Say what you will about Imus, but he was an equal opportunity offender. Sharpton, on the other hand, is selective.
So let me get this straight. A couple of weeks ago, Don Imus gets fired for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed ho’s.” A few weeks later, the same guy who led the anti-Imus charge, Rev. Al Sharpton, refers to Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney by saying “those that really believe in God will defeat him.” And the media say next to nothing?
I don’t get it. When Imus was a hot topic, he was all you heard the news talk about. Day after day, hour after hour, we were treated to special segments on “race in America” and panels comprised of real black and white people giving their opinions on whether Imus’s comments hurt. How come the news isn’t doing any special segments or panels on Sharpton’s comments? Nappy-headed basketball players have feelings. I guess Mormons don’t?
It seems to me that conservative bloggers, who don’t like Sharpton anyway, are the only ones pointing out this obvious hypocrisy. The media were eager to devote coverage to Sharpton’s thoughts on the Imus issue, but they’re spending precious little time recusing themselves for having taken this double-standard bearer seriously.
I’m a firm believer in the freedom of speech. I don’t care what Sharpton says about Mormons. And I don’t care what Imus says about black girls. What I care about is when someone like Sharpton infers Mormons don’t believe in God only a few short weeks after getting a disc jockey fired.
Say what you will about Imus, but he was an equal opportunity offender. Sharpton, on the other hand, is selective. He can say whatever he wants about your group of people, but he’ll be all over your case, bringing down your career, if you say something offensive — read: opportunistic — about his.
As far as I’m concerned, this is precisely the kind of guy who should be fired for making biased comments. And that’s just the problem when it comes to Al Sharpton. Don Imus was a radio host; he had a knowable job to be fired from. What’s Sharpton’s profession? “Civil rights leader?” How do you fire someone from this position? What does this title even mean?
When Mitt Romney responded to Sharpton’s remarks by pointing out the man’s blatant “bigotry,” Sharpton quickly got defensive, saying his words were taken out of context — and adding that Romney was just playing to religious conservative fears. Even if that were true, Sharpton, of all people, has no right to point this out.
To me, Al Sharpton is the political world’s glorified version of Anna Nicole Smith. He could only exist in this day and age, when people are famous for simply being famous. Unlike Anna Nicole, though, who at least promoted TrimSpa, Reverend Al has never promoted a damn thing but himself. If the media are going to insist on giving this guy a platform, he needs to be held to the same level of “accountability” that he so angrily demanded for Imus. Either it’s wrong to say mean things about other groups of people, or it isn’t. We deserve a discernible standard. You don’t get to pick and choose.
readjdm@yahoo.com
http://www.readjdm.com/main/
Read more articles by Jonathan David Morris
Liberals on the politics boards at Yahoo! Answers refer to our president, and other southerners as well, with offensive slangs such as a hicks, rednecks, sister/brother lovers, cousin kissing, inbred, backward, hayseed, etc. Those tolorent, freedom loving, human activists, don't draw a breath before referring to christians as bible-thumping sheeple, brain dead, intolorent, uneducated fools.
Being a southern conservative christian who supports our president, I view these remarks as a childish attempt to discredit a group of people by drawing on tired stereotypes. When I asked how they justified their comments and attitudes, I was told that I was not in a 'protected group.'
This led to more questions and lots of frowning on my part. Is a 'protected group' the same as an 'endangered species?' Is there an official list? If so, who maintains this list, where do I find a copy, and what is the criteria for making protected status? Perhaps going over 'protected status requests' is part of Sharpton's job description as Civil Rights Leader, and he has a secret check sheet that the unprotected aren't allowed to see.
What do we already know about these special groups? What double standards exist openly, in the media or on TV that are easy to point to? We know that we're not supposed to cast any negative clouds over black people. Journalist are 'stereotyping' black males when they report that a black male robbed a liquer store, even if the assailant was black and did in fact rob said liquer store, they shouldn't mention it.
Black women are allowed to participate in Miss America, but they also have Miss Black America which white women, for obvious reasons, are permitted to join. Having a Miss White America, however, is considered racist and WRONG.
Black entertainers and black rappers (notice I seperated the two) demanded equal time on MTV. I challenge anyone to surf that way at least 20 times a day and report on how many times they caught a white artist performing. Plus, we have BET–Black Entertainment TV. However, how would WET go over?
I think I'm seeing a pattern here.
Comment by Jenny | May 16, 2007
The double standard is unreal. To give Al Sharpton any credibility would be equivalent to praising David Duke as a "white rights" hero. The only difference being that David Duke has never said anything even close to as overtly racist as Al Sharpton has. You can't say "nappy", let alone the other "n" word, nor "spic" or "ching chong", but it's perfectly okay to say "honkey" (a derogatory term used to describe Hungarian and slavic white immigrants for years before it was popularized in the 1960's by black "civil rights leaders" as an alternative to "nigger"), Mick, Wop, "white boy", cracker, etc. Let's take a real-life example. I'm watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond the other day. During the episode, our title character is volunteering at a hospital. After convincing an old black woman to take her medicine, the woman responds by calling Raymond a "tricky, tricky white boy". Imagine, will you please, a sitcom scene in which an old white woman called a middle aged black man a "tricky, tricky Negro", let alone "nigger" or, God forbid, "Nappy headed black boy". There would be outrage at this grave social injustice. That this Newspeak PC double standard has made its way into even such benign entertainment, and that nobody recognizes any double standard, let alone a social injustice, in this situation, is indicative of how ingrained and indoctrinated into the American subconscious it has become. Contrast that with Michael Richards and Don Imus incidents. I'm just wondering how long it's going to be before people finally wake up and go, "Hey, the emperor has no clothes!"
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | May 17, 2007