Final: No One Has the Right to Degrade

The National Association of Black Journalists was the first to raise issue with CBS about Don Imus’ racist and sexist statements concerning the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. Ever since, there has been unending speculation about how this will effect the broadcasting industry and radio in particular. Where do you draw the boundaries in a culture that is swamped in obscene and vulgar speech?

Ken Auletta, media critic, points out that now there is mass confusion in the radio broadcasting circles. “If you're Don Imus, you say, 'Suddenly, I'm being fired for what I do all the time?" (ABC News Transcript). However, broadcasting standards do exist and Imus knew that on the public airwaves there are vulgarities that you cannot use, while he was being paid money to say them. And in a free market, it is really up to the executives at NBC, Steve Capus and Les Moonves at CBS, to decide if their companies are going to be associated with someone who repeatedly uses racial, ethnic, religious slurs. In an interview with CBS, Reverend Al Sharpton made the point that the uproar over Imus’ remarks is “about the responsible and ethical use of the airwaves” (CBS Fires Don Imus; Interview With Reverend Al Sharpton, Kurtz). As a culture, we are surprised not when slurs are said, but when people are offended. As far as terrestrial radio goes, hosts are worried that they will “all have to walk on egg shells from now on… as vile as his speech was, don't we lose something more valuable [in free speech] than just racial sensitivity?” (ABC News Transcript).

Meanwhile, Imus will be just fine. Financial Wire reports that he will have a new burgeoning career as a shock jock on the new home of Howard Stern, Satellite Radio. Satellite radio channels are not as strictly regulated for decency as terrestrial programming is.

So, its established that radio hosts are not to use overly offensive, vulgar language while broadcasting. How then, do hip-hop artists get away with the rap lyrics that are racist and sexist, and also extremely popular? The difference between Imus and rappers may be that the rappers are actually censored on radio and have been since the beginning. This is because of Mrs. Gore and the music fan group, The PMRC. References to guns and drugs are “bleeped, reversed and flat out cut out of songs” (Really Really Good: Turn Off The Radio - AKA the Whole Story of Imus and Hip-Hop, Cue). The actual words marijuana and gun are forbidden on any Hot or Jamz station across the country, at least until after-hours (Really Really Good: Turn Off The Radio - AKA the Whole Story of Imus and Hip-Hop, Cue).

The argument is not for less censorship of rap lyrics, but rather, how do we change this culture? Amy Holmes, a republican strategist, remembers when C. DeLores Tucker first launched her campaign against hip-hop lyrics. She was declared “old and out of it and unhip and uncool” (CBS Fires Don Imus; Interview With Reverend Al Sharpton, Kurtz). Now, though, all different age groups and all different ethnicities seem to have had enough."Essence" magazine has had a take-back-the-music initiative since 2005 (CBS Fires Don Imus; Interview With Reverend Al Sharpton, Kurtz).

Still, there is no shortage of consumers of urban music. In an MTV phone interview, Snoop Dogg responded to Imus’ comments. "We ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel" (Offensive language -- where to draw the line, Winn). The problem is that the lyrics is that they have mainstreamed the denigrating language. When you take into account that 80% of the consumers of gangster rap are white, teenage boys, it spreads into the mainstream so much so that it ends up on MSNBC, a news organization at CBS radio in the mouth of Don Imus (CBS Fires Don Imus; Interview With Reverend Al Sharpton, Kurtz). Constance Rice, a civil rights attorney, believes the first fight should be against the artists and music that made this kind of language top, number one hits. She says, “Imus didn't come up
with the song, 'I've Got a Ho in Every Zip Code" (ABC News Transcript).

Perhaps, white America fails to be shocked by this behavior because of what Barbara Ciara of the National Association of Black Journalist, calls "diversity fatigue," which creates a tacit acceptance of language that insults racial and ethnic groups and women (Offensive language -- where to draw the line, Winn). Even Imus himself knows “that these young women, young black women all through that society are demeaned and disparaged and disrespected by their own black men and they are called that name. I know that doesn't give me obviously any right to say it. But it doesn't give them any right to say it” (CBS Fires Don Imus; Interview With Reverend Al Sharpton, Kurtz).

So now we hope that professionals in the media, including talk radio, cable television, newspapers and magazines will decide to put their energy into this issue, and even though the media has a split-second attention span, keep raising the issue so we educate America. In the Huffington Post last week, “All in the Family” creater Norman Leor talked about “an unending coarsening of the culture” (Offensive language -- where to draw the line, Winn). Perhaps the media is not to blame, as they merely respond to our calls and demands. Hosts like Imus have made bigotry entertaining. Listeners enjoy hearing this man and his racially charged remarks. If that is what passes for entertainment these days, then we should heed the words of two very famous rap artists, Ice Cube and dead prez, and "Turn off the radio! Turn off that bullsh--t!" (Really Really Good: Turn Off The Radio - AKA the Whole Story of Imus and Hip-Hop, Cue).