Some more thoughts about the Imus thing...

So, I was thinking about this tonight. Don't ask me why, but while I was switching air tonight, I noticed that 'MSLSD' was running, from the time I got to work 'til the time I got off, nothing but 'bulletins' about NBC canceling Imus' show on 'PMSNBC'. I saw and heard today, all the various soundbites from the usual suspects. The 'Reverend' Jesse Jackson and the the 'Reverend' Al Sharpton or as Rush calls them 'the Justice Brothers' (See the pic below from his site). All day long, when the situation presented itself, before I left for work, on the way to work and on the way home, on the radio, I kept hearing people talking about this and I was interested to hear all the black folk who were calling in and saying that they were disgusted by both Sharpton & Jackson. They were saying that both did not represent them. That was no surprise to me. Many of my 'black' friends have told me many times that they are trying to figure out who elected them to be the 'Black leaders'. Good point.

Jackson is a shakedown artist. He has a long and storied history of shaking down corporations in the name of stopping 'discrimination' against 'African-Americans'. His battle with Toyota of America, if I remember right, was a shakedown and extortion to get them to contribute money to his rainbow coalition. Sharpton is another one. If anyone remembers the whole Tawana Brawley incident, where he perpetuated that scam, causing the destruction of an innocent man, a police officer at that, because this woman claimed to have been stuffed in a sack and covered with feces and assaulted by white police officers. It was later shown to be a hoax. Not once have I ever heard Sharpton apologise for the damage he did to the innocent people involved.
(Click the pic to hear the new radio spot from the 'Justice Brothers'!)
courtesy Paul Shanklin/Rush Limbaugh

Now, in light of the exoneration of the Duke LaCrosse players in the alleged assault and rape of Crystal Gail Magnum, the stripper, I haven't heard word one from either for the damage they did to the players reputations. The accusation of a stripper, a stripper? Yes, even if she is a stripper and it did really happen, then by all means, press charges, but this is someone who has been known in earlier accounts to have accused other people of the same charges that turned out to be false. But I have heard no apology from either Jackson or Sharpton over their involvement in taking her cause to the public, demanding that the players involved be prosecuted and jailed for their alleged actions. Funny huh? It's bad enough that former DA Mike Nyfong was so politically motivated that, even with all the evidence of no crime staring him in the face, he refused to drop the charges. What harm has come to these guys from Duke? Has anyone like Sharpton or Jackson or even Nyfong even offered an apology for the harm they have done to these innocent men? So to me, Sharpton & Jackson have no business or standing in deciding they are judge, jury and executioner of Don Imus. What Imus said was in very bad taste. If he thinks that way, he should have kept it to himself. Now however, he is forever tainted with being a 'racist' when he probably isn't. He made some bad remarks in the very language that Jackson & Sharpton would probably not object to, as they would claim, it's 'from the street, from the oppressed black youth that are being held down by poverty and racism.' Sharpton regularly makes remarks and calls white people 'interlopers.' Is that not racist in itself? Yet, a man of such class and distinction, Bill Cosby is virtually ignored by the media for his chastising the young black culture of today. I think, no, I am sure, Mr Cosby has more sense than both Sharpton & Jackson together. If anyone holds the right to speak for the black community today, it would be the Bill Cosby's, Alan Keyes', Colin Powell's, Clarence Thomas', Denzel Washingtons' or Condoleeza Rices' of the world, they represent the very best of the black community, not the shakedown artists like Sharpton and Jackson who exploit and use any cause for their own benefit. Had Martin Luther King been alive today, chances are he would have expelled both from his entourage long ago.

And, to go back to a point I made earlier, it's still America. If you are stupid enough to say something racist, or bigoted or sexist, then you deal with the consequences of how you get treated, but the whole idea of punishing somebody because of a stupid thing they said really smacks of the whole "1984'' subject of 'newspeak'. Imus has apologised. He is not on 'MSLSD' anymore and chances are, he will be fired from CBS too. But for the wrong reasons. He is being fired from both networks because they are afraid of the pressure and media coverage that the 'extortionists', Sharpton & Jackson will bring to bear. What Imus did was stupid and insensitive, but he was only using the vernacular of the 'street' as many in the rap & gang culture would like to call it. I say it is only the language of the uneducated and lazy. But to me, it's more infuriating that people like Sharpton & Jackson, can once again go out and portray themselves of the savior of all who are 'oppressed' when they perpetrate the very things they claim to fight against. I am still waiting to find out who left them to be the spokesmen for the black community. Both Sharpton & Jackson have the mentality that racism of today is the very racism of the post-civil war era. But in reality, it's their way of being both exploitative and opportunistic at the cost of anyone, even the innocent.