Thank You Don Imus

Don Imus. Now everyone in America knows that name for all the wrong reasons. Imus joined a short list of people have been fired for saying something very stupid on a national broadcast. Howard Cossell made a living at it, but it caught up with him. Jimmy the Greek was not even on the air, just drunk at a party when it caught up with him. There are others.

So why thank Don Imus? Because the aftermath of Imus' ill conceived, racist comment has included the quite unintentional debate over what language should be acceptable and should not. Many have weighed in with their opinions. Most notably, Snoop Doggy Dogg.

What Snoop has started is a massive orgy of rationalization and justification. It seems that nearly everyone has made a boneheaded racist, elitist, or otherwise ignorant comment at one time or another. And we all want to present our excuses for it. Snoop basically falls back on the old "street cred" excuse. He's been there, he's lived it, etc, etc, etc.

A couple points about our good friend Mr. Doggy Dogg. First, in his comments Snoop said, "We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing sh--, that's trying to get a n---a for his money." So not only does Snoop think its acceptable for him to call women that he judges to be of illmotive, "hos" but he also inadvertantly endorses use of the dreaded n-word.

That brings me to the second point. Don Imus likely would have never had any idea what the term "nappy headed hos" meant if it weren't for the perpetuation of these terms by segments of the black culture in this country, headed by individuals like Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Don Imus is an idiot. There's no doubt about it. If he honestly thought people would wink at this and go on, he's got the intelligence of a chickpea. But the utter hypocrisy of individuals like Snoop Dogg who cry foul at individuals who use this sort of language and then sell records that freely use those terms is staggering.

The worst part of it is that people continue to buy Snoop's rationalization. Gee, he's black, he was poor growing up, he must be right about this.

Let me clear something up for you. He's not right. He's wrong. He's dead wrong. And it's ridiculous to expect one segment of the population (whites) to walk on eggshells into perpetuity while another segment (blacks) get carte blanche to say what they want, when they want to, where they want to with the excuse of having "lived it."

I don't want the right to use words like that. I don't want to be able to freely throw barbs at people. But if we're going to push the idea of equality in all things in this glorious democratic society, then let's level all playing fields. That means same opportunities, same rules for everyone. Don't decry the evils of society of you are part of that evil, Snoop.