For those of you in Britain who, like me, hadn't a clue who Imus was, well until this week anyway he was a US 'shock jock' who worked on a popular radio morning talk show. The show has, apparently, long courted controversy and is part of the tradition of 'free speech' which prevails on talk radio in the States. Howard Stern is another of a similar ilk whose show courts controversy yet manages to acquire high profile guest celebrities, some of whom are so angered by their treatment that they vow never to return.
Anyway in the spirit of this tradition Imus and the sports reporter were discussing a basketball match played between two US college teams, Rutgers and Tennessee, the Rutgers girls being predominantly black. During what was supposedly intended as good humoured badinage using 'street-talk', Imus referred to the Rutgers girls as 'nappy- headed hos'. It would seem that this piece of throw-away racism, not the first Imus has produced of a similar ilk, would have disappeared into the ether until someone posted it in the 'blogosphere' and it began to catch attention. Within a day CBS were aware that sponsors were withdrawing their funding and, despite a far from convincing apology by Imus, the talk-show host was fired from his lucrative job.
So I come to the American paradox. This is a nation which probably has more institutionalised 'correctness' than any other. At home, in schools, in work-places , Americans - and particularly white Americans - learn that culture and race are sensitive issues and that appropriate forms of address are important. I have seen this in all forms of dialogue with Americans and its quite clear that such concerns play a far more significant part in daily communication than they do in the United Kingdom.
The paradox however is America's constitutional commitment to free speech. Whereas in totally un-PC Britain, all radio output is controlled by a consumer 'watch-dog' the freedom of the air waves is a vital ingredient in American culture and thus the likes of Imus and Howard Stern can - or could - thrive. The 'tell it like it is' talk show is both plentiful and popular and it does, rather disturbingly indicate that, below the facade of the cloak of correctness, how much casual racism is still endemic and, indeed, applauded by a section of the American listening public.
The other, to my mind, disturbing aspect of this is that 'free speech' seems to be a commodity like ice cream or pizza. As long as the sponsor keeps paying the piper guys like Imus can, as he has done, refer to Arabs as 'ragheads', the black PBS anchor-woman Gwen Ifill as 'the cleaning lady' and admitting that one of his crew, Bernard McGuirk, was hired to tell 'nigger jokes'. He got away with all this until he targetted an American sacred cow - a group of young female college athletes. Whether he would have dodged this bullet too without the blogosphere becoming aware of it and outrage resulting who can tell? But it seems CBS sacked him not on some managerial decision regarding the unacceptability of what he said but because the sponsors started pulling out. So even 'free speech' comes at the simplest possible price - market value.
I mentioned earlier the institutionalised spirit of correctness particularly among white Americans. Overlaying all this, and this has been pointed out by Imus supporters in America, while Imus has been fired following the reaction of nervous sponsors - and probably rightly - black gangsta rappas continue to get lucrative recording contracts and concert dates while, in some cases, spewing out the most vile, violent and racist material in their lyrics - seemingly with impunity.
As The Times said yesterday that 'whitey' is paying the price for centuries of cultural, racial and attitude supremacy and if in the 21st century white performers complain that they are unfairly victimised for 'crossing the line', then that's simply because it's a line that white people are no longer allowed to draw - and historically they have only themselves to blame.
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