--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > With black slang terms saturating our culture, and a very > strong knee jerk chain reaction in place, I don't think > much good is going to come of this mess. It just ensures > that no politician can have any serious dialog in the > minefield of race, just as has been the fate of legalizing > drugs and other social issues that have gone under the no > talk rule.
Not sure which unnamed social issues you're referring to here, but Gov. Richardson of New Mexico made news-- and controversy--recently when he signed a bill permitting the medical use of marijuana. And I can't imagine why you think the Imus incident will somehow *stifle* discussion of race. If anything, it's pulled it up front and center. It's also hardly a "knee-jerk" reaction. With Imus, it's as much the sexism of the comment as the racism, maybe even more the sexism, although obviously they're intertwined. You don't have to be black to find the remark personally offensive. We still haven't gotten over judging women's value by their appearance rather than their achievements. But overall, the reaction has been a boiling-over of built-up resentment of the general nastiness of the public dialogue these days. Anne Coulter lost a bunch of advertisers when she called John Edwards a faggot recently. It's just ironic that the first of the nasty-talkers to have his career seriously damaged by the backlash wasn't one of the right- wingers, who are by far the worst offenders. If the Imus firing has given them a bit of a shiver, though, that's all to the good. The really idiotic part of this is the howls from certain quarters about "free speech" and "censorship," as if the only way one can express one's views is by spitting excrement. Nobody's trying to change content, just its tone.
