Imus?!?!

she doesn't even know us!!!

prior to the whole rutgers affair, i really couldn't stand don imus. he was unfunny, uncritical, and basically a full-fledged member of the power-whoring media elite.

ironically -- and quite sadly -- it's in his demise that we find that imus had the capactiy all along to examine critical intersections of race, class, and gender in this country, and to do so with a bit of eloquence, even.

don't get me wrong. i think it was right to can imus. i think limbaugh, and beck, and coulter, and o'reilly, and hannity, and every last monger of hate should be completely removed from the public airwaves. if assholes still want to listen to this crap, let them subscribe to it like they now do for howard stern. i mean, fuck, i have to pay to read paul krugman and frank rich and even david brooks (people should be paying me to read that utter utter simpleton) at nytimes.com.

what's more, we the taxpayers pay for talk radio. we own the AM and FM spectrum -- we pay for it with our taxes. the programming on there should not consist of very stupid people saying very stupid things. there should be discussion -- serious, thoughtful discussion -- of pressing and urgent issues. if we do have to have this kind of trash on our public airwaves, let it be the kind of beautiful trash brought by chris rock or dave chappelle. not only are they hilariously funny, they are edgy and provocative and thoughtful cultural workers. they reject simplistic ideas of human experience in favor of complex, nuanced, and unique ideas about what makes us human. they employ stereotypes not as answers to anything but as notions to be laughed at and then taken apart. (and if you think this is what deconstruction is, just stop using that word and go read derrida for the first time, butt-heads.)

instead we get coulter calling john edwards a f*ggot. we get o'reilly lying about -- jesus christ, everything.

but when imus, just before CBS let him go, said that -- "This phrase that I use, it originated in the black community. That didn’t give me a right to use it, but that’s where it originated. Who calls who that and why? We need to know that. I need to know that." -- it can't be read any other way than as an attempt to critically unpack the history and impact of a particular utterance. he wanted to contextualize the words "nappy" and "ho."

and while it's incredibly idiotic for him to try, in part, to blame hip-hop culture as a whole for this, he's certainly not the only one making that facile and false suggestion. yes, the ways in which hip-hop and rap musicians deploy certain racially-charged terms is deplorable. but they didn't cause him to so causually and maliciously denigrate a group of very very intelligent women. they didn't cause him to be so unthinking about his words for so so long.

and this is the problem with so-called shock jocks. they're not really funny. they're not causing anyone to think. they appeal to and exploit our desire to be horrible to our fellow people. it's not censorship or hypocrisy to push these assholes off the air.

and if we're forcing imus off, we should push others off too. but we won't. we'll let them continue to operate carelessly and without thought, and then we'll pretend to be outraged again when the next jerk says something equally stupid.

i for one am tired of paying for this bunk.