The RUIMUS Accident
Author: Brady Munger
On April 4th, 2007 Don Imus stirred up one of the largest race related and gender related controversies in recent history. During his radio show, Imus made multiple remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team that shocked the nation. The show full of "A list" politicians and all white crew as the article by Gill explained, made some racy and gender fueled remarks that insulted the Rutgers women's basketball team, as well as women athletes all over (Gill pg. 119, 2011). Between Imus, and Buddy McGuirk the executive producer, there were multiple different remarks made directed towards the players. They included the players being called "Nappy headed ho's", "Jigaboos" and "some hard core ho's" (pg. 119). When these were said on the air to a national audience it created a huge controversy, that included both social and civil activists, as well as many other groups. Their was an outcry and a back lash directly from what he said, which led to many people demanding many things from the incident. As a result of this, Imus was fired and was held out of his job for 8 months before being rehired.
There were multiple things in this incident that I found sickening. Other than the obvious things like the comments he made, there were other things that bothered me very much. The first thing was how it was handled as a whole. Although Imus was initially fired, he now has his job back and is back on the air which I feel should never have been allowed. Secondly, when he was let go he got a very large settlement of money, while the lady's on the basketball team that had to go through the incident received nothing. I find this awful, Imus was able to say these terrible things, and then walk away with money because he was let go. It should have happened much differently. Imus should have been fired with no settlement, and never allowed back on the air again. Those are the ignorant things that happen in society that need to be taken care of and stopped immediately before they spread.
A large discussion point in class about this incident was what do we determine as wrong in today's society. Someone brought up the point of the Chappelle show, and how they use certain terms such as this routinely. But with these two things, I believe there is a huge difference. The first, is that the show is a complete form of entertainment. It is not an attack on real life things, and is solely made to entertain people. With the RUIMUS incident, it was not a form of entertainment, but an attack on something real in life. He attacked the AMATEUR basketball players, and embarrassed them and shamed them in front of the entire nation. Second, with the Chappelle show, it rarely attacks specific individuals. But with the RUIMUS case, Imus attacked specific individual people in the Rutgers Team. He called out the team, and slandered them with racial and gender slurs that were very offending and not meant in any way "entertaining" or joking. Overall, I found this incident very offending and hurtful. It regressed all of the progress society had made on gender and racial equality in one quick segment. It shows how disrespectful some people truly can be, and shows that there still is a sense of racism and gender inequality in this nation and that it still exists.
I definitely agree with Brady about how the situation being handled was sickening. For Imus to receive money in a settlement just makes no sense to me. He is the one that made the racist comments, and didn't have any harm done to him that was not necessary. The basketball team are the ones that would be hurt by the comments and deserved more than an apology. To be called a bunch of nappy headed hoes would be very hurtful emotionally. They go out there and work hard playing their sport and do it the right way, yet are still looked down on by him. The fact that they did not receive anything out of this situation other than an apology is completely ridiculous. Yes Imus got fired. Yes he apologized. Does he deserve a settlement for that? The answer is no, and I will never understand why he was able to win all that money. If I were him I would have donated that money to the women's basketball program that he talked down on.
ReplyDeleteTyler Schaefer
I agree with Brady and Tyler. Imus's comments on the Rutgers basketball team shows that as society progresses in the aspects of racist and sexist stereotypes and such there will always be people with outlying opinions. In this case it's sad that such comments were made on air, and that they media ran with it making the comments that much more widespread. As Tyler said it's sickening to find out that Imus received a money settlement for leaving his radio show. Although he apologized his comments are still not forgiven in my opinion, he knew very well that what he said would be taken very seriously, yet he decided to say it anyway. Being a host of a morning news radio show, which Imus is, I don’t know how one could make such comments on air even if the thought them internally. I was also do not think it was right that he ended up getting another job being a radio host, but then again what someone mentioned in class all the big radio personalities seem to have a moment such as this in their past.
ReplyDelete-Tony Fritsch
Comment by Nathan Wahle:
ReplyDeleteI abdolutely agree with Brady on this subject especially on the topic of comparing the Chapelle Show to Don Imus's remarks on his talk show. Don was deliberately talking down to the young female athletes at Rutgers and making fun of them for their appearances and not only that but comparing them to the opposing team which was Tennessee in which he hyped up how good they looked. He pretty much drew the picture that based on appearances Tennessee was the good team and Rutgers was the bad team. The Chapelle show aims to to poke fun but he does so in an equal way in which he makes fun of himself and the group he associated with as well as other groups. Don put himself on a pedestal and felt he had the right to ridicule others. I believe what this comparison shows between Don's talk show and the Chapelle show is that the context in which a message is delivered makes a big difference in how it is received.
This is an excellent analysis of the RUIMUS situation. Good insights expressed by everyone.
ReplyDelete