KUFO - Where's the line?

Where's the line?

So-called "shock jock" Don Imus has been fired for a comment he made about Rutgers women's basketball team, on the April 4th Imus in the Morning show. Initially, he and his show had been suspended for two weeks and made to apologize for the comment (which was calling the players "nappy-headed hos"), but now, after further deliberation, he was fired.

Let me begin this by saying I am not on Imus' "side". However, I am not against him either. I stand neutral on his specific situation, but am concerned about where the line lies not only for our society, but also for people who make their living as on air talent or any sort of "entertainer" for that matter.

Case in point, from a Time.com piece on the subject:

"...We also live in a culture in which racially and sexually edgy material is often — legitimately — considered brilliant comment, even art. Last year's most critically praised comedy, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, won Sacha Baron Cohen a Golden Globe for playing a Kazakh journalist who calls Alan Keyes a "genuine chocolate face" and asks a gun-shop owner to suggest a good piece for killing a Jew. Quentin Tarantino has made a career borrowing tropes from blaxploitation movies. In the critics-favorite sitcom The Sarah Silverman Program, the star sleeps with God, who is African American and who she assumes is "God's black friend." And the current season of South Park opened with an episode about a Michael Richards-esque controversy erupting when a character blurts the word niggers on Wheel of Fortune. (He answers a puzzle — N-GGERS — for which the clue is "People who annoy you"; the correct answer is "naggers"..."

So, only some people are allowed to be offensive? Or is it because it's in the name of humor that it is okay? Is it situational? If a black/asian/hispanic "shock jock" was making fun of say a female golf team whose players were predominantly white and said something to the tune of "bleached blonde bimbos", would this even have been an issue? It seems that culturally, we are allowed to make fun and slur on our own culture (my gay roommate asking if I "want to hang out with the fags tonight"). The problem with that is as our society becomes more and more of the proverbial melting pot, whose culture is whose? It's a fact that rap music is bought by white males more then black males and white and black females COMBINED. So who is identifying most with that culture (and I mean rap culture specifically, not black culture)? For anyone who was born post 1980-ish, we have never lived in a time where rap music wasn't part of mainstream music. Thus, as a society of young people, we hear rap slang and adopt it into our vernacular.

But I am not pointing a finger here at rap specifically, what about rock? Buckcherry "Crazy Bitch" anyone? What if Imus had called the players "bitches" instead of "hos"? Would he be in more or less trouble? I supposed the term "ho" is linked to the idea of pimps and ghetto life. So it is inherently a racial slur. Buy what about "pimp"? That is more of a praise... I am sure no one would get fired for calling a team of guys "pimps" on the court. People would probably be like "Hells yeah we are!"

What it comes down to for me is the whole idea of "what's good for the goose, is good for the gander". You can't pick and choose who can say what. Rappers throw out "nigga" every other word. Sarah Silverman jokes about jews controlling the media. Will and Grace made the idea of a "fag hag" common place by most middle america housewives. I feel like the Imus controversy is society saying "Let's just leave the racial slurs where they belong... In rap music and Spike Lee movies..."

Fire Imus. And take rap music off the Billboard charts. And cancel Sarah Silverman's show on Comedy Central. Then see how sit back and revel in how perfect and racially conscious we all are.