Quote:
Originally Posted by macallan25
They (him and Sid Rosenberg) were talking about the Tennessee vs. Rutgers women's basketball Final.
Imus: That's some rough girls from Rutgers...man....they got tattoos and....
Rosenberg:....some hardcore hoes....
Imus...haha...some nappy headed hoes there, haha, i'm tellin' ya......and uhhh....the girls from Tennessee....they all looked cute ya know?
Then they talked about how it was a Spike Lee type thing, the Jigaboos vs. the Wannabees. I think he was referencing Do The Right Thing. Then Rosenberg said that the women looked more like the Toronto Raptors or something like that.
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This is not racial in terms of "black vs. white", it was more in reference of skin complexions/tones. As macallan25 said, Imus and his producers continued on with the commentary further and made the distinction between good-looking woman being "light-skinned" vs. "darker skinned". Specifically the center from Tennessee is a light-skinned af.-american, which also goes back to the "jigaboos vs. wannabees" (from School Daze, which was about prejudice based upon skin complexions) and his producer did reply "do the right thing" afterwards. So essentially, the lighter you are, the cuter. It is not simply because someone was called nappy-headed that there are racial undertones. Unfortunately, most of this has been portrayed as being restricted to the "nappy-headed hoes" comment.
I have a problem with the entire conversation and how it was conducted because this simply began as commenting that the women from Tennessee beat the women from Rutgers in the NCAA finals the previous evening. I do not understand how it was necessary in discussing the game to bring up appearances and to call them "hoes" and make any comments about race. None of those comments have anything to do with it being a good game between two teams and one beating the other.
Unfortunately, Don Imus does have an extremely large following, he has a morning show that is not only on tv and a huge network (MSNBC) that people do give credence as a fact-worthy news source, it is also on radio. Majority of presidential candidates feel that it is important to go to his talk show as one of the main stopping places when running for office. Therefore, this is not a man who no one knew of until he made this little comment that was blown out-of-control and now will receive more publicity than ever. He is viewed by many as a credible newscaster.
I do want him to be fired, because I believe that when you are in certain positions, you have a certain level of accountability. I have problems with Al Sharpton and what he does and says, does he have a national radio show being broadcasted simultaneously on radio and one of the 3 major cable news stations? No, and if he did and was allowed to say prejudicial/racist/sexist things, would I feel he should be fired? Absolutely!
Also, the other reason, I believe that Imus should be fired is that he never apologized, he simply excused the fact that this is a different time period where certain comments are not allowed and if this were a different day and time, it would be different.
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