things I'm writing about, you could pick up a crim theory reader and it would have summations of those theories. It wouldn't take a lot of read time to go over such a book, and not hard to find at any bookstore....just ask for an entry level criminology theory book and you should be directed right to something relevant. If you're interested, this is the book I used for my comprehensive exams studying: http://www.amazon.com/Juvenile-Delin...6670262&sr=1-1 It's $6! A jewel of a book as it has the actual writings of the theorists, instead of summations of them Anyway, when we talk about poor education we should not do so without recognizing the ramifications of not providing enough seats, books, pencils, and now even computers should be considered necessary items for students. Is that the culture's fault or a social issue? attributed more to insane funding policies or recalcitrant students? When we discuss safe/unsafe neighborhoods, we should do so with the caveat that even police know that in the highest crime "ridden" areas, only a small, TINY portion of the ZIP code accounts for the majority of the crime. I don't have my sources in front of me, but I'm talking about even in the most high crime areas, only ~3% of the addresses account for over 90% of the crime...this isn't one of those stats on the fly deal, this is empirically grounded analysis that I've done myself and can produce the sources if necessary, but once again, the factual information is available freely and widely enough that anyone interested could check without difficulty. This whole discussion revolving around hip-hop and rap is interested to me because: 1) even the vilest hiphop and rap on the RADIO, the public airwaves, doesn't repeat Nigger, Ho, or Bitch, or Cunt. That kind of shit is edited out and you have to buy albums with "Explicit Content" labels on it after a controversial public campaign to require such labeling back in the day of the likes of public enemy and 2livecrew, among others, that were arrested/harassed/fined for their performances. 2) the dominant forces in the recording industry are white producers and the bulk of sales go to white consumers. I'm not "blaming whitey" but I am claiming that there is a slew of pro-social rap, even gangta rap, that simply doesn't get produced, promoted, or played. And people who fail to recognize that do so primarily because they haven't been exposed to its existence, which is unfortunate... But all that said, I'd claim that a black Harlemite is about as likely as a white dude in minniesodah to dream of floating on an 80ft yacht while sipping mimosas...but that doesn't mean either one isn't a firm believer in the culture of success. More likely they just realize the reality of their social situations ;) exempting, of course, southern californians since we are, by and large, a delusional bunch that is most likely attributed to hubris and simulacra given our climate and hollywood/disneyland proximity! But shit, coss compare Biggie's "Things done changed [if I wasn't in the rap game, I'd be in the crack game] to anything coming out of west coast rap [a la Snoop or Mr. Doctor] and you'll see just how different these perspectives can be about the world arond them.... |
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I agree with that analysis that he should have just acted like he didn't do anything wrong. Then at least people could have written him off as an irrelevant, harmless douchebag if they wanted and the people who liked him could have laughed.
Instead, he kept reminding people how sorry and inappropriate it was. Damn, didn't he ever steal cookies as a kid? Everyone knows you're supposed to deny, deny, deny...even with crumbs on your fingers and lips! |
hey smooth, great post (#154) ! Why does it so often seem that "what everybody knows", and what "most people think" is so distant from what should be so obvious?
Examples are the impact of 18 recent years of conservative republican presidential judicial appointments to federal appeals courts and to the supreme court, vs. an 8 year opportunity for one centrist democrat to make those appointments...... the impact of "white flight" from public schools and from former "near urban" residences to gated communities far more distant from urban areas than formerly.......the loss of corporate "give backs" to the local community, a phenomena of similar concentration of wealth and power that leaves us with just a few major banks and telecom, or media, or pharmaceutical companies.....a trend of concentration that leaves the bottom half of the US population in ownership of just 2-1/2 percent of total national assets, with many experiencing a negative net worth. Must what "everybody knows", remain in such a misguided state, until, say..... 50 percent of total wealth is owned by the top one percent, and 30 percent by the next top nine percent (the top ten percent "owns" 70 percent of everything, now, and unionized private sector jobs have slipped under ten percent)...... before "everybody" shifts to "knowing" that violent revolution is the next "order" of political business in the US? Why are we so dense? Why the extreme shift, in less than 2 generations, from union jobs encompassing more than 30 percent of all private sector jobs, and a top tax bracket of 89 percent, to.....this, and why is there still no recognition that clamoring for more....a "Fair Tax", entrenched anti unionism, advocacy for "support for business" that has reunited much of ATT's former monopoly, and permits Salem Comm. to own 1200 radio stations....a clamor that results in nearly 50 million Americans with no health insurance? Why is all of that new concentration, new disenfranchisement, considered beneficial, or positive, by so many, when the constituency for what is happening should be no more than 20 percent of our adult population, if everyone acted in their own best interests? Everyone agrees that the "robber barons" of the late 19th century, went "too far", and that it was necessary for government to "reign them in", to break up their predatory monopolies of railroads and fuel, but no one seems interested in even defining what "too far", is....now. Must it be "in your face"....a phenomena such as the recent manipulation of gasoline price to a low, just before the mid-term election, last november.....just 20 weeks ago, of $1.90/gal in my area, to $2.80, today? How can anyone plan or invest in alternative energy sources, with the risk of such dramatic, swift price shifts, of vital motor fuel? The silence, the complacency, the advocacy for such a broken system, is deafening.......and I've not even mentioned the liquidity "crunch" that is tightening lending standards and will bring down housing valuations to unanticipated low levels, after too loose lending policy drove housing prices, artificially, to levels that priced honest first time mortgage applicants, out of half of local housing markets. Must it take until we "don't got mine", anymore...before we question what "we know"? That question will be answered, proabably for many, in the next 48 months, and it will be an ugly era. Why the denial that $850 billion trade and $500 billion federal budget annual deficits, are unsustainable, and will destroy the buying power of the national paper currency? IMO, we have no hope of reversing socio-economic inequity and injustice. We are plummeting quickly into a time when scrounging for basic necessities will consume the attention and the strength of most of us....no way to stop where we're heading, now..... |
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? |
I hate being put in a position of speaking for my race because it just reinforces the false notion that races are homogenous. But as a Black man, let me make a few points:
1. Imus' comments revealed an underlying prejudice in his character which is not surprising to me or anyone else that has listened to his show. That is what he is paid to portray. He sells the voice of the angry white male just like Sharpton and Jackson sell the voice of the angry black male. The issue though is not that Imus has prejudices, but that he dared break the illusion and cross the line of deniability for his investors. Imus is probably no more prejudice against black people that I am prejudice against white people. I have no problem with white people on an individual basis but I have residual bad blood because of my upbringing and perceived slights against my people and my country and I would guess that Imus feels the same way about us. 2. Please Please Please, stop dusting off Jesse and Al every time there is a racial issue. They are self sustaining business and have very little credibility beyond a certain nostalgia for the leaders of the past that they represent the last crumbs of. 3. You cannot compare Snoop to Imus because when Snoop talks about a ho he talks about hos he knows personally. There are hos of all races and they exist in real life and should be discussed. Hos are dangerous people. But to call refer to a Black woman as nappy headed ho is a racial and sexual attack on an innocent woman based solely on her race and sex. I am outraged by the unprovoked attack on innocent Black women as much as if it were aimed at my wife, mother, sister, etc. But attacks on real hos I have distance from. Sure they may be mothers, wives, sisters too, but the hos we talk about in rap music are caricatures more often than not. These are real women. Still, a suspension, fine, apology, some form of restitution would have been sufficient for me. Firing Imus just sweeps the issue of race and meaning racial dialogue under the rug. 4. Affirmative Action is a racist and sexist policy but fully defensible at the time it was created. It needs to be revamped now into a more comprehensive socio-economic model that encompasses the needs of disadvantaged people from all walks of life. Thank you all. Ive been needing to get that off my chest for a couple days now. |
Sho Nuff, I hear you, but let me ask you something. I'm not defending Imus (as you can tell from reading my comment, which is right above yours). I'll accept that use of the word "ho" is different when it comes from a rapper than when it comes from Imus. But rap is now part of mainstream culture, and much of its sensibility has been absorbed into the mainstream. If white guys are using "ho" it's because they learned it from its casual use by the people who introduced them to it. So if the word "ho" is not acceptable, then maybe no one should be using it? Isn't it always a degrading term? I can't imagine there aren't other ways for rappers (or anyone else) to criticize specific, useless, heedless or bad women.
This is all part of the general coarsening of the culture, from all directions. It's not just the rappers, it's just that this incident highlighted them. Next time it'll be a videogame or some thrill seeker. |
Popping in and out for a minute:
Don Imus is racist, but not more so than many, many, many other figures and programs in the media. He was singled out by activists, who were more disrespectful to the young women of Rutgers by using them as tools. If Imus must be off the air, then so also must go South Park, Family Guy, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and the rest of white, racist television and radio. I doubt these people would be okay with that. Not only that, but I've never seen Al Sharpton speak against racist black people. I find him to be a televangalist figurehead. |
I have no problem with anyone using the word ho. It doesnt carry a racial connotation in and of itself. But I assure you I would be just as mad at Snoop as I am at Imus for an unprovoked attack on the Rutgers womens team.
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A lesson to be learned from one man
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."
