What Happened to the "I" Man?

linskyjack · 08-Apr-2007, 11:48 PM #1

I just read this, and it appears as if a radio legend is about to get his head chopped off. I have been listening to the guy for years, and he isn't a bigot. He is an equal opportunity abuser. Anyhow, the guy has down wonderful things for kids (Has a ranch for kids who have cancer) and his wife is working hard to combat autism. I think an apology should suffice and an understanding that Imus doesn't have a racist bone in his body. I hope they don't judge the man based strictly on this one idiotic episode.

Imus set for Sharpton's radio show

By MARCUS FRANKLIN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 54 minutes ago

Don Imus will appear on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show Monday, five days after Imus made racially charged comments on his own show about the Rutgers women's basketball team, Sharpton and MSNBC announced Sunday.

Despite Imus' scheduled appearance, Sharpton said his position was unchanged: He wants Imus fired and intends to write the Federal Communications Commission about the matter.

"Somewhere we must draw the line in what is tolerable in mainstream media," Sharpton said Sunday. "We cannot keep going through offending us and then apologizing and then acting like it never happened. Somewhere we've got to stop this."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said his RainbowPUSH Coalition plans to protest Monday in Chicago outside the offices of NBC, which owns MSNBC, over the remark Imus made last Wednesday during his show.

Imus said members of the mostly black Rutgers University women's basketball team were "nappy-headed hos."

The team, which includes eight black women, had lost the day before in the NCAA women's championship game. Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGuirk about the game when the exchange began on the show, which is broadcast to millions of people on more than 70 stations and the MSNBC television network.

"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ... ."

"Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said.

"That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.

Jackson said protests are being planned across the country.

"If he has a right to use that platform to insult and degrade then we have a moral obligation to picket NBC and to protest," Jackson said. "If he can violate us in that platform in the name of free speech we'll be picketing NBC in the name of free speech."

James E. Harris, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, demanded Sunday that Imus "resign or be terminated immediately."

Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for MSNBC, which simulcasts "Imus in the Morning," said the network considers Imus' comments "deplorable" and is reviewing the matter.

Karen Mateo, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio, Imus' employer and the owner of WFAN-AM, said the company was "disappointed" in Imus' actions and characterized his comments as "completely inappropriate."

Imus, who has not been publicly disciplined, apologized on the air Friday.

"It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry," Imus said, according to a transcript on MSNBC's Web site.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Pre

poochee · 09-Apr-2007, 01:01 PM #2

Imus embarrassed by own Rutgers remarks Hopefully, this is the end of it.
By MARCUS FRANKLIN -- Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 9:06 am PDT Monday, April 9, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) After being criticized for his racially charged comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team, radio host Don Imus said Monday that he's a good person who said a bad thing and will check his acid tongue.

Imus said he was "embarrassed" by the remarks, in which he referred to the mostly black team as "nappy-headed hos." He said he had made the comments in the course of "trying to be funny," but he was not trying to excuse them.

"I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person, but I said a bad thing. But these young women deserve to know it was not said with malice," he said.