Beck's remarks were serious, but they were in direct response to statements that Ellison had made demanding that the United States leave Iraq immediately (statements that he has since backed down from). Again, if you watch the whole program, you will realize how ridiculous calling Beck a racist is. Beck has talked to him again about the oath on the Quran issue (and defended him).
I guess every ten years or so, we need to do something to piss off Caucasians. Any good footage of us jumping and dancing around like we did during the Simpson verdict (even though I was in high school and kids of every race were celebrating)? Pretty disproportional for a guy who spent two weeks apologizing, but there's no cure for pulled sponsors, or Crazy Sumner Redstone, who fires couch jumping Scientologists. Another possibility worth exploring is whether or not the NCAA threatened to pull the Men's Tourney rights from CBS in defense of their female student athletes; any special clauses in their broadcasting agreement about embarrassing the NCAA? In a roundabout way, this kind of shows the need for satellite radio. Better people get these impulses out on the radio than in campaign speeches or at the workplace. Anybody who listens to Opie and Anthony knows this would basically be a slow Tuesday.
I wouldn't call him a racist, but he was bigotted towards Ellison's religion. I don't think a Muslim talking about immediate withdraw from an unpopular war that isn't going well, is grounds for asking him to prove he isn't working with the enemies. Not only was Beck Serious, but his remarks were more serious.
"During his first stint at WNBC, Imus recorded three record albums, two for the RCA Victor label, (1200 Hamburgers to Go, including some of his more popular humor from KXOA, WGAR and WNBC broadcasts, and One Sacred Chicken to Go, a primarily studio-created album centering on his satirical character, The Right Rev. Dr. Billy Sol Hargis) and one for the Bang label (This Honky's Nuts, an album of his standup comedy act at the Manhattan nightclub "Jimmy's")." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Imus
You guys are right. I don't say things like that to people I don't know. But the man has a history. If he was so bad, he wouldn't last 1 minute let alone 40 something years. This is a lynching. Plain and simple. And now, I guess I better watch what I say around the work area. Not only are other people listening to me calling Andy "King of Jews" or "My Jew *****", they might actually get me fired because lets face it, I am a racist against Jews and Blacks. Thought police in full effect. Lets not talk about the politically incorrect. I say what I say in front of anyone at any time, any where. If you know me, you know what I am about. To judge me on WORDS and not on EXAMPLE shows how dumb people can still be in 2007. And one last thing. My congrats to Mr. Sharpton. He has a radio show that NOBODY KNEW ABOUT. He wasn't even in the NYC market...AND HE IS A NEW YORKER! Now, everyone knows. He got the job done. Get a nice bump in ratings and money. BRILLIANT!
It is hilarious to me that "nappy headed hoes" causes such an uproar. Racially motivated? Maybe. But to get fired over it? Please. Methinks some perspective (and valium) would be a good idea here. This is just another in a painfully long line of examples of how corporate America and advertisers are afraid of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. If one of those guys takes a disliking to something that is said, then heads have to roll.
Except that words do matter. We have free speech but free speech has consquences and in a capitalistic society one of those consequences is that your speech might negatively or positively affect your income. For me personally I never thought Imus should be fired and gave him credit for apologizing and even going onto Al Sharpton's shows. While free speech should be valued so should forgiveness.
Again, you obviously haven't heard the remarks in context (or you're purposefully misrepresenting them).
I think the criticism of his character may be overblown. Dude did offer an unconditional and sincere apology right away. And the comments should be taken in context of his schtick as a 'shock jock' Still....he chose to do that material. And it, understandably, offends many people. Myself included. So perhaps CBS was not the correct venue. And advertisers were pulling out. And so he's fired. He may be an incredibly generous human being. I have no idea. But his material was not right for CBS. And that's the thing with doing stuff that's 'on the edge' or offensive. Sometimes you go to far, and there may be no recovery. Once his statements hit the national spotlight, I don't think there was anything he could have done to stop the outrage. Nothing. He did all he could, and it wasn't enough. I don't think that's necessarily bad. Good on him for his charitable work. Good on him for handling the aftermath with relative class. But I don't like that crap on the airwaves, and have no problem with it been pulled. If others love his stuff, he'll resurface on another network or on cable. So I'll save my outrage and condemnation for other situations. A highly paid radio shock jock losing his job over totally inappropriate comments directed at amateur college athletes doesn't warrant more than a passing glance on my part (and a few paragraphs in Almu's blog ). I think CBS did the right thing here.
