Imus: Why the Why?

I've been, not astonished, but foreseeably disappointed, by the inability of so many mainstream media observers to get it. The local TV anchor refers to Don Imus's "blunder," a public radio report asks why the furor this time when he's said worse in the past. Another news report notes his being "insensitive."

Let's take the last first. Calling Barack Obama "articulate" is insensitive. One can sympathize with Joe Biden being so insensitive. Obama may be the most well-spoken American politician since Abraham Lincoln. He's the damned definition of articulate. But the word has baggage, and an articulate Democratic Presidential hopeful does not call an articulate black opponent articulate. It shows an awkward blindness to the consequences of language, one that can be attributed to innocent error. In contrast, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you would be offended at being called 'nappy headed hos'" does not seem very credible. [Aside: you shouldn't spell "hos" with an apostrophe, as many of these dumb media outlets have.]

Here's another test, based roughly on the burden-shifting mechanism recognized in Title VII discrimination cases: If you can make a prima facie case that a remark could reflect some kind of illicit prejudice, then ask whether the maker can come back with a credible explanation. In Biden's case: "Believe me: when I said articulate, all I meant was articulate" In Imus's case, the best I can come up with is, "I was saying that the Rutgers team fought on the court with the tenacity of young Ho Chi Minhs, but now must be so exhausted, they need to rest their sleepy heads." Pretty lame, I know, and I'm a lawyer.

Blunder implies the same thing: that it is what Imus did not intend that we dislike. What did he not intend? It's like a mean drunk who beats his pregnant wife every few days. If someone gets upset when it "goes too far" doesn't that mean that someone things a lesser degree of drunken pregnant wife-beating would have been acceptable?

I don't know everything that Imus has ever said, but the outrage in this instance does not seem hard to fathom. Not just that his -- wait --

Okay, as I am writing this, the local news I watch and always hate has just identified the issue as his "racially charged" comments. Again, this is a stupid hedge. Why is it only "charged"? My firm handled a case where a guy was fired for "racially charged" comments. We found a white comparator who told an African-American co-worker she looked like a hooker. That is what I'd call charged. It is not explicit, and in another context might have no racial aspect at all, but given the races of the parties, and the traditional Jezebel sterotype of African-American women, there was a racial tinge or inflection to the comment. "Nappy-headed" is pretty explicit. It's beyond charged. It's racial, period.

It also, of course, implicates sex, sexual mores, and class. In context, the phrase was equated with being rough, hard, savage. It hit on several points, and was graphic.

But that doesn't strike me as the big issue. Although I'm not a sports fan, I can appreciate the argument that for a bunch of underdog kids on the heels of a highlight achievement, this event partook of something sacred for its participants, like a funeral or a wedding. That's somewhere you don't want to take your dump, if you have any decency. Not if you want anyone to be willing to be seen with you.