Imus in the Mourning

I'm usually not inclined to use this space to take on current socio-cultural issues. I'd like to, but I'm rarely able to contribute on a regular basis enough to be that current. And really, the last thing the blogosphere needs is another post on this particular topic. But his whole Don Imus thing has me ... well ... pretty confused.

I understand that what he said was reprehensible, stupid, ignorant. I believe that apologies — both publicly (on air) and privately (to the Rutgers team) — were absolutely necessary. And I believe he should have been punished. The two-week suspension made some good sense. (I might have gone four weeks, but that's a relatively small quibble.)

But at some point, it seems like the whole hands-to-face shock that the general public and (even worse) the corporate world has exhibited during these last days is just a little ... artificial. Do they honestly believe that Imus' statements that got him in this hot water are really that much worse than other utterances he has made over the last three decades?

Apparently Proctor & Gamble and all the other sponsors to Imus' CBS radio show were okay with his offensive crap before this. Apparently the public didn't mind his past racist, sexist b.s. enough to get a Sharpton or a Jackson behind them and try to bring Imus down.

Every time that Imus — or other similar on-air personalities — said this kind of stuff and got away with it, the line in the sand was moved a little further. He had that much more room to maneuver with his "politically incorrect" thoughts. (I put that phrase in quotes mainly because it's a pretty subjective concept.) So we (the public, his station, his sponsors) let him go a little further, and a little further ... until finally he takes one step that's just a little too big, and he commits a foot-foul. Suddenly, it's game-over. Period. No take-backs.

This time, Imus picked the wrong target — an innocent target. The thing that saddens me is that Imus realized that, and attempted to make amends. In his on-air apology (which went on for several minutes) on April 10, he said as much:

Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it. And because the climate on this program has been what it's been for 30 years doesn't mean that it has to be that way for the next five years or whatever because it has to change, and I understand that.

That's a pretty remarkable statement, in my opinion. This was not one of those pansy-politico "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" quasi-apologies that we hear from so many public personalities. This was a man who knows he screwed up, wants to apologize, and, most importantly, wants to commit to not ever "going there" again. And sure, he could have been trying just to save his ass. But this also might be a real change in his thinking, an ah-ha moment ... perhaps even the start of a Saul-to-Paul type of conversion.

I can't stand the guy and have no desire whatsoever to listen to him ... but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm willing to cut him a little slack.

The thing is that we'll never know if Imus was really on his way to a revelatory moment because the entertainment industry's business model does not leave room for this concept of forgiveness. It's a "one strike and you're out" policy. (And I hope I'm done mixing sports metaphors with this post.) It doesn't take into account the whole picture — doesn't consider things like the millions of dollars he has raised through his charitable work (or so I've read). I mean, the guy might be an idiot, but he's not evil incarnate. While I understand that CBS had a right to fire him, I think that the demand for Imus' termination and the flight of almost all of his sponsors was an overreaction against someone who spends a lot of time extemporizing into a live, nationally broadcast microphone. I mean, weird, head-scratching stuff is going to come out of the mouths of just about anyone if you mic them long enough. This is even more likely to be the case when the line is moving all the time.

Maybe this is why the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson stay away from starring in syndicated radio or television shows like the one Imus had. They might reach a wider audience with such a broadcast, but they would also eventually get caught in their own slips of the tongue. And then it might be much harder for America to forgive Jackson for his infamous "Hymietown" remarks ... or Sharpton for his reverse-racist screes in connection with the Tawana Brawley case. Apparently, these leaders' own missteps didn't stop them for a moment from throwing stones at Imus. Maybe it's simply the passing of two decades since Sharpton's and Jackson's own turns on the "stupid merry-go-round." Or maybe, on some level, their mistakes were not as "grand" as Imus'.

But it doesn't quell my uneasy feeling that the punishment Imus is receiving is ... unbalanced.

I'm not saying that what Imus said wasn't heinous. I'm not saying that he is somehow protected by the First Amendment — that has nothing to do with this situation. I just think it's too bad that we'll never know now how this might have changed Imus.