While I have had about as much news coverage of the Imus debacle as I can take, I keep noticing the talking heads using the term "national conversation" on the topic of race in America. As I recall, this same term was kicked around after Michael Richards' racial tirade, yet nothing happened. Does firing Imus solve the problem of racial prejudice in this country, or does it simply hush it away?
Part of me is pleased to see a powerful white establishment figure like Imus finally get taken down a notch after all the years of improper remarks, but the other half of me wants to say "why him, why now, and why not true purveyors of hate speech like Michael Savage and the numerous other ultra-right wingers on talk radio?" Is it only because Imus (and his producer) took a cheap shot at innocent college women, while these talking heads normally rail against political and public figures? I would agree with that, except for all the calls and blog posts by angry white people passing the blame to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, using hateful speech far worse than those remarks made by Imus in the first place.
This only goes to show how far we have NOT come in this country in dealing with the issue of race relations. And not just white vs. black, but the continuing debate about Latino immigration, real Anti-Semitism, and of course, the latest fad, anti-Arabism. Unless we deal with these issues as a nation on a regular basis and not only when advertisers decide to pull their funding, we will be doomed to repeat this issue over and over, never solving anything.
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