Martin Luther King Jr. I would suggest the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Hip Hop artist, Imus and all of us take a lesson from the late Martin Lurther King Jr., The Reverend and true civil rights activist for all humanity, not just one part. |
Imus Won't Go Quietly
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I predict this will settle out of court for a stack of cash. I predict (again) that Imus WILL find someone to broadcast him. He has been too much of a money earner for corporations to let "values" interfere for long. |
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Is Al Sharpton going to lose his.... wait, does he even have a true job????? What did he say about "it's easy for those you haven't offended to forgive you but you need to appologize to the ones you offended" and something along the lines of.... people stereotyping and calling people out of name and making prejudicial hurtful statements towards others..... Oh yeah and politicians need to totally debunk and debase and tar and feather Imus for what he said......... Just wondering why it's ok for him to say....... Quote:
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But first Sharpton has to cover his ass with his black followers and make it .................. yes that right ..............RACIAL...................................... Now we can accept what Sharpton said .... it's all about those Mormons being racists...... Quote:
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Now then..... where is the uproar of people demanding Sharpton appologize????? Where is the uproar that Sharpton should lose whatever job he has?????? Where are the politicians pulling away from Sharpton and demanding he appologize????? Hilary, Obama, (my man) Edwards, I think even Romney himself.... every candidate except McCain said Imus had to at least appologize, most called for him to lose his job or be punished in some way...... Yet NOT ONE (Romney excluded for obvious reasons) so far has demanded that Sharpton appologize. OOOOOO wait Imus said it about fresh faced innocent college girls..... and well Romney is a politician and can handle it better...... WTF..... Sharpton put down a whole fucking denomination.... what there aren't fresh faced innocent Mormon college girls????? He just put down the fucking Osmonds also, who is more fresh faced than Donny and Marie fucking Osmond??????? So those of you who wanted to bash Imus sooooooo badly..... where are your Sharpton bashes?????? |
pan....isn't the difference the fact that Imus directed his slurs at college students who were simply playing competitive collegiate basketball.....not an activity that would make them "fair game", like being a prominent US presidential candidate would make one....."target wise"?
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I see your comparison as similar to an attempt to compare apples to oranges. I believe I know what you're trying to do, but I see no inconsistency in Sharpton condemning what Imus did....at least in NY & in NJ, Sharpton is a recognized (by the media and public perception....) long time spokesman for the "black community", and he wears another "hat" as a mnister of the christian faith, and as a former (maybe even a current) presidential candidate in the opposing political party vs. Romney's..... and then later slurring Romney's candidacy via the differences between mainstream christian religious beliefs, vs. those of Romney's "cult"..... If, in 2004, a black member of Swiftboat Veteran's for Truth, had condemned a radio jock for making slurs similar to those that Imus was fired for making, and then later attaced John Kerry's patriotism and credibility by accusing him of putting himself in for unearned medals to shorten his combat tour or to pump up an undeserved reputation for "valor and heroism" in combat, I don't see a difference between that progression and what Sharpton has done in the two instances..... Romney knew that running for POTUS in a political party that includes and actually listens and responds to the dogma and demands of the likes of a Pat Robertson, would bring attacks on Romney's relgious beliefs. If Sharpton was not a member of christian clergy, there might be a weak case for your example, but that is not the circumstance here...... |
I agree. I really don't see any basis for comparison at all. Perhaps if he called Romney a honky white cracker or something. Otherwise, Romney is a Mormon and Sharpton is not. The religions are not two offshoots of the same doctrine in the way of, for example, Baptists and Methodists...Mormonism has its own religious text and distinct beliefs. And in the context of a discussion about religion with a Christian I think it's totally in line with the expected.
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Back in another thread there was a photo (which made me laugh) of Al Sharpton and Ann Coulter together. To my mind they are equally respectable, i.e., charlatans who should not be accorded a stage or recognition. I'm not the slightest bit surprised that Sharpton dissed someone else's religion, because he has a history of making bigoted comments such as the reference to "white interlopers" who owned a store in Harlem that some thugs later burned. Why don't the papers go to someone respectable, who has actually accomplished things other than rhetorical bomb-throwing, when they want a black spokesman? Vernon Jordan, for example off the top of my head? Or any of the dozens or hundreds of serious people who are leaders in the black community. I just don't get it. Or maybe I get it too well: being outrageous sells ads.
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At the risk of igniting another fire storm - Pan, I don't get it. Sharpton is a radio talk show host. That's his job. It's legitimate. He gets paid for it.
Second, the man's an ordained minister. Actually, he's been ordained twice, once as a Pentacostal and once as a Babtist. Clearly he has a religious background. The proper salutation for him, as seen in the stories you posted, is "Reverend". He's clearly qualified to speak about religion. I don't like what he allegedly said any more than you do, but I also acknowledge that he's qualified to say those things, especially about a branch of Christianity that's never gotten along particularly well with the rest. Finally, check this out: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic...n-romney_N.htm It's obviously spin doctoring, but I think it's interesting that he's agreeing that Romney believes in God and that it's a personal relationship. Honestly, I don't think anyone should be surprised that a Babtist would be disagreeable with the LDS church since there's a whole lot of friction between Protestants and Mormons, especially in the last couple of years as the Mormons try to agressively convert folks both alive and dead. |
i'm bored a bit this am...i thought i'd let this imus shit fall away, but here i am.
