Don Emus will no longer be on the air for CBS Radio. Fighting in vain to keep his job, radio host Don Emus claimed that rappers routinely “defame and demean black women” and call them “worse names than I ever did.”
What started the controversy? Imus, on his nationally syndicated radio show, called the players of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, which reached the finals of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, this Spring, “nappy-headed hos.” The statement outraged listeners and led to his firing by CBS on Thursday.
The announcement by CBS Radio comes on the heels of MSNBC television announcing they would drop their simulcast of Imus’ show. NBC News President Steve Capus said he made the decision after reading e-mails and having lots of discussions with NBC workers and the public.
MSNBC’s action comes after a growing list of sponsors, including American Express, Sprint, Nextel, Staples, Proctor and Gamble, and General Motors, said they were pulling ads from Imus’ show indefinitely. Civil rights activists and others have called for CBS, which syndicates the show, to fire the host.
For Imus’ critics, his recent remarks were the latest in a line of objectionable statements by the flamboyant show host that mixed high-minded talk about politics and serious news with vulgar, locker-room humor. This type of broadcast has been his distinct and unique style for many years.
Imus apologized, and tried to explain himself before the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio audience, appearing alternately contrite and defiant. “He says he wants to be forgiven,” Sharpton said. “I hope he continues in that process. But we cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism.”
Some Imus fans considered his punishment harsh. Some major news personalities have indicated that in this case the punishment does not fit the crime. “Even though his remarks are outrageous and repulsive, firing is a little too steep for the 67 year old host”, they said.
Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer said Friday the team had accepted radio host Don Imus’ apology. She said, “He deserves a chance to move on but hopes the furor his racist and sexist insult caused will be a catalyst for change.” “We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept _ accept _ Mr. Imus’ apology, and we are in the process of forgiving,” Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife. “We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget,” she said.