By Matt Cavedon, Copy Editor
With the recent controversy over Don Imus’s racist comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, and with the subsequent outrage from “civil rights leaders” Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, it’s high time to start considering the double standards we hold in our society. Imus’s radio show was pulled from television after the scandal and the two reverends emerged as voices of protest in the wake of the controversy. Some people have sought to defend Imus as a good man who made some foolish remarks, urging that his show be allowed to remain on the air. Others have sided with the self-righteous reverends, calling for his removal.
Which brings us back to the title of this article. Who should you side with in these controversies? NOBODY! They are all idiots! Imus made absolutely unacceptable remarks. This is nothing new for him. He is a shock jock, and is no stranger to controversy. One could only hope that he would have learned a lesson in respect by now. He has no right in the world to make sexist, racist comments about women’s basketball players.
At the same time, Jackson and Sharpton are entirely disgusting as hypocrites. Jackson fathered a child out of wedlock, even as a minister. A scarlet letter, anyone? He also referred to Jews with slurs and suggested that New York City is controlled by Jews in a 1984 Washington Post interview. Sharpton also needs a lesson in tolerance. He helped incite violence against Hasidic Jews in New York City in 1991, referring to them as “diamond merchants” who were guilty of shedding “the blood of innocent babies,” at a highly-charged funeral. Riots had broken out only days earlier. He hardly contributed to Christian peace in the Big Apple when it was needed most.
Imus, Sharpton, and Jackson have one thing in common: they have all been unabashedly prejudiced at points in their careers. They are all terribly controversial men. The hip-hop community has been no better, with its depictions of women, especially black women, as objects of pleasure incapable of independence or dignity. They are also one of the greatest abusers of the n-word in modern American society.
Does this context of prejudice, racism, and sexism among his critics make Imus’s remarks acceptable? Absolutely not. MSNBC was right to take him off the air. Although the government’s role in such censorship should be severely limited, the market has every right to call for respect and civility.
Americans need to start demanding decency and civility across the board. Sexism, racism, and slurs are totally unacceptable, whether they come from a white shock jock, two black reverends, or the hip-hop community. Imus would be wise to never bring such scandal again, if he gets another chance on the air. The two reverends would be wise to remember their own transgressions and embrace the principle of forgiveness that is the foundation of Christianity. The black community needs more tolerant and compassionate voices to carry the torch of civil rights from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. He set an example of dignity and respect that all Americans can learn from. His legacy, one of peace, forgiveness, and love, is the real legacy of the civil rights movement. Get the hypocrites off of the podium.
Stop and remember the Bible, that so many of these men and women hoist up in the midst of their intolerant remarks. Jesus teaches, “Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.”