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."
___
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)
That is a good point about Jackson and the Duke debacle. I wonder who has better income now from race pimp operations, Jackson or Sharpton.
“Our side is supposed to shut-up and never try making clever comments “
I can’t find the “clever” part in Imus’ comment. Can you point it out for me?
Imus once was saying how he wanted then Sec. of Defense, Rumsfeld, to get beat up.
Funny, no one complained then.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone." - Mark 10: 17, 18
Well stated.
And a real job.
Guess someone should tell Imus.... You are what you do, not what you think you are.
Yup. He is a cardboard cowboy and an obnoxious motor-mouth. It is sickening watching our nation's supposed leaders sucking up to him/and vice-versa. He sells indulgences (as does Oprah, Dr Phil, and the late-night talk show hosts).
Yeah..that is right.
The Rats have jumped the Imus ship, not because of the Nappy Hair comment, but because recently on air, he said he would NOT vote for Hillary for POTUS. He'd vote for McCain or Rudy instead.
He loathes Hillary!
sw
“Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson planned a protest in Chicago,”
Imus said something dumb but this is absurd. Poverty is huge in the black community. Crime is through the roofs. Drugs have taken an awful toll. Absentee fathers are everywhere. Rap music degrades their women. And this is what he focuses on? Guess its better for Ol’ Jesse if the black community never lifts itself up so he will never turn his attention to issues of substance.
I will wait to see if now, if someone wants to mess up a basketball game ( or whatever athletic game)..you just have someone cry’assault’ and several of their players are out of the game.
I doubt if radio would fire him. But PMSNBC might not be able to keep him. Of course PMSNBC is such a terrible network, an early morning simulcast of a radio show might be one of their most reliable sources of advertising.
In what way is Imus on "our side"?
“I’m still waiting for Al Sharpton’s apology.”
Steve Pagonis
This is pretty ripe. Imus loves to jump on the bandwagon, bashing whatever pol or celeb has put their foot in it. Now he does it and it’s just a ‘mistake’ because he’s really ‘a good person’. Funny how he never believes that of anyone else.
Oh he will. If he doesn't make a BIG contribution to Jesse and Al's charities he'll be seeing all of them in a courtroom.
Imus said something dumb but this is absurd. Poverty is huge in the black community. Crime is through the roofs. Drugs have taken an awful toll. Absentee fathers are everywhere. Rap music degrades their women. And this is what he focuses on?
Well, yeah! Those other problems are hard, and way beyond Jesse's ability to handle. Extorting money from self-conscious white folks is much easier -- and more personally satisfying. If you know what I mean.
I don’t think it was the nappy-headed ho comment that got him in trouble. I think it was a subsequent comment about the Jigaboos and Wannabes, which is from Spike Lee’s movie “School Daze.”
White guilt. So glad I’m immune.
SOmebody should “You Tube” Imus’ remarks on Michael Richards’ rant that got him terminally unemployed.
What pisses me off about Imus is that he has been pulling this crap for years, and at the same time using celebrity impersonators, etc to paint Rush as a racist on the level of the Klan, with no basis in fact.
I've heard many educated people through the years say that Rush is a racist, though I know they don't listen to Rush, I suspect they pick up on satire and parody of Imus.
So rap song lyrics are okay with this kind of talk, and a white DJ can’t say the same thing? Just wondering. Black rappers have been denigrating women of their own race now for ten or so years. Imus is just parroting what he’s heard.
I wonder if know there must be a market for "Ignorance Offsets."
FreeRepublic could sell them to those (liberals/greenies) who have an intense desire to remain ignorant. We could offer to study and learn (something we have a natural tendency for) while they spend their time protesting and being ignorant.
Damn! I'll bet they are too ignorant to recognize this wonderful deal.
In this case, they could come with a cowboy hat with a fake hair wig attached.
Imus is a faggot.
This is a tough one for the liberals. Where do you get a guy that call Pres. Bush a war criminal consistently. How do you replace that?
So they are in a conundrum. The solution will be that Imus agrees to denigrate the war and the president and continue the “war criminal” rants at a minium of 2 times per week. His payment is permanent dhimmitude to the Black Caucus of Hucksters.
I wonder if Imus’s good pals, Tim Russert and Chris Matthews will be making an appearance on his show this week???
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