April 13, 2007

Andrew Sullivan Syndrome (Don Imus)

Regarding the Don Imus matter, Andrew Sullivan says:

...Punishing someone for calling college women "whores" - especially those who have beaten the odds and are role models for other back girls and women - is not a new step in political correctness. It's applying a very old American standard of fairness and decency, which now applies to all Americans, regardless of race or gender. This was the voice of mainstream America speaking...

And, in this post he prints a letter from a reader implying that those concerned about double-standards do so because they want to use the "n-word".

Obviously, the letter writer has made an obvious error, which Sully - oddly enough - either didn't notice or didn't think his readers would. Namely, perhaps the issue is not so much that they want to use the "n-word", but that they wonder why the same punishment meted out to errant white people is not meted out to the endless string of blacks and Hispanics who've said far worse things than what Imus did.

Just as obviously, the Sully's "standard of fairness and decency" do not apply to errant People of Color. If they did, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would have been driven from public life years ago.

For another example, the chairman of the California Democratic Party (Art Torres) said this in the 90s:

"[Proposition] 187 was the last gasp of white America in California."

If he said that today, would he be Imus'ed? I highly doubt it. The media would cover it up and if that didn't work they'd try to downplay it.

Torres even has a bit of an Imus connection; currently at cadem.org we read the following:

Imus Off The Air... Thank you to the thousands of Americans who spoke out! Because so many people expressed their outrage by taking action, such as signing our boycott petition, CBS has fired Don Imus, sending the strongest possible message that demeaning any group in the name of entertainment will not be tolerated.
Chairman Torres would like to share this letter of thanks he received from Elizabeth Badger-Bartels, CEO/Founder of the Minority Outreach Committee.

I'm sure Sully's "standard of fairness and decency" will apply the next time a Democrat, "liberal", or leftist says something far worse than anything Imus ever said.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at April 13, 2007 08:28 PM