Recently Canned Shock-Jock to Take Over as Department Spokesman
In response to recent allegations that San Jose police officers use excessive force in a disproportionate amount against Latinos and African-Americans, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis announced late Thursday, in a hastily thrown together news conference, that the department had hired shock-jock Don Imus as its new spokesman and public relations liaison to smooth things over.
In a move that most see as controversial at best for the embattled police force, Chief Davis introduced the grey-haired, foul-mouthed curmudgeon and declined to address the media further, instead allowing his newest employee to do what he does best—take questions from the public.
Recently fired from his job at CBS for racial and misogynistic insults he made on his radio show, Mr. Imus seemed a bit shell shocked and ill-prepared to answer the barrage of questions concerning recent accusations and got off to an inauspicious start when he inadvertently called the chief a “cracker.”
“Can you blame me?” he said. “I thought I was meeting the Lady Spartans here.”
Although many watchdog groups admit the hire seems a strange pick for a police department trying to work on sensitivity issues, they have decided to withhold judgment until that first barrage of epithets flies from his mouth.
“If and when that happens,” said San Jose City Attorney Rick Doyle, “we will send him back to CBS.”
Jason Whitlock is a Columnist for the Kansas City Star. He has also been a host on ESPN. By the way, he is African American.
It is refreshing to hear someone other than the usual self proclaimed Spokesmen for the Black Community, Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, voice an opinion.
COMMENTARY
Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK – Columnist
Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
Why is it ok to use the word ‘cracker’ and not spell out other epithets?
Local Group Opposes New Police Hire
San Jose (FFN)—Reacting to the announcement that disgraced radio personality Don Imus has been hired by the police department to serve as its spokesman, the local chapter of the National Association for the Prevention of Pernicious Invectives (NAPPI) held a press conference this morning to announce its objection.
“I don’t know what the chief was thinking,” declared Pham Ho, the local chapter president. “Don Imus is a divisive force, what possible good can come of this?”
Though not nearly as large as some other speech-monitoring groups, NAPPI is known as a tight-knit group, one of fuzzy origins that can be challenging to deal with.
“These guys are serious,” commented one journalist familiar with the organization, “and I have no idea of where their funding comes from.”
When asked how his group plans to persuade the chief to rescind the appointment, NAPPI head Ho replied that the strategy has yet to be finalized.
“Obviously we can’t target his sponsors; it’s my understanding that before we undermine his political support we have to find it. I’m told that even his own troops don’t like him.”
Why hire Imus when locals JMO and finfan fit the bill as unthinking racists and grumpy old men?
#1 – Wow, some post! Would be interesting to know what Bill Cosby’s thought are on this topic.
Hey outsourced your brain, did you #4? My post was written by an African-American. I just cut an pasted it.
#5—Cosby would undoubtedly agree.
Imus’s comments were completely out of line; but the reaction has merely empowered him.
I agree with the sentiments of #1. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson always play the race card when a white person pisses off a black person. But they look the other way when things are reversed. Jesse’s a bigot also. Remember Hymietown?
I have listened intently to hip-hop music for most of my life and I definitely agree that, particularly in the last few years, it has gotten unlistenable in terms of content. I do agree with much of what Whitlock said in his article and even heard him on Jim Rome today with a logical argument. However, I disagree that hip-hop culture has been taken over by prison culture. What has taken over is more corporate and purposeful than that. The reality is that positive hip-hop artists are not marketed like those that denigrate women and mock traditional markers of American family values and economic success.
Instead, you have these fake individuals rapping about circumstances that few have them have ever been involved with. It is one thing when Public Enemy and NWA came out in contrast to the bubblegam rap of Run DMC, the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J to attempt to demonstrate what was happening in the street in the tradition of Grandmaster Flash or Kurtis Blow. When 2Pac and Biggie really blew up in the early ‘90’s, all bets were off. Dollar signs started “blinging” in the eyes of all the media giants.
What we, as Americans, should do is hold the corporations and media outlets, which have very little minority ownership, to face up to their responsibility as citizens. They are promulgating negative cultural images which effect our youth for the almighty dollar. Imus is but a blip on the radar compared to the damage being done by the opportunistic corporations. Instead of complaining about what Jesse and Al are doing wrong, focus on what you can do to try and make things right.
Meanwhile, those in the African-American community should focus on what they have control over. In addition to speaking up against overt bigotry, they should fight internal degradation and promote the value of education and respect for family values which, up until 3 or 4 decades ago, epitomized the African-American culture rather than the negative images currently promoted in the entertainment industry.
It was my understanding that Imus was being considered for the Public Information Officer position for the new Reed administatration “Transparent Government Program.” How did
Rob Davis manage to snatch him away?
I don’t understant why #4 would call John M. O’C a racist. Maybe you consider the article that John cut and pasted to be racist. Far from it.
Dear San Jose:
Why didn’t the Rutgers team just answer, “F…You,” or “Who’s Don Imus?” I wish that they hadn’t taken up the role of “celebrity victims.”
