The International Writers Magazine: Reality Check

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OF VILLAINS, VICTIMS & VENGENCE The Sad Spectacle of a Radio Has-Been and Student Athletes Condescending. Patronizing. Exploitive. Hypocritical. Disingenuous. • James Campion All the words that make this supposed democratic society of equals so pathetic. Think about it. We celebrate victimization by patronizing our citizens and demonizing our stupid, all the while changing our tune as we go. We're so caring. We're so combative. We love a damsel in distress. We love our mob mentality simplifying our woes with phony rhetoric and fabricated outrage. We love bloating the worth of our celebrities and then pricking the inflated egos we create. And we love our noise, a whole lot of noise, signifying nothing.

So an aging record-spinner cum shock-jock who's one claim to talent is selling mouthwash in 30-second spots and who's managed to bilk boatloads of money for over three decades mongering vitriol for cheap laughs has found his borderline. Everyone has one, the place where you peer into the abyss and never return. Calling female, African-American student athletes racist and misogynous names was Don Imus' borderline. He crossed it and paid with his gig.
Fine.

Not sure a true free society should have borderlines, but that's just me. I'm consistent. And that means I'm consistent in my continued assertion that this is not a free society. It comes with a price. Everyone pays it. Imus paid it.

Okay, whatever. He's just one rodeo clown. There are plenty more where he came from. Plenty right now as I write this making fun of everyone and everything with goofy sound effects and guffawing background sycophants. The FCC fines some and others are canned. Some move to satellite, some die out naturally. It's called entertainment. I don't particularly find it entertaining, but then if everything I found stupid and offensive were banned we'd have a couple of things on PBS and that's about it.
The real issues in this whole Imus pogrom are race and decorum.
We'll call them victimization and profit margins instead, because we're not full of shit.

If I were a Rutgers women's basketball player, a young person making my way in the world, as I was once a young man, I would not as I did not want people "helping" me out.  People are always running to help the kids. People are always so protective and understanding and know exactly what kids need, from Columbine to MTV to Drug Counseling ads to "Vote Or Die" threats. Insults. Patronization. How demeaning it is for the Al Sharptons and Jessie Jacksons and Brian Williams and New York Times columnists to scramble around like blind lemmings "assisting" the poor kittens trapped in a tree.
Sickening.

If I needed assisting, I surely wouldn't solicit it from opportunist ex-cons, anti-Semites, talking haircuts, and a bloodied corporate media sacred cow. All of these parasites exist to feed off the poor and disenfranchised whom they keep that way by being de facto big brother types, a classic big-dick, male-ego, daddy-figure mentality that reduces women and minorities to victims.

And how about the University of Rutgers' travesty of organizing a press conference and propping their indentured servants up sporting their nifty college uniforms and making them answer questions and offering weak and defeatist statements like "These comments have diminished our accomplishments" or succumbing to this nonsense about how they are scarred victims of name-calling.
Bullshit.

This was never about women's rights or race relations. This was about exploitive media whores and social-baters making another cause celeb of innocents. Turning people into symbols, a sadistic human trait as old as Jesus on the cross. In essence reversing the prime reason for protest: Halting bigotry. It is the ultimate bigotry to assume young black women are in dire need of defending: Poor little girlies are wounded and can't get up. Let's fight their battles and protect their fragile constitutions. Boo-Hoo.

If I were allowed to advise the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team, this is the statement I would ask them to make: "Who is Don Imus? Is he a vacuum salesman or something? Well, whatever he is, he's entitled to his jokes and observations. None of it has a thing to do with me, really. I don't care what anyone thinks of me, as long as those I care for and love respect me and I am not discriminated against in the law of the land, it makes no difference what mumbling fossils say about me on the radio. And I don't want any apology either. He said it, he stands by it. Apologies only serve the attacker. I will not give him the satisfaction of personal redemption. That's between him and whatever moral structure he subscribes to. But I do implore anyone who might care about this to never listen to or watch a product peddled by Imus' employees or purchase products of those sponsoring said shows. Thank you."

Which brings us to our final villain in all this exploiting and self-aggrandizing twaddle, NBC and CBS.
What a bunch of grab-ass, money-hoarding bottom-feeders these networks are. Always have been, always will be. Who are they kidding with their somber statements of regret and morality? Where was their morality for close to a week after these statements were uttered? You know when NBC News President Steve Capus and CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves whipped off their counterfeit mea culpas? When the sponsors hit the road, that's when. They come on all high and mighty after the fact, as if these written apologies laced with touchy-feely blather mean a goddamn thing beyond saving a buck.

And then we hear the bald-faced lies from their spokesman claiming they were throwing away money by bravely sacking Imus. No they're not. What money would they make now? None. Who was going to sponsor this idiot after this? No one. What company is going to pay a non-profit entity $10 million a year? Not one.

So what have we learned from all this, kids?
Morning radio jack-asses use bully hate tactics to garner ratings and big pay checks, but they live dangerously.

CBS, NBC and the former sponsors of the Imus Show are the true bigots because they believe that African-American women are worthier of moral outrage and action than Catholics, gays, Jews, Muslims, civil servants, and let's face it, everyone else breathing.

People who get crazy defending everything believe their subjects weak and incapable of standing up for themselves, further perpetuating their bogus status as minority.   And finally, if someone somewhere utters a hateful thing about you, it therefore defines you, destroys you, and diminishes everything you have accomplished and stand for.
 I feel better about things now, don't you?
©  James Campion April 16th 2007
realitycheck@jamescampion.com

Free Trade Propaganda
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Why I should be a Juror
James Campion
Unfortunately the author did not experience the privilege of serving as a juror. He was dismissed for being a freelance journalist


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