by the same token, one could argue that imus has been a radio personality for years, and that he's got enough background to appropriately label people as "nappy headed", and as "hos". i don't really dig the mormon faith much, as it does sound a bit crazy as shit to me. then again, the other flavors do as well. however, i don't think the fact that the rev is an ordained minister makes his comments more qualified or less derogatory. i mean, if i'm a grandwizard in the kkk, well versed in all my 19th century writings on the inferiority of other races, can i now call someone a "nigger" or a "spic" and then say, 'ahhha! i have qualified myself to make these comments." or can i speak in public about how other races are just a little more ape-like, perhaps not quite as dexterious with their opposable thumbs, how slavery and the like are the great benefit of other races to be in proximity to our Divine awesomeness...and not have those comments come off as perhaps mildly racist? so i think this is a case of pot calling kettle black, and kettle calling pot black with crazy-ass hair. |
As much as this surprises and pains me, I don't see what the big deal is regarding Sharpton's comments. Pan, maybe you could elaborate (beyond the giant red text).
So he implied that Mormons don't really believe in God... Well, they don't, at least in the terms that a Baptist, Pentecostal, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, etc. minister would define. There is very very little doctrinal overlap between the Mormon Church and other faiths. The familiarity that they (Mormon leaders) cultivate is just a veneer. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Also, it is 100% true that the Mormon Church supported segregation and condoned racism - up until 1978. At this point, after being completely drubbed in the media, the president of the church received a revelation letting him know that it was ok to incorporate all people into the priesthood, regardless of skin color. Call me cynical, but that seems a little convenient. None of that, of course, means that Mitt Romney, an individual, is even slightly racist. But this particular Sharpton episode isn't much to get excited about. |
I see so because:
he's a Mormon, and Pat ("I have God's stamp of approval on my Ass") Robertson talked about how evil and non christian Mormons are, a presidential candidate, and Sharpton is THE Rev. Al Sharpton and being ordained twice means he knows far more about religion than anyone else...... this was ok. I truly see something now, I always wanted not to believe, people will jump on the bandwagon and do the popular thing, spew the "popular" viewpoint and not care about what is wrong or right. Obviously some of you didn't even read the whole post, because you started with "well Imus said it about fresh faced college girls..... did ya see where I made the rebuttal to that in my post? Yet, ya didn't say anything about it. I guess the fresh faced college girls at BYU and the wholesome Osmond family deserve to be told they don't believe in God the right way. I truly wonder if he had said this (or some other prejudicial, divisive, bigotorial statement) about Obama or Hilary or any Democrat, if some of you defending and saying it is ok for Sharpton to say this.....would say that then or would be calling for Sharpton's head. Personally, from day 1 this argument has never been about Imus or now Sharpton, it has been about labels. If you knock one person for labelling someone, then you damned best knock everyone who labels. If you want to argue that "it's fresh faced college girls" as opposed to a politician and his whole denomination.... that argument means squat, because you then state the value of one person's feelings are worth more than another's...... and that is bullshit and prejudicial and biased right there, not to mention hypocritical because in the end as this thread and arguments here and in other threads show and in all life aspects...... people in the end care only about their own feelings. If the press had played this up (as they did with Imus) and Hilary or Obama came out and separated themselves from Sharpton and demanded he appologize...... would any of you then reverse what you say? It's easy to say you wouldn't when knowing that will never happen so you will not be called on it. This would be funny if it weren't so ridiculously scary. So I just want to make sure I understand the limitations on my freedom of speech........ after all I do give lectures now and am becoming somewhat a known figure in my profession..... I can tear a presidential candidate's religion apart (I don't mention his views, his platform... what I disagree with etc). I just say "As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don't worry about that. That's a temporary situation." and make sure it is a GOP candidate and all is ok. So I can tell people now that those who do not believe in GOD the way I do will never find recovery, right? LABELS ARE WRONG AND IF ONE PERSON NEEDS CENSORED FOR HIS LABELLING OF OTHERS EVERYONE NEEDS CENSORED WHEN THEY LABEL... DOESN'T MATTER WHO IS HURT, WHO WAS LABELLED. THERE IS NO DEFENSE FOR A PERSON WHO BITCHED ABOUT ANOTHER LABELING TO ALLOW SOMEONE ELSE TO LABEL OR TO LABEL OTHERS THEMSELVES. The knife cuts both ways and you can not have it one way but allow it another. Either you censor everyone and demand retribution, job, etc from ALL who label, or you don't. To pick and choose who can label, who can say prejudicial, biased, hatefilled divisive public statements and who can't is wrong, morally, ethically and in every possible way. You want to take one person's free speech away for labelling someone and make excuses why it's ok, and then within weeks talk about how it is ok for another to speak hate on a WHOLE DENOMINATION OF RELIGIOUS peoples..... it sounds not only hypocritical but fucking nuts. As an aside........ did Sharpton and Jackson ever appologize for the things they said about the Duke players (that have been vindicated)??????? Oh yeah, Sharpton and Jackson were allowed to get away with that because it was the right racist hatespeak.... it was against rich white kids and not vice versa...... how evil I am for thinking they should appologize. |
Pan:
Are you referring to these two remarks, or did I miss something? Quote:
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Pan, I think you missed my point. Among other things, Sharpton is a religious leader. He's certainly a civil rights leader and he's possibily a political leader. I'm viewing his comments almost strictly in his religious role. He's a conservative Babtist religiously (not politically conservative, etc. - those are separate). If you look at this as a statement by a religious leader in the context of Mormonism in the US historically I don't see where it's devisive or labelling or whatever you want to call it. It's no more than saying "Babtists won't vote for a Mormon" or "Pentacostals won't vote for a Jew" by a preacher in those faiths. Maybe they're right. I don't know. I see this as a throw-away line acknowledging that some voters won't vote for people of differing faiths. Is that somehow new? The "faithful" aren't going to vote a certain way? Haven't we heard that before, and hasn't it sometimes been true?
