i don't usually...

i don't usually have two posts in two days. and i don't usually re-post something that someone else has written. but i just read a fantastic piece by jason whitlock, a black sports writer from kansas city who has been featured on espn several times. i am pretty annoyed by this whole Imus/Sharpton thing. i am sick of the manufactured outrage that we have in america. its not just race issues. its everything that we manufacture in america to draw attention to ourselves. its not about issues, its about our 15 minutes of fame. its at a point where fame is worth more then real genuine thought. anyway here is jason whitlock's piece:

"Jason Whitlock: Imus Isn't the Real Bad Guy
Kansas City Star 4/11/07

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.

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 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 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."

--aaron

rev? really?

one of the big news items right now is all about don imus and some comments he made about the rutgers woman's basketball team. i don't want to get to much into what he said, but he choose to say something that could offend someone. he did not use the best judgement. he was stupid. should he have said it? no. i think it was inappropriate. but, he is a radio personality. his job is to make people respond. so i can see how it would have happened. do i think it was a stupid thing. of course.

my issue is not with imus. he did something wrong, and he has apologized, to the point of annoyance. he has jumped through every hoop put in front of him. my issue is with the media whore, one of the most worthless, self serving, arrogant, creeps in america. the reverand al sharpton. this man attaches himself to this stuff all the time. attaches himself like the parasite he is. his involvement has made this into ten times the media circus it needs to be. and does anyone buy for a minute that this jerk has any ones best interest in mind? absolutely not. he care only about making himself seem important. this man has zero credibility. he has zero actual worth to society. he doesn't actual care about black culture in america. he is self serving. he is a parasite and the rutgers institution should be ashamed of itself for allowing this waste this parasite to attach himself to them. your argument, rutgers, your ground to stand on, is being taken up by a loud mouth idiot. you, by association, rutgers, are risking losing your credibility.

and why do we continue to call this leech "reverand" he is no more a spiritual leader then colonel sanders led an army. he is as much a joke to followers of Christ as pat robertson and jerry falwell. self serving, egotistical, pompous, arrogant, fools.

there, that's enough...

--aaron