Kurt Vonnegut is dead.
I wasn't going to think about the Don Imus shitstorm. Some better places already talk at length about it. But then it was mentioned on Publishers Weekly's website, because he apparently helps sell books. And well, a quick tour of right wing websites and blogs showed the usual response from the right wing noise machine, that this affair is "overblown" and that Sharpton is a "racist and a bigot too." Quite predictable.
Well, I might not listen to his show (for that matter, I do not listen to the radio or watch the television), but his firing would be the most appropriate thing to do for CBS. Just in case a right wing nut shows up here, here's an explanation that he might understand. Making a racist remark in the work place gets you written up or fired. Simple as that. Especially if said remark leads to loss of profits (in this case, advertising). It's called capitalism, dear right-wing friend.
See, no left-wing rhetoric, as you would expect from me.
Now, if you have defended Don Imus's remark, you might also want to get your head checked. Making racism banal makes you just as racist.
As for calling Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson racists and bigots, it is ignorant. There are no racist insults toward white people in English ("white trash" doesn't count. Etymologically, it means equating a poor white person to a black person). White people have been historically too numerous in this country to encounter racial discrimination. Heck, Sharpton calling Don Imus a racist forty years ago would have gotten him shot. And then accused of insulting Don Imus. Now racists and right wing nuts (yes, yes, I know they are the same thing), since they can't shoot black people without impunity, accuse colored people of racism and bigotry.
Oh, wait. Being black still gets you shot by the NYPD. Forty times.
via Warren Ellis's Bad Signal.
***
I wasn't going to think about the Don Imus shitstorm. Some better places already talk at length about it. But then it was mentioned on Publishers Weekly's website, because he apparently helps sell books. And well, a quick tour of right wing websites and blogs showed the usual response from the right wing noise machine, that this affair is "overblown" and that Sharpton is a "racist and a bigot too." Quite predictable.
Well, I might not listen to his show (for that matter, I do not listen to the radio or watch the television), but his firing would be the most appropriate thing to do for CBS. Just in case a right wing nut shows up here, here's an explanation that he might understand. Making a racist remark in the work place gets you written up or fired. Simple as that. Especially if said remark leads to loss of profits (in this case, advertising). It's called capitalism, dear right-wing friend.
See, no left-wing rhetoric, as you would expect from me.
Now, if you have defended Don Imus's remark, you might also want to get your head checked. Making racism banal makes you just as racist.
As for calling Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson racists and bigots, it is ignorant. There are no racist insults toward white people in English ("white trash" doesn't count. Etymologically, it means equating a poor white person to a black person). White people have been historically too numerous in this country to encounter racial discrimination. Heck, Sharpton calling Don Imus a racist forty years ago would have gotten him shot. And then accused of insulting Don Imus. Now racists and right wing nuts (yes, yes, I know they are the same thing), since they can't shoot black people without impunity, accuse colored people of racism and bigotry.
Oh, wait. Being black still gets you shot by the NYPD. Forty times.
Comments
on the other hand, if chavez said "olives go home" i would try and highfive him...