Labels are impossible to remove from our culture or any other culture. We're all unique, but we all fall into groups like employed, white, black, tall, short, assholes (I forget the rest of it). Labels are groups. Groups are labels. People in groups share common things. Labels are misused by ascribing things that aren't true to groups - like Jews being cheap or Auburn fans being bug-eaters. Sometimes labels are wrong. Not always. |
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I can even live with the latter. But the original statement, is hateful, prejudicial, and divisive. My whole argument (and this is similar very much so to my own experience that I argued from day one).... you cannot pick and choose who can label, say hateful and divisive things. Either everyone who does it is wrong and should face the same consequences... (people demanding jobs be lost, retribution paid, public appologies etc.) or you allow people to say those things and let people make up their own minds about it. It's one thing to say "Imus said something very wrong, I don't like it I'll turn the radio station and tell my friends to boycott his show." It's another to punish him, demand he lose his job, threaten to boycott his sponsors and so on. And then go out there less than a month later and spew hate and prejudice. I'm simply calling BULLSHIT where BULLSHIT hypocrasy is. If Imus deserved the scorn and hate of a nation for his labelling of others.... Sharpton should also (moreso because he led the attack against Imus.) If Sharpton is going to be this pillar who plays speech police then he better be held to the same standards..... and yet as the posts show, and as the press kind of just whitewashes this and it fades..... we allow hatespeak, divisiveness, prejudice to be said.... but it comes from a black, democrat against a white republican. As a Democrat and one who believes in what's right and what's wrong regardless of party affiliation..... I am ashamed that the vast majority in my party make excuses for this being ok. Quote:
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It is one thing to be in your church and say that as a minister, it is another to say that not as a minister but as a political authority, a civil rights leader and someone who is supposed to fight for the rights of ALL against prejudice. Pat Robertson can say what he likes because he uses the guise of religion and everyone knows he's supposedly using religion to guide him. Al Sharpton is foremost recognized as a Civil Rights leader.... NOT as a religious leader. Do you think MLK Jr. would have spoken these words?????? As for labels, yes, we all label someone as soon as we see them or meet them. My argument is that if I start yelling at someone for labelling and pointing out their prejudices.... then when mine come to surface, I should be judged as I judged. Privately, we have those prejudices, biases and so on.... and as private citizens we can speak them. But if you are a public figure and you are going to burn someone for what they say.... you best not say anything your own damned self. Or don't get all huffy and start shit when someone says something or puts labels out, you don't like. If Sharpton and people want to burn Imus.... then those same people need to pull away from Sharpton and demand the same penalties they did for Imus. Otherwise, people who make excuses why Sharpton's hatespeak was ok and Imus deserved what he got.... lose all credibility and respect I have for them in this area. If the presidential candidates who spoke out against Imus refuse to speak out against Sharpton..... I will have no respect for them. Now, if you or they said, "I see nothing wrong with what Imus said, he has his opinion and is aloowed to speak it." and then you or they say the same about Sharpton..... then you or they have not shown any bias, hypocrasy or bullshit. If you attacked Imus and you attack Sharpton equally, then you show no bias, hypocrasy or bullshit. If you didn't attack Imus but attack Sharpton, you are showing bias hypocrasy and bullshit. NEITHER one said a nice thing, BOTH said very vile, hateful, prejudicial things... so either you punish both equally or let both go .... but if you take sides... you are as wrong as they are. |
Let me state for the record one last time, just for consistency's sake, that my problem with what Imus said has nothing to do with the racial overtones. This is at least the 4th time I've stated that my problem with Imus arose because he was critisizing amatuer athletes for their appearance after they'd come up just short. I find that incredibly cruel and demeaning. The color of their skin and texture of their hair is irrelevant, IMO.
