Bent Corner

Don Imus is once again in hot water over something he said on his radio show. Last time is was about the hair style of the Rutgers ladies basketball team. This time it was concerning former Tennessee Titans defensive back Pacman Adam Jones.

Maybe the I-Man shouldn’t talk about sports?

He and the rest of the people on his show were discussing Jones and how he has been arrested multiple times for multiple offenses. This is what Imus said:

Imus: “What color is he?”

Warner Wolf: “African-American”

Imus: “There you go. Now we know.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I think any time you begin your statement by asking what color someone is, it cannot be good.

I thought much of the Imus outrage the last go around was overblown.  I thought what he said about the lady basketball players was stupid, but I did not think it was as bad as most people pretended it was.  With that said, I think this statement is worse then what he said about the lady basketball players.  A lot worse.

Don Imus is just a big old racist idiot.  He needs to just go away.

I promise that I’m not going to permanently blog about the Don Imus “nappy-headed ho” controversy, but I tend to write about things that interest me. Sometimes I write about funny books. Sometimes I write about politics. Like I said, I blog about things that I find interesting.

Right now, I’m finding the Imus story interesting.

Yesterday’s New York Daily News ran a story about one of the ministers that was calling for Imus to be fired. The man’s name is Reverend DeForest Soaries and he hails from New Jersey. He claims to be one of the first to call for Imus to be fired. I’m not sure if this entitles him to print up t-shirts and trucker hats stating this fact, but I guess only time will tell.

He tells of being asked to act as a liaison between the Rutgers basketball team and Imus by Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer, a member of his flock. Not that I really understand why a liaison was needed. Soaries tells the New York Daily News of meeting with Imus in New York to discuss meeting with the team. As it turns out, the meeting took place minutes if not seconds after Imus found out he was fired from MSNBC.

“I became more of a pastor to him than the facilitator of the meeting,” he said.

“We didn’t even talk about what I was supposed to be there for. I needed to be with him spiritually. This was a man who’d just got big, bad news and he needed me to listen to him.

“He didn’t cry, but I could see he was in pain. He tried to joke, but it was a mask for that pain. He seemed hurt by what had happened to him.

“He felt somewhat betrayed by certain people. He didn’t name anybody, but he thought certain people could have given him more time.

“He thinks he should have been given the chance to meet the team first, that if those people could see he was truly repentant, then CBS and MSNBC would see it that way, too.

“I had words of consolation for him, even though I was one of those asking for him to be fired.”

I’m glad that Reverend Soaries could console and act as a paster to Imus. The last time I checked, that is what our holy men are supposed to do. They aren’t supposed to demand that people be fired from their jobs. They are supposed to act as spiritual counselors.

They are supposed to be advocates for forgiveness. At least the Christian ones. Forgiveness is what the Christian faith is based on. It’s what Jesus preached about. It’s what he commanded us to do to each other. To forgive. Something not a lot of the reverends involved in the Imus controversy have been doing.

Forgiveness means that you don’t demand somebody to be fired.

Shouldn’t Reverend Soaries have kept silent about ministering to Imus? Doesn’t he have some sort of ethical obligation to keep quiet about consoling Imus?

I’m sure Reverend DeForest Soaries did nothing wrong by speaking to the New York Daily News about the meeting. I can tell by looking at his photo that Reverend DeForest Soaries is a very honorable man. Did you notice the way he sits with his chin resting in the palm of his hand? He looks to be very thoughtful and insightful. Plus, I see from his photo that he fancies shirts with French cuffs. Nothing speaks integrity more then fancy French shirts.

Imus on the other hand wears cowboy clothes.

Let this be a lesson. It doesn’t matter how many awards you have won. It doesn’t matter how much money you have raised for various charities. It doesn’t matter that you are in your profession’s Hall of Fame.

If you make a derogatory comment about black women, you had better do it on a hip hop album or on BET.

Even if you say it only in jest. Even if in your profession saying dumb funny things is not only acceptable, it’s expected. Even if you then go on to apologize repeatedly for what you said.

I will be the first to admit that Imus could be a jerk. He could be extremely offensive. What set him apart from so many other jerks was that he was an equal opportunity offender. It didn’t matter who you were. If you were in the public eye, he would probably get around to saying something offensive about you. He would ridicule anyone, including himself. Especially himself. It’s what he did best.

Some will argue that Don Imus is a racist. They will say that by saying “nappy-headed ho’s” on his radio program, he proved his racism. I would argue that a racist wouldn’t dare say something in public that could be interpreted as racist. They wouldn’t make a dumb joke about a woman’s college basketball team where most of the woman were black. No, a racist is more careful with what they say in public. A racist wouldn’t endorse an African-American candidate for the U.S. Senate. A racist wouldn’t then go on and aggressively defend that African-American candidate when racists attempt to smear the candidate with lies.

I’ve known real racists. Don Imus wasn’t a racist. He was just a guy on the radio that liked to make jokes.

Now that this whole ordeal is over and racism has finally been eradicated, I hope this means Jesse Jackson now has time to do what Don Imus did. Jesse Jackson said some awful things about three college athletes. Young men that played lacrosse at Duke University. The men had been accused of raping a woman. Something that proved to be not true. The woman lied.

Jesse Jackson said awful, untrue things about the Duke lacrosse players. At least he never made fun of their hair.

From the April 4 edition of MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning:

IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between — a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women’s final.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night — seventh championship for [Tennessee coach] Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That’s some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and –

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

IMUS: That’s some nappy-headed hos there. I’m gonna tell you that now, man, that’s some — woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like — kinda like — I don’t know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes — that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough –

McCORD: Do The Right Thing.

McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

IMUS: I don’t know if I’d have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

IMUS: Well, I guess, yeah.

RUFFINO: Only tougher.

McGUIRK: The [Memphis] Grizzlies would be more appropriate.