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Forum: Imus had to go, but more care needed
Radio and its personalities must do more self-policing, panelists say.
By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published April 27, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG - Even Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, the shock jock who was fired from his radio show for sexually explicit comments in 2004, says ousted radio personality Don Imus went too far. Speaking Thursday at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg about Imus' dismissal, Clem said the 66-year-old Imus crossed a line calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy headed hos" during a radio broadcast April 4. "Don Imus is a geek old man who tried to be hip but couldn't pull it off," Clem told a group of about 75 people attending a discussion hosted by the university and the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists. "Some people could do that thing," said Clem, who now has a show on satellite radio. "He's not one of them." The panel discussion, entitled "Race, Gender & Media Post-Imus," put Clem and radio host Chris Fisher alongside black and Muslim leaders and community activists. The event was moderated by Eric Deggans, the TV/media critic of the St. Petersburg Times. Fisher, who hosts a morning show on the alternative rock station WSUN-FM 97.1, agreed with Clem that Imus should have been fired. But he said radio personalities also are being targeted. If you don't like what you're hearing, change the dial, he said. "Everybody thinks they can get you fired over the littlest things," said Fisher, mimicking some radio listeners. "Wait to be offended. Wait to be offended. Oh, I'm offended. Start calling (to complain)." Carolyn Lighty, who hosts a show on WMNF-FM 88.5 and is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said it's not enough to simply tune it out. Imus "needs to understand this is wrong," Lighty said. "Everyone else who does this needs to know it was wrong." The African-American community has responsibilities of its own, said Leon W. Russell, the director of the Pinellas County Office of Human Rights. "We model language that gets used by the Don Imuses of the world," said Russell, who also serves on the NAACP national board of directors. "And because we model it, it becomes okay. If we say it to each other, people feel they have license to say it about us."
[Last modified April 27, 2007, 00:58:07]
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by John
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04/29/07 01:02 PM
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The media turned this into a mob frenzy and ate one of their own. I think the US media has even less credibility than Rev. Al.
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by Gilbert
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04/27/07 05:51 PM
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As for Sharpton and his followers, he is not and cannot be absolved from his history ie...Tawana Brawley ('86)! I am an idependent thinker, I look at facts not race. We can help each other if we want to, only if we want to. Forgive Imus and move on
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by Gilbert
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04/27/07 05:46 PM
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As an Afr. Am. I would've not said what Mr. Imus did. What he said is no less vulgar than what is spoke everyday on a basketball court at Campbell, Wildwood or Lake Vista Parks by other Afr. Ams. Lets clean up "OUR" backyard before point fingers!
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by joe
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04/27/07 02:21 PM
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Lets hold rappers to the microscope and fine them every time they use offensive language. Lets make anyone and everyone in a media position pay fines for language that is considered offensive. Come on and drop this crap and get on with your lives.
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by dave
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04/27/07 02:15 PM
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This whole thing is blown out of proportion. If Imus was black he would of had a slap on the wrist. Blacks can say anything they want to each other and when a white person says it, Oh its all the sudden offensive. What bull crap.
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by Daniel
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04/27/07 01:35 PM
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When the NAACP polices their community's own cultural failings (ie overtly offensive rap, misogyny, absent fathers, etc.) I will care about what they have to say. In the meantime - they and their ilk are hypocritical wastes of space.
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by Nash
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04/27/07 06:49 AM
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Bubba Clem and Al Sharpton,with their past, have no credibility in this issue.
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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