Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Why is Racism Wrong?
By now, everyone knows about Don Imus' stupid racist lapsus linguae and his subsequent apologies and firing. I must admit to being disturbed by the stupidity and ignorance of such an error, and that I've never liked Imus' show. In listening to the larger context of what was happening on the program, though, I think that he was just adding to what someone else said and attempting to make it funnier; he did not seem to realize at the time just how offended people would be by it, or how racist it sounded.
The night after he was fired, I had trouble sleeping, in part because I could not identify the reason for my discomfort with his firing: I think that racism is a terrible evil, I think that stupidity deserves consequences so that people learn to avoid it, and --though I don't consider his comments particularly mean-spirited or racist-- they are certainly not acceptable, or good for the company f0r whom he worked.
As the answers to most of my difficult problems, I found the answer in my sleep, where my subconscious sorts out the issues: the firing of Imus was not wrong because the company should allow such speech, it is wrong because it was motivated by public offence, not by the inherent evil of such actions. Racism is not wrong because it offends people, racism is wrong because it demeans people and leads to a process of dehumanization that has historically resulted in atrocity after atrocity; therefore, if a person (Imus) deserves to be fired for saying racist things, he deserves to be fired not because people were offended but because he has helped to create an atmosphere of oppression. In this case, though, he was willing and able to turn his actions around and use it as a teaching moment; he took what opportunities he could find to do these things, but then he was fired.
So what lessons is our media teaching us with these actions? 1. Racism is wrong because people are offended by it, not because it results in evil actions 2. There is no recovery from stupidity, thus if a person does something stupid, she or he might as well continue, or escalate, the cycle of stupidity, because there is no redemption from it.
What do you think?
The night after he was fired, I had trouble sleeping, in part because I could not identify the reason for my discomfort with his firing: I think that racism is a terrible evil, I think that stupidity deserves consequences so that people learn to avoid it, and --though I don't consider his comments particularly mean-spirited or racist-- they are certainly not acceptable, or good for the company f0r whom he worked.
As the answers to most of my difficult problems, I found the answer in my sleep, where my subconscious sorts out the issues: the firing of Imus was not wrong because the company should allow such speech, it is wrong because it was motivated by public offence, not by the inherent evil of such actions. Racism is not wrong because it offends people, racism is wrong because it demeans people and leads to a process of dehumanization that has historically resulted in atrocity after atrocity; therefore, if a person (Imus) deserves to be fired for saying racist things, he deserves to be fired not because people were offended but because he has helped to create an atmosphere of oppression. In this case, though, he was willing and able to turn his actions around and use it as a teaching moment; he took what opportunities he could find to do these things, but then he was fired.
So what lessons is our media teaching us with these actions? 1. Racism is wrong because people are offended by it, not because it results in evil actions 2. There is no recovery from stupidity, thus if a person does something stupid, she or he might as well continue, or escalate, the cycle of stupidity, because there is no redemption from it.
What do you think?
Comments:
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There is an excellent columnist who commented on this better than I ever could. Check out Jason Whitlock's full article here.
The summary is this: The differance between Imus and Dave Chappelle - Chappelle is funny. Imus was trying to make a joke and no one laughed (maybe that's reason enough to fire him?).
But the problem isn't the comments of Imus, but that he was repeating what he hears all throughout black culture. The problem is the anachronistic standard applied to white media personalities while every other ethnicity can use horribly offensive language.
"We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out."
The summary is this: The differance between Imus and Dave Chappelle - Chappelle is funny. Imus was trying to make a joke and no one laughed (maybe that's reason enough to fire him?).
But the problem isn't the comments of Imus, but that he was repeating what he hears all throughout black culture. The problem is the anachronistic standard applied to white media personalities while every other ethnicity can use horribly offensive language.
"We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out."
Actually I don't think his firing has nothing to do with racism whatsoever, CBS only fired him once company's pulled their advertisments and such. Once again, as I believe is the case with Jessie Jack and his man Al, racism is bad, but losing money or power is an even worse offence.
You're right Ty, somewhere along the line racism stoped having to do with better loving and honoring people...too bad.
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You're right Ty, somewhere along the line racism stoped having to do with better loving and honoring people...too bad.
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