King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Now that Don Imus has been fired, is our world a better place?
Read more: Sports, Racial Issues, Radio, Race, Gender, Basketball, Sexism, Women's basketball, King Kaufman, Sports Daily
April 13, 2007 | I've stayed silent on the Don Imus affair so far, letting Salon editor Joan Walsh, freelancer Jonathan Miller and the Broadsheet blog handle it, which they've all done admirably.
As you know, Imus got into hot water when, joshing with a sidekick on his radio show, he called the players on the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" the day after the Scarlet Knights were beaten by Tennessee for the national championship.
Now that the whole thing has basically ended, with Imus fired by CBS Thursday and meeting with the Rutgers team at the New Jersey Governor's Mansion Thursday night, I have the same feeling I almost always have at the conclusion of these racial dust-ups.
Was that the best way to handle it?
The pattern of these things is familiar by now. Some public figure says something offensive, gets called on it, starts furiously back-pedaling and apologizing, and, usually, ends up getting fired.
Then there's some cheering, and we all move on to the next one. Tick, tick, tick. Who's up? I have Ozzie Guillen in three separate pools.
But with Imus trudging to the employment office I can't help asking the same things I always ask when we've reached this point in the process: Are we closer to a world of harmony and inclusiveness than we were before this all started? Has the dialogue improved? Are we getting better at talking about the uncomfortable issues of, in this case, race and gender?
The answer this time, I think, is no. The answer is almost always no. So what's the point? Why is it some kind of victory for the forces of good for Don Imus to lose his job?
Now, it doesn't bother me that Don Imus lost his job. He's an offensive blowhard, a bully and a self-aggrandizing jerk. There was never a second after I first heard his voice many years ago when his removal from the airwaves couldn't have come fast enough for me, to the extent I thought about him.
But I never thought about him much. When it comes down to it, I don't listen to Don Imus, and if thousands or millions of other people find it entertaining to listen to him, it's none of my business. Let them do their thing. I don't care.
Don Imus didn't invent offensive, bullying, self-aggrandizing blowhardism, and it won't go away if he never works another day in his life. What do you think is going to replace "Imus in the Morning," "Abe Lincoln at Large"? "Drive Time With Gandhi"? "Shootin' the Shiznit with Shakespeare"?
Talk radio did not just get smarter or kinder or more inclusive because Don Imus got canned.