WHOA!

I knew the outpouring of support for the students and anger against Imus was tremendous, but I never thought I would see something like this!

NBC News Drops Imus Show Over Racial Remark

NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, canceling his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a week after he made a racially disparaging remark about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

I blinked several times just to make sure. CBS Radio is still maintaining their two week suspension, but this is really a major development. Come to think of it, I can't recall a major media personality losing his job in this manner (and thank goodness for that because if there were more I think I'd go nuts!). I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh and his idiotic episode on ESPN awhile ago. He still has a job and he's still on the airwaves though on a limited degree. I'm talking about a clear cut, slam dunk, career-ending firing. I do remember ages ago about Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder losing his job as a television sports announcer for CBS in 1988 for saying racist remarks about the athletic ability of blacks as a product of selective breeding during slavery:

Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder is fired after 12 years as a CBS football analyst for remarks he makes to a Washington, D.C, television reporter about the physical abilities of black and white athletes. Among other things, Snyder, 70, says the black athlete is "bred to be the better athlete because, this goes all the way to the Civil War when ... the slave owner would breed his big woman so that he would have a big black kid." Snyder later apologizes for the comments but his career as a broadcaster is over.

NBC dropping Imus is an important political statement. That these kinds of remarks for radio and television will not be condoned, and more importantly, there will be real severe consequences. After all, if the average person uttering these remarks at the workplace will get fired, why not someone like Imus? There are professional standards of conduct that exist and there are limitations to what you can do.

So why am I still bothered by this? Something is troubling me and I can't exactly pinpoint it. I know I do consider this a powerful demonstration against this kind of patently offensive conduct. It was also an amazing national response against Imus, and it was a fairly diverse response even though all we see are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. But there were whites, Latinos, Asians, women, parents, children, religious groups, and the like all speaking out against Imus. It was a broad and beautiful cross-section of America that came out. And I'm aware of the fact, and question, if the same thing would've happened if the players were not black, but white, or Latino, or Asian? It's a legitimate question, but it's not the one that's been bothering me.

And forget this nonsense about how this is a blow to free speech crap. It's beyond that now.

But something still does not sit well with me. It's that feeling I get when something that should be obvious to me but isn't. It's what cultural studies scholar, Stuart Hall, once described as "in plain view, but out of sight." And right now, I can't see it ... just yet.