What a crazy thing, the Governor of NJ almost gets killed travelling to the apology meeting. (and he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt apparently!). What a mess!
pete campbell
The SJPD is made up of officers from extremely diversified groups of different races and ethnic backrounds, women and men, and those of differenent sexual preferences. Nobody goes out of their way singling out hispanics or blacks, in fact officers go out of their way to avoid these confrontations. Why would officers comprised of every color of the rainbow go after these 2 groups? The answer is “they don’t”. Why wouldn’t theses same officers go after those from Asian countries, India, Jews, Buddhists, etc, etc. A majority of the complaints against the police are generated from the downtown club areas which has become out of control with alcohol and young people. Has a study been done as to who is it that makes up the majority of this downtown crowd and generates these complaints? Perhaps a disproportionate number of people of certain races are downtown, thus get dealt with a disproportionate amount of times by the police. Publications such as the Mercury publish false rhetoric as fact by taking the percentage of a minority that lives in the entire city, and falsely concluding that is the same percentage number that makes up the downtown crowd. The SJPD is made up of great and honorable women and men of every background who were drawn to public service to help their community and want to do the right thing. They are proud of their profession despite the constant mudslinging by certain groups and individuals and they are motivated by their common interest to help others no matter what their race, religion, etc. I love my job and am proud to have these noble people of all backgrounds as my coworkers.
You guys think you have it bad up there, try San Benito County, where you have a lilly white board, with their token minority Jaime De La Cruz, a twice prosecuted thug. Then of course, there is Rebulent “Reb” Monaco, a self styled “polyamory” expert and part-time supervisor. And let’s not forget Anthony “The Enforcer” Botelho. Just be happy you live in San Jose.
Oh, we thought Dave was real. Turns out to be just another name for the lawn mower giver.
#13, Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I would like to respond but I have absolutely no idea of what your point is. By the way, I cut my own lawns and really enjoy doing so.
#11 Dave
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and for your service. I think, all too often, the media and many of us in the community like to make things black and white (pardon the pun). The reality is that there are many different layers to why certain numbers play out. In working for a decade as a public defender, I believe that most officers are honorable and try to do what is right. It is easy for me to just say the cops are the bad guys. But, that would not be seeking a solution, just continuing the same cycle of being on one side or the other. The reality is that if we all live in this community and want it to be a great, safe place to live, we have to be on the same side. A police officer should have the same interests in seeing minority arrests go down as a deputy public defender. If we all sat down at the table without accusing one another or assuming conclusions based on general information, we might be able to get somewhere and find out how we can help our youth, regardless of race, walk down the right path despite all of the negative influences out there in the worlds.
Deputy Public Defender,
Thanks to you also for your intelligent and thoughtful comments. I completely agree with all your points. Although we are often on different sides of an issue in court, I have the utmost respect for public defenders insuring a defendants rights as this holds everyone in the process to a higher standard even if it means we (the police) occasionally lose a case. I am tired of seeing the Mercury constantly slam us with half truths and a manipulation of numbers. There are so many officers giving thousands of hours of their own time to individual kids, youth groups, schools, community events etc because that is what they truly believe will make this a better place. So many of these officers themselves come from broken homes, poverty, immigrant parents etc. Very little of this is published by the media, and the officers do not seek the publicity. I also know that many public defenders do the same, and many are defending the accused in court pro bono because that is what they believe in without any fanfare. Thanks again for your public service.
Obama, Ludacris Talk About Guiding Kids
“The stars were aligned in Chicago Wednesday, and they were there to talk about lighting the way for the nation’s youth.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2006-11-30_D8LNFUCO2
You’Z A Ho – Ludacris
http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/115403.html
Move Bitch – Ludacris
http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/115348.html
Where’s the outrage?
I don’t know much about these Imus and Ludacris characters but… What’s that? Imus is a white male? Ludacris is black?
Ok. Now it makes perfect sense.
I think the news coverage about San Jose Police Department and how they use more force with Latinos and African Americans is irrisponsible, unfair and one sided.
I don’t even think they realize the implication of their own coverage, which is that Latino and African Americans are more likely to resist arrest an disobey a lawful order of an officer.
I think so many people don’t even relize that they are required to obey a lawful order of an officer and when they don’t do what they are commanded, they are supprised when force was used to make them comply.
I am latina, I’ve never been arrested or even bothered by the police.
I think if people want to act like a thug and look like a thug, they will be treated like a thug. There is just no way around it.
Regarding our police chief, here’s an absolute howler from a few years ago…
“Chief Rob Davis told the San Jose Mercury News that he was inspired after speaking to 7,000 Bay Area Muslims last year at the end of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of fasting.
He will join local Muslims in going without food and drink from sunrise to sunset during the month long observance of Ramadan because he realized during his speech that they were hungry when he was not.”
Oh man.
But seriously – I think Chief Davis is on to something.
For the next Ramadan the city council should show support by having the Campos, Pyle, and Chirco wear burkas and have a goat slaughtered on Channel 26 to celebrate Eid.
What better way to satiate our unquenchable thirst for all things tolerant and sensitive and inclusive.
19 – And the point of your post is what??
#19 is hip deep, a treasure trove if you will, a veritable cornucopia of ‘points’.
Try laying off the kool-aid for a week and ‘wonder’ harder.