Nappy

Well, it's been a while and I thought that I might have more time for the blogging once my show closed, but that hasn't been the case. The past two weeks I've been working just as much as when I was doing theater, it seems everyone is auditioning for the fall right now - and since I'm not doing anything until the fall that means more work for me. And more driving in horrible, horrible traffic. So of it seems to have paid off, but I will discuss that when there is more "officialness" to discuss.

Now I want to get into to Don Imus. I just saw that he's been fired. Good, but I don't really think he should have been fired for what he was fired for.

I've been racking my brain to figure out when the word "nappy" became a racial slur. I have certainly referred to myself as "nappy" - particularly when I had long hair in college, but no hair brush.

I have no intention of defending Don Imus, but shouldn't 30 years of being an ass hole be more reason to give him the ax? I guess I have to admit that I dislike the mooring "shock jock" genre that Imus was instrumental in creating. My freshman roommate in college forced me to listen to "the Greaseman" every morning when I got up and it left a rather awful taste in my mouth.

Howard Stern (not to be confused with not the father of Anna Nichole Smith's baby) has never held place in my heart either - except when the fake Imus in Private Parts insulted him, I felt for Howard there.

So I don't like what Imus does. Does that mean it shouldn't be on the radio? How is different from the Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity radio shows?

Moreover; upon watching the footage from the MSNBC simulcast on youtube, I did find a racial slur in the commentary. The word was jigaboo. I really hate that word. But Imus didn't say it. I was one of the other talentless hacks he surrounds himself with to make him appear to be the smart one. So should Imus really lose his job, or just the nameless faceless dude who actually said something awful?

Ok, the misogyny was pretty bad though. But didn't we have the "ho's" conversation throughout the 90's? Was Imus trying to speak to a hip hop audience, and now is he being persecuted for trying to reach people? The answer to that is probably not. But I will say this for him. He has not come out swinging on this. He has apologized, expressed regret and remorse, done everything one would want hi to do, an no one will forgive him. Seems, I don't know...sad?

I won't miss him, but I take no satifactin in this being a victory for race relations or free speech.