That said, I still don't see why this qualifies as hate speech. I agree with Sharpton that Romney's camp is making a mountain out of a molehill. He's not calling for Christians not to vote for a Mormon - he's just saying that Christians won't vote for a Mormon. Given that there's never been a Mormon that's run for President before (at least as a major candidate), he could be right on the money. It's an entirely different thing if he said that all Christians, Catholic and Protestants alike, need to stand together to defeat the evil Mormon empire, but he presented it as something that's going to happen with or without his help. How is that hateful when all he's done is predict what others are going to do in the election? Is it hateful if I say that David Duke won't get elected to the Presidency because he's a proud KKK member? No, it's pretty much an accurate prediction. How about if I say that Al Sharpton couldn't get elected dogcatcher in Will County, IL because of the huge white Republican precence there? Nope, still pretty much accurate. Nothing in the line in question disparaged the LDS Church or Mormonism. How can you have hate speach without any hate? Interestingly enough, only 48% or so of TFP (nonscientifically) would vote for a Mormon. Check it out: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ht=poll+mormon I expect that has more to do with the conservative agenda that a Mormon almost always brings to the table rather than over half of TFP being anti-Mormon. So Pan are the TFP members who voted "no" biased or hateful? |
Let's look at what you ARE saying then:
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insinuating that 1) Mormons do not believe in God 2) that because of 1 he doesn't deserve to be elected..... NOT one mention of what Romney's platform is or that he his platform is wrong.... just his religion.... That is prejudicial and hateful, especially coming from a supposed CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER.... now, again, if Pat Robertson said that or a RELIGIOUS LEADER said that, it could be seen perhaps differently.... BUT again.... Al Sharpton is a self appointed CIVIL RIGHTS leader who supposedly by the sheer title means he is supposed to expect equal rights for ALL. (I also believe had this been someone stating something negative about Obama or Hilary's religious beliefs and how they wouldn't be elected because of them.... the Left would be demanding appologies.) Quote:
Plus there is a difference between you and Al Sharpton..... Al sharpton is a self proclaimed and has made his fame and fortune NOT as a minister to God but as a CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER. Quote:
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As for having to do with a "conservative agenda"..... that is laughable... I am more liberal than most on this board. I am one of the few who proudly state I am a democrat, I am also maybe the only one here (only one I know of at least) who is forthright and has stated I plan to vote for Edwards and I support his campaign 100%. Sooooo how do i fit into this "conservative agenda"?????? Quote:
And while that statement may or may not be true.... that is far from saying those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, And again, my whole argument is not about what either Imus or Sharpton said.... it is about the right to say it and if 1 person is not allowed to say something because someone deemed it "cruel and demeaning" then the person censoring and yelling about it, best not say anything themself that someone can deem "cruel and demeaning" because I expect and I believe that if you lambaste and destroy the first, you need to lambaste and destroy the second or you were full of shit and had your own agenda or jumped on a bandwagon or whatever.... and you have no true sincerity in protecting people's feelings.... you are just pushing forth an agenda whether you realize it or not. Personally, I see nothing wrong with what Imus said or with what Sharpton said... and I feel they both had the right to say whatever they want... I don't have to agree with it or listen to it. However, I firmly believe if you go after one you need to go after both or you have no credibility in my eyes. But then again that's just in my eyes.... what others want to believe is up to them. I have a feeling more people will see Sharpton for what he is because of this and I believe he will feel some heat and rightfully so. |
This is borderline nonsensical.
I can't think of why Baptists in general and Baptist ministers in specific would think that Mormons believe in their God. The two religions have really different doctrines, histories, and values. Further, since Baptists regard themselves as monotheistic, if the Mormons aren't worshiping the Baptist God, then they're not worshiping God period. If my values were strongly religious, I'd probably make a point of voting for people who shared my faith. I would probably avoid voting for someone of another faith which explicitly believes that it will play a role in saving and shaping the moral and religious character of my nation. Frankly, I don't see anything out of line about this, though it isn't the position I'm in. I'll probably think twice before voting for anyone of a faith that believes in and looks forward to an imminent Armageddon. These things are part of the context of a candidate. I can't see how this equates to Imus' racially insensitive (though maybe not racist?) remarks. Besides, here on TFP hardly anyone thought Imus should be fired. Most of us thought that it was completely understandable that his advertisers would flee, leaving CBS with little choice but to treat the guy as the liability he was. Sharpton's supporters are unlikely to desert him over these remarks. Most of them likely agree with him. |
how would y'all feel if the candidate were muslim or jewish, and sharpton had said that they were unlikely to be elected because people who really believe in god won't vote for them? i don't think pan's argument stems from any critique of sharpton's view on mormonism from the context of a religious leader, but rather from sharpton's implication that mormonism is a fake religion from the perspective of a religious civil right's advocate. it does seem a little hypocritical to me.
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I'd probably be saying the same thing.
