Orient Lodge, April 11, 2007
By Aldon Hynes

If you go to Technorati, you'll find that a lot of people are talking about Don Imus. Apparently, he recently said something offensive about the Rutger's women's basketball team. I didn't hear exactly what he said, but my understanding is that was something like calling them "nationally heralded heros" but came across as an offensive sexist and racist remark.

Everyone is weighing in on this right now. Hillary Clinton, who has always been such a great advocate of media reform channels Aretha Franklin and urges people to sign up on her website to "Send a message of respect to the Scarlet Knights". You can always count on Hillary to get to the real root of the problems facing our country.

Brent Budowsky, on The Hill's pundit blog suggests, The Imus Affair is About Apartheid in Media.

I was reading a post by a white male liberal radio host, associated with an almost totally white liberal radio network, run by white males, owned by white males, writing on an almost totally white liberal blog about the Imus affair.

He was writing about the bigoted words of another white male host, televised on a cable network run by white males, owned by a national television network run by white males, which is owned by a global conglomerate run by white males.

When I read this, my mind wandered back to the National Conference on Media Reform down in Memphis last January. In his closing remarks, Van Jones said,

When we look at the FCC, there's a reason that you can't go into urban America and say, "I'm here to warn you about the FCC", and get anybody to give one damn about what you're saying. It's not because people are so stupid that they just don't understand. It's because ain't no body on the FCC that has any remote love or heart or care or concern for the people in the community that is visible. There are no visible people on the FCC...We have to begin to say that we want Davey D on the FCC. Some here are saying who the hell is Davey D? That's the point! Davey D is a hip-hop historian of the first order...."

(Audio … about 27 minutes in)

People can argue about whether or not Don Imus has the rights with freedom of speech to say the sort of things he said. People can argue whether or not companies should advertise on his show and pay him to make that sort of speech, or whether or not people should buy products from companies.

We can sign up on Hillary's website to send a message of respect to the Scarlet Knights, or we can work to bring about meaningful media education and real change to our media policies in Washington. Personally, I would love to see Davey D on the FCC.

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