Imus Fired

Well, the other shoe dropped in the Don Imus "nappy-headed ho" caper:

CBS announced Thursday that it has fired Don Imus from his radio program, following a week of uproar over the radio host's derogatory comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

I highlighted the key words in that paragraph, the words which prove to me that what Imus said was wrong, but never a legitimate firing offense. If it had been a firing offense, he would have been gone the same day the words were uttered, but instead, CBS had to stick a finger in the wind to see if there was enough uproar to require them to do the politically correct thing and fire the guy. The cumulative effects of the Shakedown King (Jesse Jackson) and the Harlem Charlatan (Al Sharpton) finally created too much heat for MSNBC and CBS.

So, the purveyors of "Hymietown" and "White Interlopers", who have a list of moral failures a mile long and yet still have careers and public standing, get to be the arbiters of what can and can't be said on the air by dumb white guys. No question - the end of the world is near.

And please understand, I'm no fan of Imus. He's pretty liberal in his politics (he endorsed John Kerry for Pete's sake) and he and I probably wouldn't have much in common. However, making a racially questionable comment should not cost someone their career. It simply isn't that important.

There is only one unpardonable sin in today's society and that's racism, or even a whiff of racism. You can murder, rape, molest, rob or destroy, and you can still be welcomed back to society. Any hint of racism or bigotry, however, and you're gone.

Just look at O.J. Simpson. No reasonable person doubts that O.J. brutally killed two people, and yet he walks free and relatively unmolested all these years later. Why? Racism. The defense team managed to show that one of the detectives working the case had written something that had racial overtones, and the result was a defense conspiracy theory of amazing complexity that gave the jury the barest of reasons to aquit. They didn't think O.J. was innocent - they thought the detective was guilty of racism and therefore sought to punish him by releasing a double murderer. Some justice system we have.

Racism also played a huge role in the Duke rape case. Was it the supposed rape of a stripper that got everyone upset? Nope, it was rich white guys abusing a poor black woman. Had the stripper been white, or better yet the players been black, there never would have been any charges and nobody outside the local area would have ever heard of the story.

Don't think for a minute that Imus' firing will be the end of the story. Sharpton is now demanding that MSNBC and other broadcaster increase the "diversity" in their lineup. Too many white folks. It doesn't "reflect America".

I tell you what, when the NBA and the NFL "reflect America" in terms of racial diversity, I'll worry about MSNBC and other broadcast outlets.