Imus, Satire, and Nappy-Headed Hos

On April 11, 2007, Don Imus, who had been hosting talk radio shows for 40 years, was fired from CBS radio for making the following statement: "That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos ... that's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some—woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so ... I don't know."

In his 40 years of ranting and unapologetic observations, his 'nappy-headed' quip was not the first such colorful reference he has ever made. He has openly made fun of virtually every nationality, race and religion during his long career. So what was it about this particular 'nappy-headed' comment? What was it about that comment that drew such attention when other comments that could also be construed as offensive went without fanfare?

Simple: Don Imus ran smack into the new 'wussification' of our world. Don Imus's ship sailed out of the bygone era of open dialogue, pointed satire, and bruising language and had strayed into a world of 24-hour news channels and 'Good Christian' earsdrums. Old Don raised his sail and yanked up his anchor the same way he had for his entire life - the way it had always worked and always seen him through storm after storm - and found that his ship was no longer built for the waters around him.

Don Imus is not a racist. Many black journalists, including the Tribune's Clarence Page, have long been guests and friends on the Don Imus show (although many of them did take him to task for the Rutgers comments). Don Imus is not a sexist. Don Imus saw what the rest of us saw: a Tennessee team of dapper-looking women (some of them black) playing a Rutgers team of more comely-looking women (some of them white). And he made a joke about it.

He isn't paid to provide encouragement to young basketball players. He's a radio talk show host paid to observe the world and render his his opinions and quips - preferably in a blunt style. Don Imus does not literally think that those women are dirty-haired prostitutes. He was simply making fun of them.

Is that a nice thing to do? No.

Is it illegal? Is it someting that warrents his termination?

Absolutely not.

And if those Rutgers girls think that some rude disc jockey's comments are that intolerable (one of them subsequently attempted to sue Imus, even after he personally apologized to them), then I think they're going to have a hard time in this life. The real world is rarely as kind.

I'm not suggesting that we turn our world into a mess of verbal diarrhea, and I'm also not suggesting that there are not plenty of circumstances when verbal restraint should be exercised. But I'd sure hate to live in a world in which people could never say what they were thinking. I'd hate to live in a free society where the media can never feel free to represent the raw, open emotions, thoughts and behavior of the people they are projecting to.

'Wussification' alone is alarming. But a more pointed and witty form of self expression and criticism is also under attack by the media police: satire. The Special Olympics recently requested a boycott of the movie "Tropic Thunder" because they repeatedly use the word 'retard'. New Yorker magazine was taken to task for a cover depiction that satirized conservative political spin doctoring by portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as a radical black Muslims. It didn't seem to matter to these critics that these respective cases were making fun of the very notions they were being attacked for.

While Imus was being rude without a point, satire is often rude with a point. Satire's problem is that, when it is done well, it is sharp-cutting and - sometimes - disturbing. It also tends to be driven by intelligence, creativity, and wittiness. When these concepts collide with senstive ears, misinterpretation ensues. As witnessed above, the common misinterpretation of satire accuses the author of supporting the very notions he is satirizing - Huckleberry Finn and racism, or "The Colbert Report" and opinionated news hosts, to name two more examples.

This must come to end.

Media does not have to be as harsh as life can be. But I hate to see the discrepency between what we see and hear through the media vs. what we see and hear in real life widen. Is T.V. and radio doomed to a future of Rachael Ray, Jay Leno, and Eric and Kathy? Will the comics feature "Nancy" clones at the expense of "The Boondocks"? We can only hope.