I have watched "Imus in the Morning," on MSNBC for at least five years on a semi regular basis. Don Imus has been suspended by the cable channel and his radio station WFAN, for two weeks commencing the 16th. He is hosting his "radiothon", which starts the 12th. This yearly effort raises money for, Tomorrows Children’s Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS, and the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer. Since its inception in 1990, the radiothon has raised more than $50 million for very worthy causes. The I-Man carries himself as an independent rebel and iconoclast. He made his mark in radio with years of toil honing and polishing his no-holds-barred style, which a sizable throng consider provocative and arresting.
There is a twin multitude who would call the show irksome and tedious, a daily festival of eclectic country music snippets blended with the kind of dissing and ridiculing that goes on at worksites across America. Imus calls it a comedy show. Redneck observations abound. So does mimickry of percieved black speech idiom, especially by Bernard, the producer, who has an open mike in his booth. In the months following Katrina, Bernard had frequent turns at mocking New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; using words such as "ax" instead of ask; reprising Nagin's "chocolate people" statement and riffing on it, citing "mocha people" to the unfailing hilarity of Don Imus.
All white people know such humor abounds in many white settings, where quite commonly the same white people treat any black person, face to face, with the same courtesy and manners as white people, in public as society expects. Maybe Imus falls into this category. A lot of white people do. It seems unfair to condemn so many as racist or hypocrites. I say much of this [childish] behavior stems from our continued racial apartness. The American experience is at least a dichotomy, with blacks and whites living contrasting realities with vastly differant experiences and expectations (Who is conditioned to anticipate that police will surely hassle them whenever they move about where the surrounding backdrop of people doesn't conceal them). I am from the Detroit area, and lived in the city after I finished high school in a suburb, Southfield. My parents moved into a home in Livonia, a 36 square mile city 2 miles west of the Detroit city limits. My Father was employed by the largest Cadillac dealer in the US, in volume of sales, Donald Massey Cadillac, and met many people from the western suburbs. He heard the Livonia Police were using a pretty lame code over the police radio: NIL, as in, "I've got a NIL heading west on 7 Mile approaching Inkster..." One guess to ID what "in Livonia" they were referring to. The police band is available to the public, so it was not long before they were on the TV news being verbally flogged for racism; and bringing attention to 97% white Livonia.
When the neo-cons were calling for school "vouchers", a gainsaying label for a tax refund if his kid goes to private school, I had to think back to a Detroit Free Press article I read in the late 80's, documented with state generated figures.
How corrupt our language and system have become! What damage! The TV commercial politics and the monstrously arduous and wasteful travel the current primary/caucus "election" regimen obliges, has winnowed the choice for President, but not to narrow it down to the qualified. Instead the process furnishes candidates equipped with the money, pollsters and logistic teams to capture Iowan votes first, so fundraising will spike, enhancing the opportunity to prevail in subsequent state polls. These primaries as they have developed select and send delegates to the national convention who have no choice how to vote. The free exercise of conscience departs on primary day and does not return until November when the 50% or so Americans who vote get a choice of one or the other.
The reverse engineered Iowa Caucus that appeared in the 1970's merely on the whim to supplant New Hampshire as the first object of attention. A caucus differs from a primary, the campaign does not consist of wooing the public at large, small, far flung assemblies throughout the state vote in parliamentary fashion. Iowa requires face to face contact with candidates in these little gatherings to perform well enough to proceed into the log jam of plebiscites that immediately follow, with anything approaching a winner's chance. This traversing of the state of Iowa does nothing to elevate the public debate or refine the issues of a national election. And the cash needed to appease Iowans
In Detroit, where I grew up, public schools received state and federal aid at a set amount per student statewide. By a very wide margin the bulk of funds for each local school district come from the residents of each individual district based upon the assessed value of his real property. So kids in suburban West Bloomfield a scant 4.5 miles from the Detroit City Limits were educated with over $7,000.00 per pupil for the academic year; while Detroit Public Schools had to make do with less than $2000.00 for each student.
So what we call public schools are are a variable mish mash of schools based on what the parents can afford. And since 1980, political victory has engineered by professional thought manipulators, not with catchy slogans, but by appealing to the fears and resentments easily stirred in a public, where so many households are with the loss of the next five or six paychecks,
facing ruin and homelessness.
It is this economic reality that causes the abrading between races. Numbers don't lie. The per capita incomes of the racial groups remains staggered with whites earning more; and providing their offspring with the superior education money provides.
The defensive stance adopted by Imus in the wake of the story exploding in the media after his suspension was announced; citing his good works, his overall positive relations with the African American community, the sincerity of his apology and remorse; demonstrated a lack of insight as to what the uproar was about.
The National Broadcast Company was historically about the closest thing we have had to a "BBC", PBS was late and too weak. NBC was so big, in the thirties, with its NBC Red and NBC Blue, providing mutually exclusive programming, the government force NBC to divest itself of "Blue" which became the independant American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Along with Columbia Broadcasting System, these companies were the public voice and in spite of ratings losses
The so-called "simulcast" of his WFAN program on MSNBC disappeared years ago. The "simulcast" is now reversed. When viewers tune in on cable, they see the show originating from the million dollar opulence of a sleek, space-age MSNBC studio. If he is in the city, he is seated in in Ft. Lee, NJ, when his workday begins, several miles by limo (his mode of transit-he routinely reminds his audience and costars from the mike) from the old radio booth.
