The Line Imus Crossed

UNPLUGGED AND NOT SO POLLUTED. I should preface this by mentioning that the RSI family hasn't had television in our little house in Kentucky for more than eleven years. Mrs. RSI and I didn't want out daughters' minds polluted by the violence, crime, distorted relationships, and endless putdowns and humiliations.

And we weren't that happy with our own minds either.

So we unplugged from the cable system. We don't get much radio in our house either--just NPR on occasion and I've already posted about my hatred for NPR.

THE BIGOTRY ACCEPTABILITY LINE. In responding to the Don Imus Cultural Crisis, some shock radio DJ's in Chicago claimed that it's it's "harder than ever to draw the line between acceptable and offensive." Maybe they should have taken the time to think about the nature of "the line" they're trying to draw. What's acceptable for these guys are racist, misogynist, homophobic, and otherwise bigoted comments that are directed at people "who deserve it" or can be justified in colorblind or other kinds of neutral language. In other words, they can be just as an bigoted as they want as long as they have some form of plausibile deniability concerning the bigotry of their intent. From the DJ point of view, what tripped up Imus was that "the Rutgers basketball players did nothing to warrant the abuse they took from Imus and his producer . . . " Given that the Rutgers basketball players had no sex scandals, they were not civil rights activists, and had not been promoting themselves in the media, they seemed completely "innocent" and were therefore considered exempt from racist and misogynist abuse. Thus, Imus was "crossing the line" when he unleashed the abuse on them any way. Nevertheless, if the Rutgers basketball players had not been "innocent" (and who is completely innocent anyway?), then Imus' abuse would not have been crossing the line. In other words the line between "acceptable and offensive" is a "bigotry acceptability" line.

But the point needs to be made that the bigotry that does not "cross the line" is just as reprehensible as Don Imus was when he crossed the line. Going right up to the bigotry acceptability line and not crossing it is just as wrong as crossing it. Approaching the bigotry line is just as wrong as crossing it.

The bigotry is just wrong.