I finally figured out what has been bothering me about the Don Imus debacle.
It wasn’t that he was stupid and used a racially charged term to describe a group of successful, hard-working young women. It’s that he did it and he’s not really a racist. He tossed off a charged term intended to hurt without having an ounce of feeling or passion behind it. It was just for effect, for the shock value. He might as well have been hawking office supplies at that moment.
It would’ve had more integrity if he’d have believed what he said. At least it would’ve had more intellectual honesty. But to just toss off a term like that and denigrate a group of successful women for the attention he’d get? Nah, that’s beyond stupid.
That parallels what bothered me about the Kathy Sierra dustup, too. Everyone shrugs and says, well hey, flamers and trolls are just a part of life. They don’t mean what they say; they just say it for the reaction. And by saying that and denying anyone the right to react, we all become complicit in tolerating speech that tears others down and sometimes even frightens them.
Similarly, in the Imus affair, words were carelessly tossed, and those words hurt. And in typical blogosphere fashion, after the initial storm there was a flurry of posts saying “Well, he didn’t mean them as racist terms”, or “If gangsta rap lyrics use those terms, what’s wrong with Imus using them?” (as if one misuse deserves another), and that pushback on the initial flurry defended Imus’ right to free speech, bearing his sacred right to use the word “ho” and “nappy-haired” in the same sentence no matter what the motive because by god, we’re gonna give everyone the right to be as obnoxious and disgusting as they want to be in the name of that higher and purer ideal known as Freedom of Speech. (Heavenly Choir bursts into Alleluias here)
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. Imus learned that this week. And I’m still pissed that he tossed off something he didn’t even mean, he didn’t believe in his heart, he didn’t hold as an ideal — a throwaway phrase to him — as part of a big game to garner attention.
We’re as guilty as he is — worshippers at the altar of American Idol’s teardown-to-the-last-standing doctine that we are. We give attention to this, defend it, threaten to go to the wall for it, and in the end, it was just a big attention bid.
Technorati Tags: Don Imus, racism, Rutgers, speech, free speech
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