Posted on 04/09/2007 5:45:14 AM PDT by presidio9
Calling himself "a good person" who made a bad mistake, radio host Don Imus said Monday he would check his acid tongue after being lambasted for making racially charged comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
"Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it," he said on his nationally syndicated radio show Monday morning. "And because the climate on this program has been what it's been for 30 years doesn't mean it's going to be what it's been for the next five years or whatever."
Imus said he was "embarrassed" by the remarks, in which he referred to the mostly black team as "nappy-headed hos." He said he had made the comments in the course of "trying to be funny," but he was not trying to excuse them.
"I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person, but I said a bad thing. But these young women deserve to know it was not said with malice," he said.
Imus said he hoped to meet the players and their parents and coaches, and he said he was grateful that he was scheduled to appear later Monday on a radio show hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has called for Imus to be fired over the remarks.
"It's not going to be easy, but I'm not looking for it to be easy," Imus said.
Sharpton has said he wants Imus fired and that he intends to complain to the Federal Communications Commission about the matter.
"Somewhere we must draw the line in what is tolerable in mainstream media," Sharpton said Sunday. "We cannot keep going through offending us and then apologizing and then acting like it never happened. Somewhere we've got to stop this."
Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson planned a protest in Chicago, and an NAACP official called for the broadcaster's resignation or firing.
Imus made the now infamous remark during his show Wednesday.
The Rutgers team, which includes eight black women, had lost the day before in the NCAA women's championship game. Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGuirk about the game when the exchange began on "Imus in the Morning," which is broadcast to millions of people on more than 70 stations and MSNBC.
"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos..."
"Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said.
"That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.
Imus also apologized on the air Friday, but his mea culpa has not quieted the uproar.
Jackson said his RainbowPUSH Coalition planned to protest Monday in Chicago outside the offices of NBC, which owns MSNBC. Jackson said protests were being planned across the country.
James E. Harris, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, demanded Sunday that Imus "resign or be terminated immediately."
Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for MSNBC, said the network considers Imus' comments "deplorable" and is reviewing the matter.
Karen Mateo, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio — Imus' employer and the owner of his New York radio home, WFAN-AM — said the company was "disappointed" in Imus' actions and characterized his comments as "completely inappropriate."
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Imus: This is your brain after drugs
That this elderly hippie manages to pull a paycheck says a lot about taste in this country.
Ah, the “It was a bad joke” excuse getting used again.
Tune in tomorrow when Al Sharpton is on and really watch Imus
Grovel!
What an ass. Our side is supposed to shut-up and never try making clever comments (yeah, sometimes they're "offensive"), while they're supposed to get a free ride and demonize "whitey" all they want, with no consequences. Don't think so.
Tell that to “The Greasman”
I guess he should now go to rehab...
Translation: “I'm a Democrat damn it! I ain't resigning nothing... !”
The more you apologize, the more your foes want. Imus is on the slippery slope heading downward.
"Maybe yo white butt can get a job in HymieTown!"
(Check out the N's)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
I’m enjoying the irony of Imus getting fried by the very same left wing moonbats that he’s come to embrace over the last several years. It will be interesting to see how many, IF any, Democrat politicians have the guts to show up on his program any time soon.
Why not NYC????
However, I still maintain that apologies for this stuff are always wrong. People need to stop being senstive, and Al Sharpton needs to get a life.
If I mis-speak with my friends, I will apologize. But a public person, speaking on-the-fly, being paid to entertain, making an attempt at something humorous -- if they screw it up, they should just move on. Imus is allowing himself to be extorted by a race hustler.
Imus just needs to buy some carbon offset credits and that should take care of it.
I love it when people declare themselves to be ‘good’. ( sarcasm)
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