Should Imus have been fired?Is this still free speech in this country?!!?

What about Rush limbaugh's bigotted remarks along with other right wing shock jocks.Where does censorship stop?I'm proud to be Norwegian, at least we can still laugh at ourselves.Call me a herring choker if you wish,I still have a sense of humor and can let things slide.Especially when Don Imus has apoligized till (I know he was blue in the face.)People need to lighten up!
Answer:
Imus isn鈥檛 the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You鈥檝e given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You鈥檝e given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You鈥檝e given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it鈥檚 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we鈥檙e fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I鈥檓 sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent鈥檚 or Snoop Dogg鈥檚 or Young Jeezy鈥檚 latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain鈥檛 saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don鈥檛 have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It鈥檚 embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I鈥檓 no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn鈥檛 do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should鈥檝e been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it鈥檚 only the beginning. It鈥檚 an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we鈥檙e supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers鈥?wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don鈥檛 listen or watch Imus鈥?show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it鈥檚 cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they鈥檙e suckers for pursuing education and that they鈥檙e selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I鈥檒l get upset. Until then, he is what he is 鈥?a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you鈥檙e not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There鈥檚 no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com

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Don is the last one but will not be alone. shame he did it in public. Nappy headed shock and awe ....get another job, son.

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Plain and simple, the joke just wasnt funny, and it wouldnt matter who said it. I think that Imus is getting hit har on this because you expect something like that out of Rush's mouth, Imus is a liberal and it was therefore more of a shock. Plus, his comment was just mean, not funny.

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I tend to agree with you, Rush should be fired as well after the many idotic things he has said and done in/out of the radio booth. But unfortantly free speech isn't an all ecompasing thing. Companies do reserve the right to fire someone that they feel is misrepresenting the company.

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Imus's problem is that he apologized. Never give your enemies ammo they can use against you. Imus is no worse than any other so-called "shock jock" out there, as you stated. The price of free speech is that we're gonna hear things we don't like from time to time!

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I will dance in the streets naked the day Limbaugh gets fired,, for being a liar,, drug addict,, racist pig,,,,

I have been called worse,, right here on Yahoo...
by the right-wing of course,,, I'll bet they are shaking in their booties right now,, because they are the #1 name-callers on the planet..

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Imus should definitely be brought back...The lacrosse players had their reputations ruined, and many more people knew about it, but when Al Sharpton decided to speak against Imus, he made him sound like the devil.

The guy apologized, he was trying to be funny.

Honestly, I actually feel sorry for Imus because everyone is blowing this way out of proportion.

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Yes there is free speech. But MSNBC has to decide who they want to be associated with. You CAN have the KKK show if you want to, but don't be surprised if all of your sponsors leave you.

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If enough people like ourselves can speak out on this issue than we may have a chance to defib his career (it's a portable machine used to give electric shock to heart attack victims to revive them). Sanjaya is on Y'all hated Rosie so bad? She is still on. Imus, no not a fair ball in my book. Go write on folks that listen. Cyber on 2. Cell and yell.

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if the company willingly chooses to fire him it is not a violation of the 1st ammendment. the govt cannot force him to be fired unless they take Sharptons argument and say the airwaves are federally regulated and therefore subject to decency laws. Which many argue decency laws are a violation of the 1st ammendment themselves. These were battled by larry flint and others.

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Free speech works both ways. Whoever pays Don Imus has the right NOT to pay for statements they don't like. He has a right to 'get up on HIS soapbox' and say what he wants. If I own the 'soapbox', I have the right to take it away.

BTW, I neither know nor care what IMUS actually said.

For those who want Rush Limbaugh fired, that is not possible. Rush OWNS his own show. Stations are free to stop airing the show, but he won't be firing himself.

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I do not believe that Imus should have been fired. MSNBC is cowardly.

But, free speech should extend to everyone who has protested, too. I have no problems with the protests, etc. My problem is with the cowardice of a news network.

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This is not a free speech issue. The first amendment protects us from the government interfering with speech. It says nothing about corporations, political interest groups, or alleged spokesperson interfering.

But no, as disgusting as his remarks were, I don't think he should be fired.

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If you say something that your employer finds offensive and they feel discredits their company - start looking for a new job.

There is no such thing as 'free speech' when you are on your employer's time.