Originally Posted by BlackAsCoal

"Racist clowns" was intended for those who post racist comments. I've read you posts and I would not characterize you in that manner and I apologize if you took it that way.

Obama is keeping his distance from Sharpton because Sharpton disagrees with him, but I can assure you that he does not want to make an enemy of Sharpton.

What I find telling is suddenly the board is filled with "what's wrong with black people" threads as if we should not have addressed the racist comments of an old decaying man who thought to denigrate our young women BECAUSE of their race.

Fortunately, the majority of this board and the majority of this country are smarter than that and they understand the need to address it even if this writer, who I have never heard of, doesn't

Originally Posted by Richyrich03867

Alright fair enough, I would have admitted to being a masturbator if you pressed me though. FYI we had one kid in my entire high school that wasn't white. I grew up watching the busing riots in 1970's South Boston on TV, I didn't live far away and I was glad as hell I wasn't living there. It wasn't unitl I joined the army that I even knew anyone who wasn't white, and I learned from my experience that good and bad people come from all races.

Originally Posted by Little-Acorn

This editorial hits the nail on the head. How much longer do we have to listen to people accusing someone of racism, who said exactly the same things the supposed "victims" say to each other every day?

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www.kansascity.com | Front Page

Imus isn’t 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
Kansas City Star

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

You’ve 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’ve 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’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m 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’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t 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’s 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’m 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’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s 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’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ 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’t listen or watch Imus’ 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’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re 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’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

Originally Posted by Richyrich03867

Alright fair enough, I would have admitted to being a masturbator if you pressed me though. FYI we had one kid in my entire high school that wasn't white. I grew up watching the busing riots in 1970's South Boston on TV, I didn't live far away and I was glad as hell I wasn't living there. It wasn't unitl I joined the army that I even knew anyone who wasn't white, and I learned from my experience that good and bad people come from all races.

Originally Posted by Danny

I agree with Acorn. I also am sick of seeing this on TV. Honestly with all the problems in the world today WHO GIVES A FUCK about what some jock who I never heard of until yesterday said. Can him for two weeks, let him apologize, end of story. Move on.

Originally Posted by Richyrich03867

I heard the Rutgers team captain's statement. I remember being 20 and feeling as though I was part of something important and being very proud of it, so I appreciated what she had to say. She made the remark that nobody in the press came to talk to them when they had won, but now they are all over them to ask how they feel about Imus. They are being used by the press and every other vulture swooping in on this case.

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

It doesn't make it right Sam, just irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Richyrich03867

Black what the hell are you saying? Are you calling us all racist clowns or masturbators? Did you even read what I said, and would you disagree that Sen. Obama would prefer, for political reasons, to keep his distance from Al Sharpton?

You ask me, racism exists to one degree or another in EVERYONE.

Originally Posted by conformfailure

Jason Whitlock, you've managed to do a sequel to Imus' racially charged comment.

Way to go Jason! Asshole!

Here we have a female basketball team, through many obstacles, that have accomplished something they could be proud of. They have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG to deserve your horrible portrayal of those young ladies. These are college students! How does a Jason Whitlock drive the point home? You insinuate that these student athletes ARE the ghetto girls listening to music you don't like. Excellent way to illustrate your point, kick them when they're already down. But no, I won't even give you that because at no point were these girls ever kicked down as hard as Imus tried.

These young ladies stood tall and proud and had no choice but to respond to the comment. Did you want them to ignore it and not say a single thing about it? Was it these ladies that created this mess?! Yet, you take it even one step further -

Suddenly these ladies have turned from basketball champs to specialists in - allow me to quote the venom you spat upon those fine ladies - "the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference..." What bridge did you cross to arrive to that conclusion?!

Stunningly beautiful observation Dr. Whitlock. I was thinking the same thing when these ladies responded to a blast on them carried through the airwaves! I couldn't believe it, they had no right to be in front of a microphone or say/comment anything in blasting back at undeserved comments! Those bitches, right?!

But at least you had the uncanny ability to crossover back to the black community by bonding with them like this:

Ah yes, nothing bonds black folks together like ebonic text! Hey, I ain't saying you're a real black-folk killa, I'm just saying in clear English that you had no right to attack these women even further after what they have already endured. But then, you don't really agree they have endured a damn thing. Reading you self-gratifying article, it seems that these college educated Snoop Dogg listening hoes are just a bunch of sour apples. Those bitches, right?!

Profound revelation Professor Whitlock! You're absolutely right, the reason why we live in an anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent nation is because rappers make it so! The power of music! I guess to you it's a no-brainer - undoubtedly, life reflects music and not the other way around!

It's embarrassing that you can't tell the difference. Here you are thinking you're some majestic level-headed American by comparing apples to oranges!

Dave Chappelle makes fun of the stereotype concept! He makes fun of the concept itself! Your quoted comment illustrates why he's hailed as a comic genius and why you got fired from ESPN reduced to doing articles that manage to beat down these college students even further! Imus attacked the girls! He made fun of Negro student athletes!

I have so much more to say but I'll bite my tongue when I should have done that from the start - something you should have done yourself.

I'll conclude by saying this - Where you want the focus directed at to fight the good fight is being done right now on this very day at this very moment. You see, it's those girls in college that are fighting the good fight. They're getting an education and making something for themselves. Your priority above anything else should have been to support BLACK FEMALE COLLEGE ATHLETES! They're the ones that can change the nation for the better! Don't ever turn them into pawns for your grandstanding! They're bigger than that and better than you!

Originally Posted by conformfailure

NO NO NO!

First of all, you have to illustrate how Obama fighting bigotry would put him with Al Sharpton and it is somehow bad!

YOU are saying that Obama shouldn't respond to bigoted comments for political reasons! Reasons that make absolutely make no sense! You created this fiction all in your head and is in no way shape or form connected to your imagination!

You are saying Obama should shut up! That's nonsense! You are saying that Obama responding to bigoted comments somehow put him with Al Sharpton! There is no connection at all! The only connection is that they are both responding to racially charged comments!

You go even further and say that it will hurt his campaign if he says anything!

It is complete fiction!

The reality is that you WANT Obama to respond to Imus' comments. You WANT a possible response to put him with Al Sharpton! You WANT it to affect it him if he dares tread on that territory!

The reality is that your wants have nothing to do with what is truly going on or how such hypothetical scenarios would be received. It is racism to the core because your only viable option offered is for him to shut up and dare not say a word on it. That's racism!

Originally Posted by BlackAsCoal

Senator Barak Obama

"Before the announcement was made, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) had appeared on the MSNBC program "Hardball," where host David Gregory asked the senator and presidential candidate if he thought Imus should be fired.

"I don't think MSNBC should be carrying the kinds of hateful remarks that Imus uttered the other day," Obama said.

He went on to note that he and his wife have "two daughters who are African-American, gorgeous, tall, and I hope, at some point, are interested enough in sports that they get athletic scholarships. ... I don't want them to be getting a bunch of information that, somehow, they're less than anybody else. And I don't think MSNBC should want to promote that kind of language."

Obama went on to say that he would not be a guest on Imus' show in the future."

I see no fine line here.

Originally Posted by MattLarson

Senator Obama's response seems to be well reasoned very clear.

I cannot see where anyone could reasonably claim he was equivocating on the issue.

Matt