The Road of Bones

When Don Imus went down for his nappy-headed ho's comment, it sparked a national conversation on racism in the media. Immediately, a few things were apparent: Imus' crack was very much uncool, though it seems he wasn't consciously being racist -- more of a nugget of ignorance sewn into the man's character and subconscious. True, his contract specified that he was to be offensive. But when he went after a black women's basketball team for fun and profit, the black community responded, quickly killing his fun, and the network's profits.

My opinion is that the whole fandango was foolish, and it only served to distract the media from what's really going on: mllions of people dying in Iraq. (Though, there is some amount of poetic justice in how Imus got taken down. Payback's a nappy-headed bitch.)

But if you thought tha Don's crack was lame, just give a listen to Faux Noise's Bill O'Reilly in this audio clip! For you bandwidth impared folks, here's a transcript ...

"I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for
themselves."

"And we went to Sylvia’s, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful."

"And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship."

"There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'”

"You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb inthe sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all."

So, who is the "bigger" racist? Don Imus or Bill O'Reilly? Or does it even matter? I'm for turning off the televised news entirely, but that's just me ...

Labels: Racism

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at Tuesday, September 25, 2007 | Permalink