Word: imusã
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After calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos,” shock jock Don Imus quickly found himself embroiled in scandal. Despite Imus?? profuse apology, Reverend Al Sharpton didn’t seem keen on hearing any explanation. Appearing on everything from Larry King Live to Fox News, Sharpton mounted his crusade against Imus?? language. Suddenly, just as the nation was trying to digest and debate the event, we were bombarded by a din of nonsense from a man who enjoys the sound of his own voice...
...When denouncing Imus?? bigotry, numerous pundits have maintained that his comments would have been no less offensive had he been black himself, a sentiment nicely expressed by ESPN.com columnist Jemele Hill, who wrote, “In case you’re wondering, I would have been equally outraged if Imus were black, Asian, Latino, Portuguese, or Italian. The ethnicity or skin color of the perpetrator matters none.” Hill’s logic is a common feature of the conversation on racism. There is often an attempt to create an equality of offensiveness?...
...Well, Snoop has an answer. When asked whether his use of the term was comparable to Imus??, Dogg angrily responded, “First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha—as say we in the same league as him.” Snoop may be a little rough around the edges...
...Imus??s words hurt because they cut to the heart of what these women do, who they are, and what their accomplishments symbolize. Public outrage points more broadly to the scorn female athletes frequently receive from men and women alike for their “gross, big muscles” which make them “look butch and manly,” as one critic in college once remarked to me of my rowing teammates. Women athletes are still often evaluated by 19th century standards of femininity and fragility, rather than on the basis of their achievements...
...silencing him, why not push him to talk more, and pointedly, about the issues his remarks have raised? Invite the Rutgers women’s basketball team into the CBS studio and make Imus and McGuirk confront the faces of the people they have offended on national TV. Press Imus??s two or three million daily listeners to think hard about why it’s funny to make misogynistic jokes about women athletes. And, as the Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins has suggested, invite Imus to be a sponsor of Rutgers women?...