posted
Back to Story - Help CBS director hopes Imus will be fired By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer 25 minutes ago
Bruce Gordon, former head of the NAACP and a director of CBS Corp., said Wednesday the broadcasting company needs a "zero tolerance policy" on racism and hopes talk-show host Don Imus is fired for his demeaning remarks about the mostly black Rutgers women's basketball team.
"He's crossed the line, he's violated our community," Gordon said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He needs to face the consequence of that violation."
Gordon, a longtime telecommunications executive, stepped down in March after 19 months as head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the foremost U.S. civil rights organizations.
He said he had spoken with CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves and hoped the company, after reviewing the situation, would "make the smart decision" by firing Imus rather than letting him return to the air at the end of a two-week suspension beginning next Monday.
"We should have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to what I see as irresponsible, racist behavior," Gordon said. "The Imus comments go beyond humor. Maybe he thought it was funny, but that's not what occurred. There has to be a consequence for that behavior."
Imus triggered the uproar on his April 4 show, when he referred to the Rutgers players as "nappy-headed hos." His comments have been widely denounced by civil rights and women's groups, and two sponsors, Staples Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co., have pulled their advertising from the radio show.
Gordon said that as a matter of principle, firing Imus should be an easy decision to make, though he respects the right of CBS leadership to consider all factors, including legal and financial repercussions.
"When I look at it from my position as a director, where my responsibility is to represent the best interest of the shareholders, it's more complex," Gordon said. "But at the end of the day, the image of CBS is at risk. ... the ad revenue of CBS could be at risk."
"What I expect is for management to take the next two weeks to do their homework," he said. "I hope that the result of their due diligence is to terminate Don Imus."
The CBS board has 13 members. A corporate spokesman declined comment on Gordon's remarks.
The radio show originates from WFAN-AM in New York City and is syndicated nationally by Westwood One, both of which are managed by CBS Corp. MSNBC, which simulcasts the show on cable and is a part of NBC Universal, says it will watch to see whether Imus changes the tenor of future programs.
The 10 members of the Rutgers team spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday about the on-air comments, made the day after the team lost the NCAA championship game to Tennessee.
Some of them wiped away tears as their coach, C. Vivian Stringer, criticized Imus for "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable, abominable and unconscionable." The women, eight of whom are black, called his comments insensitive and hurtful.
The women agreed, however, to meet with Imus privately next Tuesday and hear his explanation. They held back from saying whether they'd accept Imus' apologies or passing judgment on whether a two-week suspension imposed by CBS Radio and MSNBC was sufficient.
Several players said they wanted to ask him why he would make such thoughtless statements.
Junior forward Essence Carson said she had done some research on Imus and his past inflammatory and derogatory statements about other people.
"Just knowing that this has happened time and time before, I felt that it might be time to make a stand," she said Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show.
"He doesn't know who we are as people," Carson said. "That's why we are just so appalled with his insensitive remarks, not only about African-American women, but about women as a whole."
Gordon said he was unimpressed by defenders of Imus who depict him as a well-meaning commentator who mistakenly went too far.
"The defense that he is a nice guy is irrelevant," Gordon said. "The people to be concerned about are the nice women at Rutgers University who continue even in this face of this insult to carry themselves with dignity."
Imus has apologized repeatedly for his comments. He said Tuesday he hadn't been thinking when making a joke that went "way too far." He also said that those who called for his firing without knowing him, his philanthropic work or what his show was about would be making an "ill-informed" choice.
___
Associated Press writers David Bauder in New York and Rebecca Santana in Piscataway, N.J., contributed to this report.
Think the whole things is being blown out of proportion but I don't really feel sorry for the guy. He did it to himself. Let him fall. His bank account will cushion him I'm sure.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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Yeah, I'm sure he can get a job writing rap songs... Those kind of comments are tolerated in that industry.
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Definitely think he is gonna get fired, news out a bit ago that several more big advertisers decided to "drop it like it's hot"....
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Imus is just another idiot that does not think he sould pay any consequences for his big mouth or actions on the public air ways that are subect to federal law and guide lines.
I would like this to be a good example to all the foul mouthed racist comments that put people in a box and give the sick a good laugh at other people.
