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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Not law but shocking - More on: Don Imus' comments about the Rudgers' women's basketball team members

Updating the ILB post from last Saturday morning, posted when there had been relatively few items in the press about the Don Imus remarks, today the Rutgers team gave its first press conference on the matter. The team has agreed that they will meet with Inus, as he has been requesting, but in private. They certainly did not need to grant his request, they owe him nothing.

NPR's Day to Day just broadcast a good report on the Rutger press conference, access it here when it becomes available later this afternoon.

I'm a big fan of women's basketball and followed the Rutger's team throughout the recent tournament - their run ended only in the final game against Tennessee. So it saddened me to read remarks like this today:

"This week and last, we should have celebrating our accomplishments the past season,'' said Heather Zurich, a sophomore forward. "We fought, we persevered, and most of all, we believed in ourselves. But all of our accomplishments were lost, our moment was taken away.

"We were stripped of this moment by the degrading comments made by Mr. Imus. My team did nothing to deserve Mr. Imus', nor Mr. McGuirk's , deplorable comments.''

Their admirable coach, C. Vivian Stringer, remarked today that:
her players "are the best this nation has to offer, and we are so very fortunate to have them at Rutgers University. They are young ladies of class, distinction. They are articulate, they are gifted. They are God's representatives in every sense of the word."

Imus has been suspended for two weeks for calling the Rutgers female basketball players "nappy-headed hos."

"It's not about them (players) as black or nappy-headed. It's about us as a people," Stringer said. "When there is not equality for all, or when there has been denied equality for one, there has been denied equality for all."

She further said: "While they worked hard in the classroom and accomplished so much and used their gifts and talents, you know, to bring the smiles and the pride within this state in so many people, we had to experience racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable, and abominable and unconscionable. It hurts me."

You can continue to follow the Rutgers story on Women's Hoops Blog, which this afternoon has this link to an "instant transcription" of the Rutgers press conference. It also has this link to an article by Gwen Knapp of the San Francisco Chronicle, who writes in part (read the whole thing):
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have made their plays against Don Imus. Now it's time for women to get into the game. * * *

The misogyny in his remarks has been downplayed for a lot of reasons. For starters, there are no women with the brand of clout wielded by a Jackson or Sharpton. The two reverends do what women wouldn't dare. They scare people. They don't back down, because they're playing to win, not to be liked. * * *

I admit I didn't want to deal with this issue at first. Among other things, I didn't want to type the words "nappy-headed ho's" and have them appear under my column mug. I didn't care to bring more attention to Imus, either.

But the whole thing festered, and then I remembered the way I felt when an Imus sidekick said something almost as ugly about tennis' Williams sisters a few years ago. I was disgusted, but I let it go. A lot of people did.

The Rutgers remark seemed to be a product of that apathy. We have allowed our culture to become so coarse that what once passed for satire had morphed into a verbal assault on eight college students.

Gray-Lawson expressed things perfectly when she said: "I don't know how anyone can talk that way about someone else's child. It's just cruel."

She's right. This goes beyond a racial or gender issue. It's a matter of decency that needs to be attacked from all angles. The National Organization for Women joined the fray, but individual women with star power have stayed silent. They need to get off the bench and start taking their shots.

[Update at 5:00 pm] I've happened upon a couple more good articles, this one by a columnist who admits "a steady diet of "Imus" desensitizes you." Gwen Ifill has this opinion piece in today's NY Times.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 10, 2007 12:43 PM
Posted to General News