I stayed in all day today, and I had talk radio on. The discussion about Imus went on for - truly - the entire day from one show to the next, starting in the morning and still going on at dinner time when I shut it off. I left the radio on because I thought the subject would change, and it never did. It amazes me that this thing was kept up for so long. There are other issues in the world. If people don't like him don't listen to him, and if they want to punish him don't listen to his show.
I don't believe racism is "alive and well". I believe it is barely alive but dying. Turning one lousy remark by a person who is only an entertainer into a week long national saga can create the impression that racism is alive well when - really - the majority of people in this country probably wouldn't even really pay attention to the fact that the young women on the Rutgers team were Black.
I don't think people are necessarily stupid and hypocritical about racism either. We all tend to think other people are probably like us, so if we are not racists and don't make racist jokes because we don't even have such so-called jokes in our hearts we tend to think others are like us.
Does racism exist among ignorant people? Sure, but who cares what the ignorant think; and social pressure can be a good tool in slowing down the ignorant person's willingness to pipe off with his racism. Is racism alive and well? I don't think so. Again, I think its barely alive and in isolated situations. I think its dying, and I think the majority of Americans are willing to try to beat it to death to try to speed up the process.
The way I see it, if you imagine society as a huge, nice, lawn and imagine that racism as it exists today is like weeds in that otherwise nice lawn, you realize that if you let the weeds grow they'll ruin the lawn; so you pull them up or spray them with weed-killer when you see them. I think, though, that because a few weeds remain that you don't yet see it shouldn't mean that you fail to see the beauty of the lawn. There isn't a lot of point in focusing on the few hidden weeds and failing to see the beauty of the lawn.
As few as forty years ago the "lawn" was riddled with weeds, but today there are a few hidden ones. If we see them we need to deal with them, and maybe we have to look for them from time to time, but I think we're very close to where we'll be a weed-free lawn; so I think its wrong for national media to create the impression that the "lawn" is riddled with weeds the way it was in the past; when it just isn't. I don't see any benefit to young Black people who are just building their identity or to older Black people who may have lived through far more ignorant times in our history to create the impression that racism is a bigger problem in our country than it really is.
Perception can be reality at times, and magnifying the few "weeds" in the "lawn" and causing your Black Americans to focus on those has the potential of changing the perception they will have of the country that are growing up in. Young White Americans get to grow up focusing on the beauty of the lawn while knowing there are a few weeds to be dealt with. Young Black Americans deserve the luxury of the same thing because while perception can feel like reality, the fact is the reality is very different from the perception that the national media has created with this Imus thing; and young Black people's perception of our society in general should more involve reallity rather than a magnification of a few ugly weeds. Are the "weeds" part of the reality too? Sure - but they're a very small part of an otherwise nice "lawn" to be dealt with but not focused on; and it is a crummy thing for the national media to contribute to any young Black American's thinking that he or she has been born into a situation where the "lawn" is riddled with weeds the way it used to be.
Condoleeza Rice commented in an interview that when she was a child her parents tried to shield her from the ugliness that was going on in the South. She didn't seem to think her parents did the wrong thing. For a whole lot of young Black Americans who just might benefit from believing that with whatever they may have to deal with in their personal life maybe - just maybe - if they move out and beyond their small circle there is world where the "lawn" looks pretty nice it serves absolutely no positive purpose for national media to spend a week drumming into the heads of a lot of young people that the picture isn't any better beyond their small circle when, in fact, it is.
For the national media to harp on the lousy remark of one little guy who shouldn't matter to anyone and to magnify it to the point that it has amounts to its own form of cruelty, and cruelty directed at one group of people in our society would seem, to me, to amount to its own form of racism. If you had a young, blond-haired/blue-eyed daughter and some clown called blond-haired/blue-eyed young women "ho's" would you make sure you repeated it over and over and over again until you made sure your own daughter heard that someone called what she is a "ho"?!! I don't think so. You'd most likely forget you heard the remark and never repeat it because you wouldn't want to make your daughter feel attacked. It might have been nice if someone had bothered to attempt to protect all the young Black daughters in the country from listening to something they otherwise may not have heard; but, instead, the national media has pretty much guaranteed that all but the very youngest of girls have heard this remark. That's just "lovely". Imus was a piece of work for making such a crummy remark, but the national media is, I think, even more guilty for publicizing and magnifying it to the point that it is.
That's what I think.