Columns

Look at the person, not the skin color

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published April 15, 2007

Sixty years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, the case of the Duke Lacrosse players and the flap over Don Imus' racial remark conspire to slap us in the face and remind us how much race still matters.

One case puts a white man in the role of racial antagonist; the other puts white men as racial victims. The rest of us are fixated spectators who have learned very little.

Full disclosure: I never root for Duke athletic teams, but I used to be a big fan of Imus in the Morning.

I heard Imus for the first time when I visited the United States in 1983. Days after a Russian fighter pilot shot down a South Korean passenger airliner, Imus stole a Russian flag from Rockefeller Plaza in protest.

As a 20-something-year-old, I loved his irreverence and his rebellion. As he mellowed, I enjoyed the politics and culture on his show; I didn't object to his equal opportunity bashing. Ultimately though, I left New York. Years later, when I first saw Imus in the Morning simulcast on MSNBC, I was embarrassed to be caught watching him. I had outgrown the show.

Clearly, the marketplace dictated that there was a place for Imus. Not any more. He was fired by MSNBC, which aired his radio show, and by CBS, his radio boss. Rightly so.

Imus may yet find redemption on satellite radio. But in dismissing the Rutgers University women basketball players as "nappy headed hos," Imus picked on folks who couldn't defend themselves, young women, who unlike many of those who populate our culture of celebrity, became public not by default but by talent.

Imus was guilty of the ultimate slur about race, gender and most of all, black hair. You just don't talk casually about a black woman's morality and her hair. Any informed person knows you just don't go there.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of language you hear in hip hop music, on the street. It belongs in the gutter, not on the radio.

Chances are that Imus doesn't socialize with any people of color who have college-age daughters. His was an insult of unfamiliarity and contempt. You don't talk that way about people you know and respect.

The same could be said about the false rape allegations against Duke lacrosse players. These young white men were caught in a racial time warp, facing public condemnation for allegedly raping a black stripper.

Here was the district attorney, someone powerful, trying to bring down the privileged to avenge the oppressed. All the pieces were in place for a classic southern racial drama. The misguided prosecutor went after those lacrosse players the same way he would have been expected to prosecute black athletes accused of raping a white woman. He broke the cardinal rule. He didn't give them the benefit of the doubt, the presumption of innocence.

Unfortunately, the media and public reaction to the allegations just confirms how little we've learned from the past. If we continue to look at people - victims and perpetrators alike - through the same old racial lenses, these flare-ups are bound to continue. This week it's Imus. Next week? Fill in the blanks.

The Duke lacrosse players aren't coddled white athletes; they're young men, sons with promise. Those aren't black female athletes, but young women, daughters with potential. Jackie Robinson tried to be someone like that 60 years ago when he put on the Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. That much hasn't changed.

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 14, 2007, 18:31:22]