In case you haven't watched any news program in the past 48 hours, Don Imus made racially insensitive remarks on his radio show last week. I'll first say - that I don't have too much knowledge on Don Imus past, but I've seen him a handful of times, and never once been intrigued to listen to his program. Bottom-line - he seems like an idiot to me so I'm not suprised by the dumb comments he made.
The media world has really fallen in love with the story - making it a top-headline for almost an entire week. I feel like it's on every outlet varying from CNN to ESPN to The Today Show and I am OK with this. Some white entertainment personality makes racially insensitive comments about black people should be publicly humiliated (like he has been) by mainstream press. What I do find a bit disappointing -- even as a white person -- is who the media consistantly turns to for the African American viewpoint: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.....
No doubt these guys have put in their time -- and no doubt that they've seen the worst of this countries racial divide, but I truly believe that some new leaders from the black community need to begin to be highlighted. I believe that the tactics used to help create a greater vision of racial equality should evolve over time and I don't believe that Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton agree with this.
Clearly this is a sensitive topic - but I am curious to know how the black community feels about these 2 guys consistantly being the "mainstream representation." When Imus or Micheal Richards or whoever realizes that they were idiots -- the first thing they did was reach out to these guys. I recognize that having a passionate civil rights leader interview "the idiot" is clearly a different interview than, say, Kelly Ripa -- but I guess I wish there were just more options than Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson....
No comments:
Post a Comment