AlterNet: MediaCulture: Imus Is Snoop's Frankenstein Monster: "Civil rights leaders should protest Snoop Dogg's forthcoming album. Imus demeaned a basketball team but Snoop has demeaned a generation of young blacks."
I'm still trying to digest the whole Imus-Rutgers Women's Basketball team ordeal.
As a social worker, and from personal experience, I believe that a crisis creates opportunity, and
certainly Coach C. Vivian Stringer and her players expressed that sentiment beautifully.
By allowing the usual scene-stealers like Sharpton to dominate the scene, however, and by demanding Imus' firing, they may have short-changed us all. The opportunity existed to demand that Imus use his resources to bring attention to the issues of hate-speech, bullying and misogyny. Stringer and her team say they didn't want him fired.
If this ends hate speech on the airwaves, I'd say the firing was worthwhile, but it won't.
Limbaugh and Savage and their like will continue to spew ethnic and racial slurs. Rap musicians will continue to degrade people within their community, and the opportunity to continue talking about these issues will be lost. Sharpton will go off to find another injustice.
Charles Barkley and Mike Wilbon had the courage to open the issue of race to discussion with their book, Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man? How many people read these days, though? Imagine getting Imus to commit to talking with people like Barkley and Wilbon about what he said and why he said it and keep talking about it with others. Easier to demonize him and close the window of opportunity.
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