Or do you think Sharpton the religious leader thinks that Muslims and Jews are going to heaven? Isn't the implication that most religious people think that those of other religions either don't believe in the right god, or that they believe in the right god the wrong way? Sharpton's mistake here was simply in enumerating what was patently obvious anyway. |
oh, i agree with the basis of what you're saying outside this context. i mean, you've got the people who make the analogy that the three judeo-christian religions are all different paths up the same mountain or whatnot, but i'd guess a fair number of each faith think the other ones are el fuque.
i think a lot of this has to do with which hat you think sharpton was wearing / primarily wears. civil rights 'we shall overcome' or reverend 'fire and brimstone.' since it was a theological debate, i can see the case for baptist minister in the situation; unfortunately, he's also elected to make himself a public symbol of civil rights / all inclusiveness etc. well, not really since a lot of his tactics are demonstrably divisive; however, i guess i would expect that many of the people who identify with so-called liberal thought would be a bit chived at the idea that he's calling mormons fake believers. |
Pigglet, you and I are close to each other in this.
The only thing you wrote that I think differently about is linking Sharpton's civil rights persona to inclusiveness. In fact, I don't know that I'd even characterize his work as civil rights work, although he rather loudly claims to be operating under that auspice. He's more of a...factional promoter. His interest is in the advancement of one group, good bad, or indifferent to other groups. I guess should say that personally, I find his comment to be bullheaded and ill-advised, though supportable and consistent with his other stated positions. I wouldn't have said it in so many words, but I'm not surprised he did. |
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I see all kinds of excuses and justifications as to why Al Sharpton was allowed to say what he said.... but he didn't say those things as a man of God, he said them as Al Sharpton "Civil Rights Leader, political analyst". Had he just been "Reverand" Al Sharpton leader of a church in NYC, he probably wouldn't have even been in the debate. And then the debate goes down to: Now Imus, doesn't portend to be some Civil Rights leader nor anyone other than a shock jock..... yet you want to crucify him for what he said.... "but it isn't about race it's about fresh faced college girls" But yet no one wants to acknowledge or accept the fact that Sharpton basically stated that Mormons don't believe in God.... thus he is hurting, degrading and damaging the psyche of fresh faced college girls at BYU and the fucking Osmonds (and again who can be more fresh faced than Donny and Marie????). But it's ok for Sharpton to hurt those people, but not alright for Imus to hurt anyone?????? And who enforces the rules when the enforcer is one of the culprits??? Ohhhh wait, Sharpton said it about a group that is stereotyped as rich, white folk..... If Pat Robertson had said it about Obama or Hilary, do you think they would accept it and laugh it off???? If Rush Limbaugh had said that about Obama or Hilary's religion would you still be defending the words as vehemently as you do now????? Where do you draw the line in your hypocritical world? Where do you decide and who are you to decide who is allowed to get hurt and who isn't by someone's words??????? Quote:
Imus' comment was ill advised, wrong and bullheaded but consistent with the persona he displays on his show. So again, why is one ok while the other was demonized and fired. Sharpton did not claim his religious hat then, he claimed his civil rights hat. Now that he states something divisive prejudicial and bigatorial.... it's ok because he is a "reverend" even though he is a civil rights advocate who by his own words states he defends all minorities not just black.... last I checked Mormons were very much a minority. |
Pan:
1) What do you mean by allow? Even in free speech cases, which this is not, prior restraint is not acceptable. 2) Sharpton the "Civil Rights Activist" and Sharpton the Reverend are the same guy. In that guy's eyes, Mormons don't believe in God. I doubt this comes as a surprise to Donny and Marie Osmond, however fresh their faces are. Frankly, I don't see this as any different than if he had been talking about scientologist, bahai, jainist, hindu, or sikh politicians. Just because you think that Mormonism and Baptist are of a kind doesn't make it so, nor does it make Sharpton think so. 3) It's not really OK or not OK for Sharpton OR Imus to "hurt people". However, it is something that happens. Depending on the substance and context of the alleged hurt, society pushes back. Apparently this pseudo-hurt (my words, not yours) rates lower than Imus' comments. In my personal opinion, this is because of the nature of the commercial interests at play. Advertisers will naturally push back harder than factional supporters (who are the types of people who fund Sharpton). It seems that in their view, getting him more attention is mostly a good thing. This is hardly the most hurtful or outrageous thing Al Sharpton has don. 4) I'm not sure if you're calling me (or people who think as I do) hypocritical or Al Sharpton. Since I'm not Al Sharpton, I suspect this means that your brush may be a tad wide. You know how Voltaire said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? That's kind of what I am getting at here. These guys get to say what they want, and then they get to suffer the consequences when people hear it. I think equating the two situations at hand is sloppy thinking. |
What I am simply trying to say and have been saying is I find it very hypocritical of ANYONE to say "Imus needed to lose his job" in one breath and in the very next say, "But what Sharpton said was ok because (insert BULLSHIT EXCUSE HERE)....."
