The N word. No, not that one.

[captainsblog]

With an hour of Sopranos in the can from after we all fell down asleep early last night, I got up this morning, pulled out my headphones and cued up the DVD of last night's premiere. First, though, I had an odd thought: hey, I haven't watched Imus on MSNBC in awhile, with the headphones on, I can watch a little of it.

Instead I wound up watching the aftermath of a shitstorm.

Full disclosures are in order. I've listened to Imus (believe me, a far more pleasurable experience than watching him), on and off, since 1972. His newswriter/traffic reporter is one of my oldest friends. I even met him, and Howard Stern, back in the day when they both worked at WNBC-AM and neither had ascended to the heights of hubris they now occupy. I like his format, think the satire is biting and mostly balls-on, and Charles McCord is a trouper among troupers for putting up with the man for going on 40 years.

That said, I also think Imus is a boor, with most of his personal brain cells lost to various substances, controlled and otherwise; and that his ad-libbing with Bernard is some of the most detestable tripe to get between the foul lines of the FCC. And such tripe is what's bringing down the wrath right now:

Imus made the now infamous remark during his show Wednesday.

The Rutgers team, which includes eight black women, had lost the day before in the NCAA women's championship game. Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGuirk about the game when the exchange began on "Imus in the Morning," which is broadcast to millions of people on more than 70 stations and MSNBC.

"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos..."

"Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said.

"That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.



Normally, I would have just rolled my eyes, said, Nice knowin' ya, I-Man, and assumed this kind of talk had crossed one of those racial lines that a dead white male eye of my type just can't see but should recognize anyway. I would, however, have also assumed that most of the condemnation came from use of the first of the two slurs, since otherwise half of modern radio would be pulled off the air if you couldn't call a ho a ho.

Except for this one coincidence, I'm sure that's what I would have thought. But last night, the three of us sat down and watched Happy Feet (as at least one other Friend here did over the weekend). We tend to watch DVDs with the subtitles turned on, partly to compensate for my slight hearing loss but also to catch some of the nuances you sometimes only get by reading them.  And what appeared on those titles, in two different parts of the film, but the following Stevie Wonder lyrics from the song "I Wish":

Looking back on when I  was a little nappy headed boy
Then my only worry was for Christmas what would be my toy
Even though we sometimes would not get a thing
We were happy with the joy the day would bring.

Making it even stranger is that the lyricists altered some of the words of that verse, but not the first line. So it's okay for a penguin to sing this but not for a moron on morning radio to say it?

I don't excuse it. I don't think the slams on womens basketball are called for, at any level or against any race, and as Nancy Lieberman could tell you, white chicks don't miss out on the horse and lesbian remarks, either. But getting the Usual Suspects Reverends into a tizzy over it when there's far more of a mess out there, much of it black-on-black? I'm not buying it. And I wonder what Obama's take will be on it; he's been Imus's guest on the more serious parts of the show, and I have far more respect for what he'd say than I do for those other two, um.... nice weather we're having, isn't it?

----

For the moment, at least, Imus, Bernard and all the crew are still on the air. Much contrition has been expressed, Sharpton's been invited on the show, and Imus himself just looks about done in by the whole thing, his swagger-meter barely registering. Worst of all? Between all that (not to mention all this here), I only got to catch the first act of the Sopranos premiere, so no spoilage just yet, plxkthanx?

Comments

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

It's in poor taste, to be sure, but no more so than some gang-banging rap thug. And by the way, I find "ho" a helluva lot more offensive than "nappy-headed," but that's just me.