We published the PraiseNet a couple days early this week because of the breaking news on the Duke Lacrosse case and Don Imus firing. There’s been all this champagne cork-popping going on over Don Imus’ firing, which is sadly inappropriate. Don Imus’ show earned around $15 million a year for CBS, but hanging onto him would have incurred serious problems with major corporate sponsors—none of whom do any significant hiring of blacks, but I guess that’s another article. Of course CBS fired him. I’m shocked they didn’t hand him over with a bright red bow tied around him. Firing Imus was the easiest thing CBS could have done. And, despite all the high-fiving going on in barbershops around the country, the truth is we really blew it. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson simply gave away the store, going for the quick and easy and cheap victory. We’d all have been much better off had Al and Jesse persuaded CBS to keep Imus. That way, we’d benefit from the sublime slow torture of Imus on the air, having to live with this for weeks and maybe months.
Instead, Imus is fired and, so far as the American public is concerned, justice has prevailed. Which means nobody wants to hear about this anymore, and further discussion only looks like we’re whining and beating a dead horse. Had Jackson and company persuaded CBS to keep Imus on, the media would have beat that horse *for* us. Then Jackson and Sharpton could have negotiated serious concessions from Imus’ sponsors and from CBS. Instead, Sharpton and Jackson created zero jobs through their ham-fisted mangling of this golden opportunity, a rush that seemed to be more about their being able to take credit for “resolving” this issue.
What most of us fail to remember about Dr. Martin Luther King was just how smart the man was. The guy ran his thing like a Mafia Don. Jackson and Sharpton cashed in a quick check; King would have put that favor in the bank. CBS would have owed King fifteen million dollars (the approximate value of Imus’ show). And King was a man who always collected on his debts. Mostly, Dr. King would never have exploited these young women the way these preachers are doing today. He’d have told them to return love for hate. To be patient. To not lash out. To follow Jesus instead of following the media.
At bare minimum, King would have won sweeping and wide-ranging concessions from CBS and from Imus’ corporate sponsors. Imus would have been far more valuable on the air than off of it. Jackson and Sharpton really blew it. And, now that Imus has been swiftly fired—a relatively easy fix for CBS—nobody will want to talk about this anymore. They’ve cut the very legs out from under Dr. Soaries (the team’s pastor), Dr. Stringer, their coach, and taken the wind (and spotlight) from the women themselves.
So far as I am concerned, this whole Imus episode is simply a case of our chickens coming home to roost. We've allowed that language, that attitude towards women for so long, and things have gotten so bad, so utterly crass and misogynistic within urban culture, that we have forfeited the right to be outraged by someone parroting that sensibility. Firing Don Imus doesn’t address the problem, doesn’t engage the problem, doesn’t fix the problem. It’s cheap, it’s easy. As for the Rutgers players themselves, the quiet dignity they display is, likely, the most damming condemnation of all for Imus.
Reverends: maybe in the future we could be just a little more prayerful, just a little more patient. Maybe we could forego the instant thrill of the flash-flood temper tantrum for the cool-headed consideration of our overall purpose and objectives. Maybe we could be just a little more like Jesus and just a little less like Aunt Esther. Maybe we could stop rushing headlong towards the TV cameras and rush, instead, to the altar. Hate just tears down—Imus and us. Forgiveness transforms. It elevates and makes new.
