Terrorism

From comments:

Should Imus have gotten fired? The answer is obviously yes. He works for a business. His comments cost that business millions in advertising revenue. If you cost your company millions of dollars in one day, I bet you'd get fired too.

Fuck racism. This is business.

That's absoultely true, Imus was fired because he "lost money" for the companies the works for. Nevermind the fact that it's advertising revenue he generated in the first place. But losing that advertising is what cost Imus his job.

But that advertising revenue was lost because of the terrorist tactics of people like Reverend Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. They threatened to mobilize their "community" against the companies that Imus worked for.

Al and Jesse were very calculating in their assault. They spent the first couple of days ESTABLISHING that the comments were racist and extracting an apology from Imus. Then they went after the companies saying "are you going to keep broadcasting this established racist?" The companies, in the face of Imus' admission of guilt, had no choice but to bow to the pressure of the mob.

The problem is that Sharpton and Jackson are attacking Imus for saying something that black men can say freely on the radio and television. A black man can say "nappy headed" or "ho" to anyone at any time on any station and feel absolutely no repercussions. Neither Denzel Washington or Jay Leno can say "Cocksucker" on radio or television without serious consequences. But any black man can use worse racist language on the radio in hip hop music. Not only are there no repercussions, nobody even notices.

Freedom of Speech is obviously important in this country, as it comes first in the Bill of Rights. When you've gotten yourself into a situation where the freedom of what you can and can't say is determined by the color of your skin, something has gone horribly awry.