Either both need to be punished or neither.... it can't be both ways. It is not about WHAT was said, it's about the hypocritical bullshit that one can say hateful, hurtful things and be demonized, while another gets away scot free. It makes it worse and shows the hypocrasy far more when Sharpton who was sooooo offended and sooooo public demanding justification over what Imus said.... says something just as offensive and gets excused for it. Did Sharpton bring religion in the Imus argument? Did he care about what religion the girls were? Did he even know? Of course not, he supposedly just cared because Imus was being prejudicial and hurtful and that was wrong. Soooooo how is it different when Sharpton says something hurtful and prejudicial???? I guarantee 99% of those defending Sharpton would be the first to demand Limbaugh's job, protest the Pope, demand an appology from Bush, etc etc if they had come out and said something similar about Hilary or Obama. If I were still a betting man I'd lay money on it. And no, I don't think it's sloppy or stretching, these 2 cases are very similar. The pain Sharpton brought the Mormons is not as worthy of discussion as the pain Imus supposedly caused?????? Who regulates and determines that????? And I agree very much with the Voltaire quote. It just seems some people want to be able to pick and choose not what can be said, not how painful it is..... but WHO is allowed to say what. Imus not allowed, he needed to be fired.... Sharpton allowed, we'll make up excuses as to why his words were ok. We shouldn't punish either, but IF we are to punish one we damned well better punish the other. |
Upon re-reading the article, I'm even less sure about where you're coming from Pan.
This was a debate between Al Sharpton and an atheist author who is currently promoting a book called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. First off, in this context, SHARPTON is the bigot you're attacking? Secondly, even though I don't buy into the whole "hats" theory, you claim that Sharpton was primarily appearing as a Civil Rights Activist? That doesn't really make sense. I really hate that I'm having to defend Al Sharpton, who I generally find reprehensible. However, nail him on the right stuff, not the easy stuff. EDIT: We posted on top of each other. I'm going to do the numbered list thing again to keep my points clear. I hope that isn't annoying you. 1) There's a difference between saying Imus needed to lose his job and predicting that he would. The people here, who you are talking to, mostly did one and not the other. 2) Imus made a general remark that could, at best, be characterized as a slur. Sharpton made a prediction that was based partially on a supportable view of the differences between his branch of christianity and mormanism, and partly on his knowledge of how his flock will likely discern between the two. Just because this difference is based on religion doesn't make it religionist. This is where I think the comparison is sloppy. 3) The outcry here may reach Imus like levels - it hasn't been that long, and think about how many days it took for CBS to let Imus go. Now, I predict, for many of the reasons enumerated in posts above that this won't happen. Most of all, the perception of wrongness and the ensuing outcry and reactions happen for a lot of reasons. As I said above, there isn't commercial pressure here as there was with Imus. That will substantially mute the furor, no matter what Sharpton says. My interest in this is more strategic than tactical - I don't really have a dog in the fight. I could very well end up being wrong about the fallout in this incident. I'm curious to see what shakran's take will be. He typically argues for equality among directions and types of discrimination. I wonder what he'll say about this. |
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hey jazz, that's an interesting point that should have been obvious to me, but which i didn't contextualize, in terms of him juxtaposing both himself and romney vs. the atheist he was debating. now i've got to decide whether or not i care about this junk enough to actually look for a transcript and read it for more context.
nope. not presently. perhaps another day. today, i drink upon a pale ale. |
If you didn't call for Imus' job and give a pass to Sharpton or vice versa.... then I have no beef with you. I am writing to all those who stated Imus had to be fired and yet are oddly silent about Sharpton.
That's all I've been saying, you cannot punish one without punishing both. |
I think two Mormons said it best: Either it's all ok or none of it is.
Al Sharpton is not a civil rights leader. Most blacks I know find him an embarassment and do not recognize him as their leader. Ditto Jesse Jackson. |
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http://www.channel3000.com/entertain...79/detail.html Sharpton Rallies Against Racist, Sexist Rap Lyrics and http://blogs.suntimes.com/mitchell/2...he_n_word.html On Monday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other black leaders applauded comedian Paul Mooney for agreeing to stop using the "n-word." Jonathan |
And don't forget this one from 2005...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/n...ap-music_x.htm seems that the only time some folks are interested in what Al Sharpton has to say it's when they need to disagree with him... liberal media, yeah-huh |
speaking of the media, now supposedly David Gregory might be in line to take Imus's slot. That annoys me on so many levels. . .
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Talking about Sharpton........ Last night I watched online the debate between him and Christopher Hitchens at the Slate-sponsored forum in New York (this is the one containing the infamous line from Sharpton about Romney that made the headlines, the one that was read to imply that Mormons don't really believe in god). The debate was over the existence of god, or whether religion is a good thing. I have watched Sharpton before, and he's a very clever and talented polemicist, but I have to tell you, on this one Hitchens just absolutely mopped the floor with him. Hitchens is a much better debater, by far. And that's really saying something, because Sharpton is good.
As for Sharpton's line about Romney, it's not clear to me what he meant. It could have been understood the sensational way the media reported it, but it also could simply be that Sharpton was saying he thinks people who really believe in god won't vote for a Republican. But have a look at the debate and judge for yourself. |
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