The press conference was held to accommodate the inquiries from the media around the country. The press conference was held as a matter of mutual convenience for the women and the media. The public is apparently very interested in the story, and these women can't be faulted for answering their questions.

How these women can be critcized for the manner with which they've handled this ugliness is beyond me.

It is easy for someone who is neither female or Black to tell these women to shut up and just deal with it, but if that clown Imus sneered and snickered as he threw those insults, rooted in ignorance and playing off the bigotry of his audience, at my daughter, I would have quite a bit to say, and I would not advise her to accept it quietly as one of life's lessons.

I'm an Italian-American male, born and raised in the Belmont section of the Bronx. Growing up, I saw my share of hatred towards African-Americans, Puerto Ricans and whoever else had the "nerve" to move within the confines of "our" little enclave of the east Bronx. I heard my share of bigoted remarks within my own family. I'm not an apologist. It's no more up to me to apologize to minorites for my grandparents view of the world than it is to a WASP to apologize for slave trading or for a third generation German-American to apologize for anti-semetism. However, I choose to "break the chain" on that way of thinking. The very least I can do is recognize that what Imus said was very wrong. He's being punished and he needn't be fired. I just choose not to listen anymore. What everyone else does is their business.

Uniformed people? The military was there?

I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom, but -- I taught her never to dishonor her family. I don't apologize, to take care of my family. And I refused -- to be a fool -- dancing on the string, held by all those -- bigshots. I don't apologize -- that's my life. It -- makes -- it doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, understand. But your business is ah -- a little dangerous.

A good article from Jason Whitlock, a columnist in Kansas City, might know him from his past work on ESPN. A very good read and I think he's 100% correct. He is black, btw.

Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK - Columnist

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

Great article on the whole sham! Thanks for posting it, ap_Capone. Whitlock said it better than anyone else has.

My man spoofed this whole debaucle: paprika-snorting ghoulies

Just heard the white guys in the Duke LaCrosse thing got cleared. Maybe Sharpton & Jess will put their bullseyes on that town for a while and leave poor ol' Imus alone!

Oh! And did you see the picture of their accuser?? I WOULD quote Imus here, but someone might take offense!

That deserves it's own thread. That prosecutor should be flogged for withholding the evidence that would have cleared those poor boys. I hope he ends up in general population with an axe murderer that he prosecuted.

"You gonna eat your cornbread ?"

Snoop Dogg's Take On The Imus/Rutgers Basketball Situation

Snoop frequently refers to women as "b**ches" and "hos" in his music, but he insists Imus' use of the term was unacceptable and the 66-year-old DJ should be taken off the air.

The Doggystyle star says, "It's a completely different scenario. (Rappers) are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about hos that's in the 'hood that ain't doing s**t, that's trying to get a n**ga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthaf**kas say we are in the same league as him.

"Kick him off the air forever."

MSNBC drops simulcast of Don Imus show

I guess Al & Jesse are happy

Can't do a tv show every day without sponsors. Looks like the I-Man is learning a lesson in humility.

Oh darn. I was wanting to hear Imus piss and moan about how hes a victim tomorrow.

Sounds like what 95% of the country talks about with their friends.

Well, it's growing into a Frankenstein. Now they're talking about getting up a committee to discuss what one can and can't say in radio (and probably in everything, eventually). Even that loathsome Rosie O'Donnell -- whom I despise -- has warned that the "thought police" are coming next, and I begrudgingly admit that I'm prone to agree with her.

And, sorry, but I don't buy into Snoop Dog's rationalization. In fact, his take on it is far more demeaning to blacks and women than anything Imus said.

God, can't we just move on already??

Yeah, and look what happened to him!

Yeah poor Khartoum

We obviously hangout in different circles!

Don't you go to Catholic school?

Ditto.

Have you ever listened to Michael Savage's radio show? His last name is an adjective. God, not only is he insane, but he has a forum in which to manifest that insanity.

Wasn't Savage the one that was so nuts that FOX NEWS had to can him? Or was that MSNBC?

Savage is fucking nuts. Seriously. Basically, the right-wing alternative to Rosie O'Donnell.

I quite agree. Savage's mind is so closed that even he can't open it. Having convictions on certain issues is all well and good, but to act like you have the answer to everything without considering any other viewpoint is indeed insane. If a caller calls in with a counterpoint, he just tells them to shutup and hangs up on them. Hardly a serious or respectable "celebrity." I used to listen to him when I worked nights just to laugh at him and some of the poor, hapless and clueless callers.

Savage is a seriously sick bastard, in the same vein as Ann Coulter. Imagine if they bred ?

They would procreate...the AntiChrist.

But Annie has a bigger Adam's Apple.

"Michael Coulter"..."Ann Savage"...The former sounds like the captain of a football team and the latter sounds like a porn queen.

I wrote earlier in this thread that I didn't feel that Imus' comment was racist. I must not keep up on my racially derogatory terms because I had never heard the reference he used before this controversy. Since the reference is racially biased, I amend my previous point and am glad to see what he received.

But what gets me is the double standard in this country. Stuart Scott, an African-American sports commentator on ESPN, was on Mike & Mike's morning show yesterday. He contended that when rappers use the "n-word" or refer to women as "bitches" or "ho's" in songs, that is perfectly acceptable.

Bullshit! If it is offensive when a white person says any of those words to a person of the other race, it is offensive when any person says those words. Period. I cannot stand it when I am in my city at lunch or out and about when I hear one African-American call another a "n-word." It is completely hypocritical that such a hateful word when uttered by some can somehow be construed as a term of "affection," as Stuart Scott contended.

I'd like to see Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, and some of these others who decry racism in all instances, not just when it's convenient.

Looks like CBS fired him from his radio show. Jeez, I wish they would get this shit off ESPN. I dont want to watch Around the Horn to hear about this story.

It was just reported CBS fired Imus (as well).

OK, thats out of the way now (and maybe rightly so). NOW that house is being cleaned, we take Al Sharpton to task for his role in the Tawana Brawley mess.