Posted by
Jason Ivey on Friday, April 13, 2007 2:36:19 PM
If I could sum up the Imus flap with one word it would be this:
Fear.
In today’s society, the mere perception of being a racist is probably the worst thing anyone could be. An accused murderer stands a better chance of holding on to a radio show. Qualifications for being a perceived racist include merely referring to someone’s race, making a joke about race, or using racially charged words, especially in a demeaning way. But of course, as many pundits have correctly pointed out this week, what matters most is not just what is said, but who says it. In a society where white males have had “the power” since the beginning of time, their remarks carry a different charge than the same words spoken by someone of a minority race. Much has been made of the double standard that exists for rappers and other artists.
The hypersensitivity to these charged remarks abound. Should these Rutgers girls really have gotten that upset at what was said? This was an off-hand remark, a lame attempt at contemporary humor, that was really just rude and crude. Imus didn’t know these girls, and they probably didn’t know who he was prior to this blowing up. Are we really to believe that people are this sensitive? I suppose many insulting remarks can be brushed off, but not a remark dealing with race, and not if you’re black and the person making the remark is a white man.
The main perpetrators of the politically correct world we live in love to wrap themselves in the first amendment, proclaiming the right to free speech as the only piece of material truly sacred within all of our founding documents (if only they held the rest of it in such high regard). The political correctness proponents will defend to the death an artist’s right to portray the most debasing language and the most violent and sexually perverse art that one can conceive. But don’t say anything about race (unless you’re part of a minority or a well-intentioned liberal). Borat can get away with it only because he picks on the racist oppressor class, exposing them for who they truly are as they unknowingly play along with his dimwitted, savage beliefs.
I happen to think Borat is very funny. I appreciate Quentin Tarantino’s brave use of racist terms and stereotyping within his scripts. I appreciate the long line of black comedians, from Richard Pryor to Eddie Murphy to today’s younger comedians, who poke fun at white (and black) stereotypes. There has to exist a level of truth in comedy in order for it to be funny.
The term “racism” itself has long been bastardized. The term refers to a belief that differences in race lead to certain races being naturally superior to others. We have stretched this definition to include just a mere reference to race, and the perpetrator’s relative position to the offended.
We do not live in a uniform society. Racial differences exist, as do cultural, economic, linguistic, educational – the list goes on. The sensitivity to the subject of race in society today has resulted in one of the worst forms of censorship: the invisible kind. When college campuses, those supposed bastions of intellectual freedom, consider themselves at the forefront of thought, expounding to challenge all of your deeply held beliefs and see the world in a different light but forbid any honest discussion about race or racial differences, then something is seriously wrong. Censorship in this arena is the closest thing we have in this country to communism or totalitarianism. In this one area, truth takes a back seat to political correctness. The subject is so charged, no one wants to touch it. The fact that someone with as dubious a reputation as Al Sharpton can make a career out of throwing charges of racism around, regardless of any truth or merit, is testament to the state of fear we all live in. The fact that a cowboy like Don Imus found it necessary to legitimize Al Sharpton by bowing at his feet, like many others before him, points to the pervasiveness of this fear – the acceptance that the worst kind of sin has been committed, and redemption can be found only by kissing the ring of Rev. Al, the foremost representative of mob rule. Al Sharpton has single-handedly ruined many lives over the course of his career simply by throwing around accusations of racism, from the Tawana Brawley affair to the Duke lacross team.
I’m not suggesting that Don Imus himself was censored, at least not directly. CBS, or any other broadcasting company or media outlet, has the right to determine what they do or do not want to broadcast. This was a business decision – advertisers were pulling out left and right and the network saw their profits and their reputation falling quickly. WE are the censorship. We have been conditioned over the last few decades to not only censor others by denouncing them and calling for their firing if they’re public figures, but we have censored our friends, and we have censored our own language and even our own thoughts. It’s this pervasiveness that makes this so dangerous. It’s dangerous because it ignores the truth, and only by addressing the truth can we as a society really begin tearing down the walls of real racism and real inequality.
Modern racism (or charges of) goes something like this: whites can’t make any reference whatsoever about any minority. By minority, I’m including non-racial minorities like homosexuals. Whites are the historical oppressors and everyone else represents the oppressed. The oppressed can say whatever they want (see rap music), and the more oppressed your history is, the more severe the crime if you’re white. In our society, blacks are viewed as the most oppressed, and therefore charges of racism against blacks by whites becomes the most offending form of speech. This has become a very convenient form of mind terrorism played by the minority classes and their politically correct white enablers. Terrorism is a tool used by the weak to hurt the strong, because they don’t have the might or the power to inflict pain any other way. Like terrorism of the more familiar, deadly kind, this racial censorship does hurt the more powerful. But does it do anything to elevate the weak? As an example: during last week’s on-air argument between Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera over whether or not illegal immigration was a cause in the death of a Hollywood director who was killed by a drunk driving illegal alien, Geraldo alleged that O’Reilly was being racist, that this had nothing to do with whether or not the drunk driver was an illegal, the anger was because he was Hispanic. In the case of illegal immigration, many excuse the illegality of the immigration simply because they are an oppressed minority. If you advocate enforcing the law, you’re called a racist, and that’s the ultimate trump card in a debate - the heavy-handed silencer. McCarthyism is alive and well in today’s politically correct left.
There are many positives to come out of the civil rights movement. First of all, blacks and others now had access to the same opportunities as everyone else, even if time must be allowed for institutions to adapt. Second, it helped to break down many of the mental barriers that whites in this country held against blacks and others, expanding acceptance at the local, human level. Whites, or the dominant class in society, had to change. But this is but one side of the coin. The oppressed must take the opportunities they’re given. Many people of minorities have taken advantage of those increased opportunities, but many more have not. Continuing to blame the oppressors will not ever pull anyone out of the lower levels of the socio-economic ladder (unless you’re Al Sharpton).
The reason black homicides are not treated with the same relevance on the news as white homicides is this: people tend to treat others with the same level of respect that they show for themselves. A large segment of black society does not respect life. Gang murders are common, education is not valued, philandering fathers leave women alone with multiple children, and their art forms depict the basest forms of humanity in a world of pimps and hos. This is not a culture that has shown a great deal of self respect. Those blacks that have elevated themselves out of the ghetto-ization of this culture are mocked and impugned and accused of being sell-outs. The rest of us have been forced (through the conditioning of fear) to merely accept this culture for what it is and blame ourselves for whatever inadequacies exist there (see Hurricane Katrina). Many non-blacks even embrace the hip hop culture and make it part of their own. The self flagellation by whites in our society over references to race will do nothing to elevate the status of the black race. Only the black race can elevate the black race.
What I have just written would no doubt result in the hurling the racism charge. Tony Blair this week, on his way out of office, made similar points – that the high rate of murders in England is predominantly a problem within the black community and it should stop being treated as a societal problem at large. Of course, outrage ensued. In these cases, the truth or falsehood of the statement is never debated. You’re racist, end of discussion.
As long as we continue to ignore the truth, and merely cover it up and censor it by throwing around charges of racism and invoking fear throughout our society, the problems will never be solved. They will only worsen. Maybe now that Imus has been liberated from his job he’ll regain his manhood and call out the race McCarthyists like Al Sharpton for who they truly are. Maybe we can begin to have an honest debate about minorities and what makes them special and what holds them back. First we must remove the muzzle from our brains and refuse to be intimidated by those who will readily ruin lives to protect their version of the world, the one where the only injustices are committed by oppressors against the oppressed. This is segregation, not integration; this is censorship through fear.