News and Editorials

Imus — What's left to say?

I’ve written many times about the slippery slope of discriminatory humor. It always hurts someone immediately and in the long run paves the way for more dangerous behavior toward “others”. In the short run, it doesn’t look like much and people pass on it as “harmless”.

Now we come to the case of Don Imus, a shock jock original whose stock in trade is offensive humor. Public commentators and entertainers, like Imus, allow us to chuckle in the privacy of our cars over what we’d be more embarrassed to say in public. Shock jocks are stalking horses for bad taste and bad manners toward people, a sort of cathartic release for society of our worst thoughts and prejudices.

We should not be surprised at all at his statements; he gets paid to behave like that!

He did apologize publicly, a good step for us (if not for him). Some of his contrite words are awkward, but some are reasonably stated. He’s a professional, after all, and he knows how to craft a statement when he needs to do so.

The incident shows how far this country has come in not tolerating public figures making racist remarks. That’s some good news. But remember that there’s a whole other side that vilifies “Political Correctness”, and you can be sure they’ll be heard from just as quickly as the disapproving columnists who lambasted Imus.

Should we fire people who let their mouths run off once? I don’t want to see that be an automatic response, because we all harbor discriminatory thoughts, and have been taught to voice all sorts of things we aren’t even aware of that may be hurtful to others. Is every comment in every situation of equal danger to society? I doubt that.

But we should definitely be prepared to examine the body of a public figure’s actions and character to discern their intentions and possible harm - and be prepared to fire some of them sometimes for sure.

I’m no fan of Imus, shock jocks in general, or entertainers whose whole gig is based on running through our prejudices of other people. I’ve seen others who are wildly popular do things at least as demeaning, to their own people as well as to those of different groups. Watch Dave Chappelle or Carlos Mencia for some prime examples. In fact, I’m quite surprised that nobody’s taken them off the air for their acts before now and I don’t see that anyone is seriously trying to.

The tragedy is that money talks here. Imus’ short suspension allows his station to get back to raking in even more money from the additional attention his show will receive from this publicity bonanza. So they’ve made the decision about what’s most important, and as you can see, it isn’t morality first….not to mention taste!

And we make the decision easy for them when we tune in to this stuff!

Broadcast media – TV and radio – are not villains. They are just businesses, whose content is what they sell to advertisers, which are in turn just other businesses. Many would “do the right thing” if it didn’t kill them off!

Some of the most exemplary moments in modern history involved broadcast media taking a stand that was likely to cost them dearly, and in so doing they altered the course of American and even world events. Edward R. Murrow comes to mind; Don Imus doesn’t.

Media need to fill their schedules with something; they cannot tolerate “dead air”. What they fill it with is whatever we, the audience, are most willing to lend our ears and our eyes to, because that’s what the advertisers are paying for. So we vote with our remote controls for the content we do and do not want.

Think about what we can do and take hold of that dial…

Bart A. Charlow, President
Silicon Valley Conference for Community and Justice

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