America at Large:A slow-boiling tempest if ever there was one, this Don Imus thing took nearly a week to move from the airwaves to the sports pages to the front pages - and it isn't over yet.
Even after CBS Radio, which syndicates Imus' programme, and NBC, which simulcasts it via its cable wing MSNBC, announced that they were suspending the shlock jock for two weeks, the Rev Jesse Jackson was leading a group of 50 pickets at NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters, demanding the 66-year-old Texan be fired outright after, among other things, describing the predominantly black Rutgers University women's basketball team on the air as a collection of "nappy-headed 'hos" and "jigaboos".
While it isn't a sports programme per se, Imus' early-morning broadcast originates from WFAN, New York's all-sports radio station, and is, or used to be, carried on a number of other sports-oriented stations, including Boston's WEEI, around the nation.
Like, I suspect, the Rev Jackson and the rest of his posse, I didn't hear Imus' racially-charged remarks. (If you ever catch me listening to Don Imus, you may assume at least two things to be true: a) I am in my car, trapped in traffic, and, b) the local Public Broadcasting System station is in the midst of a fund-raising drive.) The offending broadcast aired on April 4th, the morning after the Rutgers girls lost 59-46 to Tennessee in the National Championship game in Cleveland, and judging from the protracted interval it took to percolate into a nationwide cause célèbre, one must assume that hardly anyone else heard it either.
I wasn't aware of it until a New York sports columnist, Filip Bondy, reamed out Imus four days later, in Saturday's Daily News. Sometime over the weekend the Rev Al Sharpton must have gotten wind of it, too, because by Monday morning Imus had arranged to appear on Sharpton's radio show, where he issued what must by any standard be considered a half-hearted apology.
Noting that he was "trying to be funny", Imus conceded, "Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of some people, because some people don't deserve it."
Sharpton said that he accepted Imus' apology, but reiterated his demand that he be fired anyway - even after the networks confirmed on Monday evening that the talk-show host was being suspended for two weeks.
Then, on Tuesday, Rutgers, the object of his ridicule, seized upon the occasion to trot out all 10 of their players (eight of whom are black and all of whom appeared to be well-groomed), replete in scarlet warm-up suits, for a tearful press conference so poignant that it will probably serve as an effective recruiting tool for coach Vivian Stringer's teams at the New Jersey institution of higher learning.
Not everyone was impressed. Jason Whitlock, an African-American columnist for the Kansas City Star, noted that "had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage. But an hour-long press conference over a man who has already apologised, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest.
"This," said Whitlock, "is opportunism."
Beyond the fact that finding myself on the same side of any question with Al Sharpton always makes me a bit nervous, there are other issues at play here - among them, that of censorship.
As reprehensible and inappropriate as Imus' characterisations may have been, the inherent danger of limiting free speech should be self-evident. The last time we checked, stupidity was not a crime.
Last night, in a week in which l'affaire Imus was still leading the newscasts and dominating the front pages of the New York tabloids, I took part in an event sponsored by the poetry project at St Mark's in-the-Bowery, celebrating the publication of Way More West, a posthumous collection of the work of the American poet Edward Dorn.
One of my fellow participants was the distinguished poet Amiri Baraka, who, 40-odd years ago when he still went by the name LeRoi Jones, published two of Dorn's early books.
As it turned out, yesterday morning Amiri had weighed in on the issue at hand.
"It should be clear," said Baraka in an e-mail, "that poisonously ill shock jock Don Imus should be cut loose by MSNBC, CBS, and WFAN - and, from the feeble little slap on the pinky the corpses have given Imus as 'punishment', we should be able to peep the scam ahead."
Baraka is, or was, the officially-appointed Poet Laureate of New Jersey, but in 2002 he found himself at the centre of a firestorm not unlike Imus' present fix. After the publication of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America" made the fairly self-evident connection between the United States' inveterate support of Israel and the international climate that produced the events of 9/11, he was accused of anti- Semitism and relieved of his honorific post.
"Governor (James) McGreevey called me and demanded that I apologise or resign," recalled Baraka. "But, unlike Imus, what I said in the poem needed no apology.
"The poem caused such a torrent of gibberish and hysteria in the media and the state-house that finally, when the little hypocrites couldn't fire me, they abolished the position of Poet Laureate," explained Baraka. "That's why I still sign my letters 'The Last Poet Laureate of New Jersey', just to piss these buggers off.
"And as it turned out," Baraka further noted, "it was Gov McGreevey who had to apologise and resign." (McGreevey relinquished his post in 2004 after it was learnt that the married governor was having a homosexual affair.)
In the end, this will probably turn on whether Jesse Jackson and his ilk can exert enough pressure on sponsors (many of whom are already distancing themselves from Imus) to force the networks' hands, but, from where we sit, the Baraka precedent would appear to offer the opportunity for an equitable disposition.
We'd hate to see anyone punished for expressing his opinion, but wouldn't it be wonderful if these networks just got together and abolished the programme altogether? Not because of what Don Imus might have said or what he thinks, but for the best of all reasons - because his show stinks.
