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By Ellis Cose
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There is a predictable pattern to these things. Someone prominent—almost always a male—says something indisputably vile. And when his world explodes as a result, he belatedly begs forgiveness.
Don Imus, of course, is the latest example of an über-alpha male stuffing his foot in his mouth. It's unclear why he thought it funny to call female basketball players "nappy-headed hos." What is clear is that they were not amused. Their emotion-filled press conference fueled a bonfire of indignation that ultimately engulfed all the efforts to preserve Imus's reputation and career.
Foremost among those trying to save him were the well-placed journalists and politicians who loved to go on Imus's show. Among his outspoken defenders—all of whom seemed to be other white males—was presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, who may be something of an expert when it comes to racially loaded slurs. In 1992, the future mayor of New York egged on and bonded with a mob of cops demonstrating against then Mayor David Dinkins. Many shouted racial epithets and held signs proclaiming Dinkins, a black man, to be a bathroom attendant. Giuliani apparently did not see racism in such behavior then, just as he seems not to see racism in Imus now.
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For what it's worth, I'm inclined to agree that Imus is not a "racist." For that designation, in popular usage, seems pretty much limited to that class of kooks who reminisce fondly about the grand old days of the Ku Klux Klan and rant about racial purity. But one does not have to be a raving racist to have racially restricted vision—as Imus clearly does. In too many cases, it seems, Imus sees blacks that he does not know personally as something other than complete human beings—as things that can be dissed and dismissed without his having to know anything more about them than the color of their skin.
In his defense, some Imus admirers pointed out that he denigrates lots of groups; that, in the pursuit of a laugh, he is something of an equal-opportunity jerk. There is clearly some truth to that. But Imus is not in the practice of singling out whites, purely on the basis of skin color, and ridiculing them for being white. It's difficult to imagine him, or anyone else for that matter, making comparable, racially tinged comments about a group of, say, white, male tennis players. What exactly would he call them? Straight-haired hooligans? Pasty-faced gigolos? Our society simply does not have a comparable way of ridiculing white males collectively. And that says something telling about our history—and what is still being overcome.
Imus has pointed out that the slurs he used did not originate with him—that black women "are demeaned and disparaged and disrespected by their own black men." Many blacks do indeed engage in rhetoric that is misogynistic, racist and a reflection of the many negative things they have come to associate with being black—particularly with being black and female. There is no excuse for that. But the fact that certain blacks are blind to their own—and their sisters'—humanity does not mean that Imus should be as well. He, after all, is a man who carved out a reputation for himself as a literate, sophisticated political commentator—as something other than just another stupid shock jock.
I get no pleasure out of Imus's fall. Nor do I think that the fact that so many prominent journalists shamelessly leapt into his bed means those journalists will deeply reflect on why they were his eager enablers. For though journalists are notoriously self-righteous, we also are famously incapable of turning the same critical eye on ourselves that we so easily turn on others.
This is not to say that nothing will change as a result of Imus's public humiliation. The episode, like the sorry similar episodes before it, will become part of our collective consciousness. It may make some of us more likely to reject unthinking bigotry—and make others capable of better seeing the full dimensions of women who, at first glance, seem so different from their own daughters and sisters.
As for Imus, at some point he likely will rehabilitate himself and re-emerge. Americans, after all, love resurrection stories. I hope that, before that happens, he will do whatever is required to allow him to see the victims of his contempt as fellow human beings.
I would very much like to believe he is capable of that. I would like to believe we all are.
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