Mind Your Language

Predictably, "radio personality" (an odd phrase when you think about it) Don Imus is returning to radio eight months after losing his job for describing a black women's university basketball team as "nappy-headed hos". Now I have no idea what is an appropriate punishment for this sort of offensive remark, nor whether Imus's reported repentance is genuine, but I do have one question: if a well known black radio presenter had called a white team a bunch of "straight-haired hookers", how long would it take him to get back on the air?

P.S. Within an hour or so of posting the above, I received a comment which is clearly blatant advertising for pro-Imus propaganda, but I've allowed it (with some hesitation), because I think a few quotes from it will illustrate some of the absurdities and nastiness surrounding this case. For example:

• "Screw Al Sharpton" - this is ironic, because Sharpton, though initially critical of Imus, is one of the few black leaders who has said that Imus should be free to return to radio.
  
• "Save Free Speech" - I don't think America's Founding Fathers had gratuitous sexist and racist insults in mind when they wrote the First Amendment. If I called your mother a dirty nigger whore, for example, could I really claim that I was just exercising my right to free speech? And would that make it less offensive? Come off it.
  
• "I Love Flied Lice" - so not content with approving Imus's blatant insult to blacks, the owner of this site has to needlessly insult Asians, too? Yuk.