On racism, sexism, and free speech

[rolfboy]

Yesterday, "spooked" posted regarding his/her fear and Imus' firing. I know most DU'ers are
probably sick of reading one more post about Imus, his firing, and various conspiratorial theories about it all.

I was in the midst of writing a reply when our power went out. We live in Vermont and this is a regular thing. Sometimes it's for a few minutes, other times it's for a day. yesterday, it was for a day. Thanks to the pre-mud season Nor-Easter :)

I believe what is truly scary about Imus' firing is that it forces all of us to look at each other's views and actions and speech.

Imus wasn't fired because his speech was racist or sexist. If we was then he'ld have
been fired long ago. He was fired because the media moguls were frightened of their
pocketbooks. Imus was making those a**holes tons of money, and they would've had NO
reason to fire him, until staples, ge, gm pulled out (to appear PC to the world).

Frank Rich got it exactly RIGHT in Sunday's NYT op-ed piece. Imus was fired because our right to free speech "scares" the moneybags.

If this country was so concerned about racist and sexist speech, then the MSM wouldn't have
continued repeating the three words that Imus said over and over and over and over again.

Why was it necessary to repeat his words? WHy couldn't they just say Imus used racist, sexist inflammatory language against the Rutgers women's basketball team? Because the MSM new that those three words would continue to sell advertising, arouse interest from rubberneckers, which would continue to support advertisers.

By using those three words, the MSM continued to degrade, denigrate, and disrespect the Rutgers women's basketball team as well as all women, african-americans, and everyone else concerned about equality amongst everyone.

Frank Rich was the only article i read about this whole issue who did NOT use those three words.

No, Imus losing his job doesn't scare me about my future. Imus losing his job scares me
about the future of this country: the gradual elimination of free speech, the refusal or neglect to
really talk about why and how we continue to harbor racist and sexist feelings against each other through our speech, actions.

Even my mom doesn't get the anger from black americans. Being Jewish, a WW2 survivor, and an immigrant, she feels that 400 years of oppression is a sorry excuse because she was able to pull herself out of the refugee camps, and re-make her life. What she doesn't get (IMHO) is the color of skin allows her to fit in. People of color don't have that advantage, and are a reminder to us white folk that we (ie, our ancestors) behaved badly and we just don't know what to do.

What scares me is that no one will enter the discussion with compassion to really understand how racist and sexist language hurts us all. Let's have a national Truth in Reconciliation conference co-sponsored by the NAACP and say the KKK (ok, flame-bait, but just trying to make a point). Let's get all the anger out, let's have black, grey, yellow, white, rainbow, meeting each other face to face, crying, laughing, healing.

I think only then will the bill o'reilly's, savage's, beck's, maybe even coulter's get how their FREE speech hurts people.

thanks for putting up with another take on Imus,
rolfboy