The non-devotee, unlearned in I-Man lore identifies him as a TV star. A TV star having a powerful platform and wearing whatever mantle of legitimacy that NBC News has earned or conveys, which is not a small thing.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
IMUS
I have watched "Imus in the Morning," on MSNBC for at least five years on a semi regular basis. Don Imus has been suspended by the cable channel and his radio station WFAN, for two weeks commencing the 16th. He is hosting his "radiothon", which starts the 12th. This yearly effort raises money for, Tomorrows Children’s Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS, and the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer. Since its inception in 1990, the radiothon has raised more than $50 million for very worthy causes. The I-Man carries himself as an independent rebel and iconoclast. He made his mark in radio with years of toil honing and polishing his no-holds-barred style, which a sizable throng consider provocative and arresting.
There is a twin multitude who would call the show irksome and tedious, a daily festival of eclectic country music snippets blended with the kind of dissing and ridiculing that goes on at worksites across America. Imus calls it a comedy show. Redneck observations abound. So does mimickry of percieved black speech idiom, especially by Bernard, the producer, who has an open mike in his booth. In the months following Katrina, Bernard had frequent turns at mocking New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; using words such as "ax" instead of ask; reprising Nagin's "chocolate people" statement and riffing on it, citing "mocha people" to the unfailing hilarity of Don Imus.
All white people know such humor abounds in many white settings, where quite commonly the same white people treat any black person, face to face, with the same courtesy and manners as white people, in public as society expects. Maybe Imus falls into this category. A lot of white people do. It seems unfair to condemn so many as racist or hypocrites. I say much of this [childish] behavior stems from our continued racial apartness. The American experience is at least a dichotomy, with blacks and whites living contrasting realities with vastly differant experiences and expectations (Who is conditioned to anticipate that police will surely hassle them whenever they move about where the surrounding backdrop of people doesn't conceal them). I am from the Detroit area, and lived in the city after I finished high school in a suburb, Southfield. My parents moved into a home in Livonia, a 36 square mile city 2 miles west of the Detroit city limits. My Father was employed by the largest Cadillac dealer in the US, in volume of sales, Donald Massey Cadillac, and met many people from the western suburbs. He heard the Livonia Police were using a pretty lame code over the police radio: NIL, as in, "I've got a NIL heading west on 7 Mile approaching Inkster..." One guess to ID what "in Livonia" they were referring to. The police band is available to the public, so it was not long before they were on the TV news being verbally flogged for racism; and bringing attention to 97% white Livonia.
When the neo-cons were calling for school "vouchers", a gainsaying label for a tax refund if his kid goes to private school, I had to think back to a Detroit Free Press article I read in the late 80's, documented with state generated figures.
How corrupt our language and system have become! What damage! The TV commercial politics and the monstrously arduous and wasteful travel the current primary/caucus "election" regimen obliges, has winnowed the choice for President, but not to narrow it down to the qualified. Instead the process furnishes candidates equipped with the money, pollsters and logistic teams to capture Iowan votes first, so fundraising will spike, enhancing the opportunity to prevail in subsequent state polls. These primaries as they have developed select and send delegates to the national convention who have no choice how to vote. The free exercise of conscience departs on primary day and does not return until November when the 50% or so Americans who vote get a choice of one or the other.
The reverse engineered Iowa Caucus that appeared in the 1970's merely on the whim to supplant New Hampshire as the first object of attention. A caucus differs from a primary, the campaign does not consist of wooing the public at large, small, far flung assemblies throughout the state vote in parliamentary fashion. Iowa requires face to face contact with candidates in these little gatherings to perform well enough to proceed into the log jam of plebiscites that immediately follow, with anything approaching a winner's chance. This traversing of the state of Iowa does nothing to elevate the public debate or refine the issues of a national election. And the cash needed to appease Iowans
In Detroit, where I grew up, public schools received state and federal aid at a set amount per student statewide. By a very wide margin the bulk of funds for each local school district come from the residents of each individual district based upon the assessed value of his real property. So kids in suburban West Bloomfield a scant 4.5 miles from the Detroit City Limits were educated with over $7,000.00 per pupil for the academic year; while Detroit Public Schools had to make do with less than $2000.00 for each student.
So what we call public schools are are a variable mish mash of schools based on what the parents can afford. And since 1980, political victory has engineered by professional thought manipulators, not with catchy slogans, but by appealing to the fears and resentments easily stirred in a public, where so many households are with the loss of the next five or six paychecks,
facing ruin and homelessness.
It is this economic reality that causes the abrading between races. Numbers don't lie. The per capita incomes of the racial groups remains staggered with whites earning more; and providing their offspring with the superior education money provides.
The defensive stance adopted by Imus in the wake of the story exploding in the media after his suspension was announced; citing his good works, his overall positive relations with the African American community, the sincerity of his apology and remorse; demonstrated a lack of insight as to what the uproar was about.
The National Broadcast Company was historically about the closest thing we have had to a "BBC", PBS was late and too weak. NBC was so big, in the thirties, with its NBC Red and NBC Blue, providing mutually exclusive programming, the government force NBC to divest itself of "Blue" which became the independant American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Along with Columbia Broadcasting System, these companies were the public voice and in spite of ratings losses
The so-called "simulcast" of his WFAN program on MSNBC disappeared years ago. The "simulcast" is now reversed. When viewers tune in on cable, they see the show originating from the million dollar opulence of a sleek, space-age MSNBC studio. If he is in the city, he is seated in in Ft. Lee, NJ, when his workday begins, several miles by limo (his mode of transit-he routinely reminds his audience and costars from the mike) from the old radio booth.
The non-devotee, unlearned in I-Man lore identifies him as a TV star. A TV star having a powerful platform and wearing whatever mantle of legitimacy that NBC News has earned or conveys, which is not a small thing.
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