Jemele Hill's Article
I must say that I laughed when I read Jemele Hill's most recent rant on the deviltry of Don Imus. All she's doing is encouraging the propagation of "comments [that]were harmful to all women". If nobody in the national media, no blog posters, and no Page 2 columnist had mentioned anything Imus had said, practically nobody would have ever heard of his remark about the Rutger's team. As it is, this media blitz is only going to let millions of people who have never heard of Don Imus hear his vulgar reference repeated ad infinitum.
The truth of the matter is that businesses exist to return a profit, and a shocking radio announcer will always have his followers, no matter how much of a minority they are. All this free publicity will only allow Imus to engage countless new followers and guarantee his company will make more money. American society has the ability to check a business by not supporting it if that business engages in practices that society doesn't support, but the fact Imus is making money shows that part of America actually supports some of what he says. All the media channels in the world won't make people stop spending their money on him (think of cigarettes and illegal drugs), and blogs such as this one only encourage him.
In response to Hill's assertion that speech is free but consequences are not is absolutely ridiculous. If Hill disagrees with what Imus said, she shouldn't be giving him free advertising. Additionally, her argument that he should be kicked out by security is completely ridiculous. Unless he violated the terms of his contract, his employer has no power to do anything other than what they have promised to do (pay him). If Hill thinks that Imus should be punished simply because he claims something that she disagrees with, she may be shocked to find out that somebody could call for her forced removal because another person disagrees with what she says.
People are going to have misguided opinions, and I'm sure the Rutgers basketball team itself is guilty of a few crass comments (at least my experience with athletes has shown that teams from pee-wee to professional are guilty of comments that can be deemed offensive to almost anyone). Calling for the ouster of someone who says something offensive is not going to solve the problem, but actually redefining what people see in a certain group will make a difference. The reason Martin Luther King made so much more of a difference than Al Sharpton ever will is because Dr. King inspired his followers to be better and show others that they really were good people while Al Sharpton only manages to criticize others for not treating everyone how he perceives they should be treated, rather than actually showing that those people deserve to be treated like he claims.
Disagreeing with someone is fine, but hopefully Jemele Hill realizes she is playing into the hands of the corporation she is trying to destroy.