I am speaking about the current furor over Don Imus and his idiotic comment about the Rutger's women's basketball team, referring to them as "nappy headed hos".
First of all, it's simply mindboggling to me that anyone was shocked by his outburst. He's a talk radio host, and one that's not known for being particularly polite or PC. By the way, even if he were, he's just not that important. He doesn't make policy. I simply cannot understand why anyone could take this so seriously, as obnoxious as he was.
But, of course, you have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton right in the thick of things. I'd be a bit more impressed if I ever saw them protest against the rap music industry and it's portrayal of women. Have you heard any of the lyrics or seen any of the videos? It makes me sick to think of my little daughter being influenced by those distorted and sick images of what women should be. (By the way save your emails, I know not all rap is like that. But there's plenty that is). Oh Rev. Sharpton once made noises about rap music, but it was about the violence connected to it. Admirable enough I suppose, not that he carried THAT on for very long. But when it comes to women in rap he said on a CNN interview, "Some I think is misogynist. But that's not the point.". Evidently it's only the point when a famous radio personality makes a disgusting comment. After all, talking about the immorality of how women are looked at all too often in the rap culture might cost him supporters among a certain segment. I guess in that case it must be a matter of "screw those hos, we need free speech!"As to Jesse Jackson, I wasn't able to find a word at all about the subject.
What really bothers me is my fellow citizens. Of all the things to obsess about, this must be one of the stupidest. We have a war in Iraq that continues to drain this country of money we need to help people here at home. Hundreds continue to die. We have a President that considers himself a near totalitarian leader and a new Democratically controlled Congress that seems all too willing to give in to him. We live in country where the gap between the rich and the poor is widening in alarmingly huge leaps and bounds. In a country that people are dying from lack of heath care because they don't have insurance, and are afraid to go to the doctor when something's wrong because they can't afford it. A nation where we have a housing market that's collapsing or collapsed that we haven't seen the end of yet, or it's effects. And now we even live in a world that because of our apathy has become increasingly dangerous and hostile to us because of incompetency, lies, and corruption.
But hey we have better things to worry about. Pets getting sick is far more important than our troops coming home with PTSD, or brain injuries, or without eyes to cry. We can just hide them away in some hell hole like the out patient quarters at Walter Reed with mice and rats and roaches and try not to pay attention to these people that we mistreat so badly. Except when we are forced to, and even then, once we get some empty promises from the same people that created these conditions we cease to care. And when it really comes down to it, who cares about Iraqi children dying from the lack of common medical supplies to control dysentery, or having their arms blown off in another suicide bombing when Fido isn't feeling up to snuff.
I could go on and on with the things we should be obsessing about, but what's the point? We won't. There was a radio talk show host in Chicago, that after 9/11 whenever some ludicrous, superficial thing came to the forefront of our cultural attention would say, "And that's why they hate us" At first I found it very funny. But sometimes these days my laughter is pretty dark, and mixed with tears
