Talking Trash

You don't need me to tell you that what Don Imus had to say about the Rutgers University women's basketball team was horribly offensive. Calling young women athletes "nappy-headed hos" combines racist and sexist stereotypes, creating the sort of negative synergy that leaves women of color at the bottom of every list.

But shocking? Coming from Imus? Who is kidding whom?

This is what Imus does. He insults people. Sometimes he does it so cleverly that he strips politicians and pundits of their pomposity and they don't even know it. He is amazingly talented. That is part of the reason his audience is as large as it is. And sometimes he does it with such a heavy hand that I can only groan and switch the dial. That is also, no doubt, part of the reason his audience is as large as it is. Imus can be unbelievably cruel.

But no one is required to listen to him if they don't want to.

It's a free country. If you hate what Imus does, don't listen to him. If enough people turn him off, he'll be gone.

And if they don't? What if people keep listening, as I suspect they will, maybe in even greater numbers, if only because of all the publicity? What if they like this kind of trash talk?

Is that a reason to take him off the air? A reason for pundits and pundettes to boycott his show?

So it is being argued by the many vocal Imus critics to have emerged in recent days. Al Sharpton, no stranger to outrageous comments from his days as Tawana Brawley's chief defender, said Imus should be fired, even as the radio host was busy apologizing on Sharpton's own program. Gwen Ifill, the much respected PBS and former New York Times reporter, writes that after she repeatedly refused requests to appear on his show, she was told that Imus referred to her as the "cleaning lady" who covered the White House, and she wonders why any of her colleagues would appear on his show.

"I certainly don't know any black journalists who will."

Too bad. They could do a lot of good.

Full disclosure: I've never appeared on Imus' show. But I would. Happily. I'd love a chance to communicate with that audience, to try to persuade them on any number of issues. It's the same reason I work for Fox News. Why just preach to the choir? You don't win new voters and new supporters that way. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? Imus might say something mean? Believe me, whatever he could say, I've heard worse.

I don't let my son call girls "hos," but the term is everywhere. Kids use it, bloggers use it, comics use it, even women sometimes use it to describe themselves. Vulgarity is in bloom. At times it seems like it's the vocabulary of the Internet. The viciousness can be shocking. It's hurtful, and it's unnecessary.

But in a free society, the way we should deal with speech we don't like is with more speech, not less — by expanding the number of voices who are heard, rather than silencing them selectively. The problem with much of radio these days is not so much that it is so vulgar as so one-sided: Imus and his many look-alikes. Rush and the clones. Hannity and the wannabes. What's missing is not only civility, but the diversity that makes censorship, public or private, unnecessary.

I want to debate Imus, not silence him. Let's talk about what the deterioration of public discourse costs us. Let's talk about what's wrong with stereotypes. Let's talk about how to deal with the vulgarity that has turned the Internet, for many, into a weapon of mass destruction, instead of a building block for positive interaction. Let's talk about what's wrong with what Imus said, instead of punishing him for saying it.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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