http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_081801_imus.html BROOKE GLADSTONE: Earlier this summer one of Imus's second bananas, Sid Rosenberg, made a joke in shockingly bad taste about tennis players Serena and Venus Williams. Imus fired him. And then promptly re-hired him. He explained that back in the bad old days of his own drug and alcohol abuse, people gave him about 50 second chances. Imus is all about forgiveness. But he admitted in an interview with Mike Wallace a few years back that he hired his staff to make racist jokes. MIKE WALLACE: You told Tom ANDERSON, the producer, in your car coming home that Bernard McGuirk is there to do "******" jokes. DON IMUS: Well I've n-- I never use that word. MIKE WALLACE: Tom? TOM ANDERSON: I'm right here. DON IMUS: Did I use that word? TOM ANDERSON: I recall you using that word. DON IMUS: Oh, okay, well then I used that word, but I mean-- of course that was an off the record conversation-- [LAUGHTER] MIKE WALLACE: The hell it was!
And here is the truth spoken at last. Imus was an easy target. As was Bill Maher when he said that suicide bombers were courageous. Doesn't matter that in fact, it arguably more courageous to suicide a plane into a building than lob a bomb from thousands of miles a way, or the fact that the name of his show was "politically incorrect", or that his show was profitable. What mattered is that people were offended, and Bill Maher was an easy target for the anger people had at the time. So he was sacraficed. Bill Maher didn't break any law, or even say anything was was immoral. But people didn't like it - people who didn't even watch his show but heard of it from others. And they passed judgement and went to the advertisers to force ABC to pull the show. Now, this is a dangerous precedent. It can be used to pull voices that others don't agree. If someone takes positions that are controversial and out-side of the main stream, small groups can call for them to be pulled through applying pressure on the advertisers. Advisters are anti-controversy and will always pull if there's a potential threat. Now a model for censorship is being built. This is not good. There's a real danger here. People are losing sight of something much more important then a few offensive words. The potential for abuse is immense, and while I care little for Imus, I wonder how far this form of control over what is broadcast will extend. Free ideas won't have an avenue for expression. We're limiting media. Even if the initial reasoning was for a noble cause - it will be corrupted and abused.
Words do matter - words that cause harm. Words that lead to death. You can't yell fire in a movie theatre. YOu can't lie about someone to tarnish them either. It's called slander and Libel. But apparently, you can tarnish someone by calling them a racist and ruin their lives because of a few words they have said. My fear is that now we're creating a device to pull any person from the media who someone of power and influence can use to their advantage. Maybe some day Oprah will say something controversial - and the pro-life league will put pressure to get her fired because they were offended. Maybe people will say she deserves it because she offended them - but is that fair to the people who she was a voice to? Think this is ridiculous? Maybe today, but by allowing this, we're creating a framework to push it further and further.
You're right Tom Delay was on CNN just now calling for Rosie to be fired for her opinions about..well...her opinions.
If I were easily offended, I'd want Rosie fired for her repeated bashing of Christianity. Instead, I don't watch.
The real way to get fired. Don't watch. Celebrities will wither and fade away. Doesn't take Al or Jesse to make that happen.
Yeah, what happened to Imus is the most hatefull stuff and biggest overeaction ever. Signed, the Dixie Chicks.
the Dixie Chicks didn't get fired. People stopped listening to them - they pissed off their audience. Imus didn't piss off his audience. He pissed of people who didn't even care for his show. He got fired. It would have been entirely different if his ratings dropped because of this and then he got fired for low ratings. See the difference?