Not only racist remarks but sexual preference ,gender,appereance, and remarks aboiut people who are afflicted with illness. Lets go back to reporting news.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer 2 minutes ago
Even as advertisers defected and politicians piled on, it was an internal mutiny within NBC News about Don Imus' racial slur that was key to pulling the plug on his MSNBC simulcast.
About 30 angry NBC News employees, many of them black, met with news division president Steve Capus less than 24 hours before Capus decided that a two-week suspension of Imus' morning telecast wasn't enough.
They said they'd had it with Imus' brand of coarse ethnic humor, capped with last week's reference to the Rutgers female basketball players as "nappy-headed hos."
"Within this organization, this had touched a nerve," Capus said Wednesday. "The comment that came through to us, time and time again, was `when is enough going to be enough?' This was the only action we could take."
Despite being banished from the NBC family, MSNBC faces the embarrassing problem of having the just-fired host broadcast his annual radio charity fundraiser from its studios in New Jersey.
The 18th annual Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990, began Thursday with Imus making reference to the dangers facing his career.
"This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million," Imus said at the beginning of the show Thursday morning, then chuckled.
"I've been running my mouth for 30 years and I've said some stupid stuff," he said. But this time, he continued, his remarks were "really stupid."
He said he had apologized enough and plans to meet with members of the Rutgers players. "At some point, I'm not sure when, I'm going to talk to the team. That's all I'm interested in doing."
The Radiothon runs through Friday.
His ultimate fate depends on the CBS Corp., which owns both the radio station WFAN-AM that is the host's broadcast home, and the syndicator Westwood One, which distributes "Imus in the Morning" to stations across the country.
CBS Radio, which has also suspended Imus for two weeks without pay, said it would "continue to speak with all concerned parties and monitor the situation closely."
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has sought Imus' firing, said he will meet Thursday with CBS officials.
Bruce Gordon, former head of the NAACP and a director of CBS Corp., told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he hoped CBS would "make the smart decision" by firing Imus.
"He's crossed the line, he's violated our community," Gordon said in a telephone interview. "He needs to face the consequence of that violation."
A growing list of sponsors — including American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. — had said they were pulling ads from Imus' show indefinitely.
American Express spokeswoman Judy Tenzer said the company doesn't advertise on "controversial programming," while Sprint spokeswoman Sara Krueger said: "We do not want our advertising associated with content which we, our customers and the public find offensive."
Imus' program is worth a total of about $15 million in annual revenue to CBS Corp., through advertising on WFAN and syndication fees received from MSNBC and Westwood One. It wasn't clear how much of that total came from MSNBC.
Two black on-air personalities at NBC News, reporter Ron Allen and the "Today" show's Al Roker, had already publicly urged Imus' firing on Web log entries.
Allen said he didn't buy the argument that Imus was "edgy" and had hurled slurs at many others. "Personally, I don't think being an `equal opportunity' insulter makes this OK," he said.
Roker said he was tired of cruelty that passes for funny, humor at other people's expense.
"He has to take his punishment and start over," Roker said. "Guess what? He'll get re-hired and will go on like nothing happened. CBS Radio and NBC News need to remove Don Imus from the airwaves. That is what needs to happen. Otherwise, it just looks like profits and ratings rule over decency and justice."
Democrat Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) on Wednesday became the first presidential candidate to call for Imus to be fired. "He didn't just cross the line, he fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America," said Obama, the only black candidate in the race.
Imus has apologized repeatedly for his comments. He said Tuesday he hadn't been thinking when making a joke that went "way too far." He also said that those who called for his firing without knowing him, his philanthropic work or what his show was about would be making an "ill-informed" choice.
Imus' program has been the only thing MSNBC has aired on weekday mornings for the 11 years of the network's existence.
MSNBC loses a morning show personality at a time when his show has been doing very well. Almost as many people had been watching the telecast of his radio show than the highly-produced newscast on CNN — leading CNN to dump its two morning anchors just last week.
Producing its own morning show will also cost MSNBC money at a time it has been cutting costs, but it doesn't have the threat of an advertiser boycott.
posted
so.. last nite Wanda sykes was on jay leno and repeated imus' comment saying that she's not the spokesperson for "nappy-headed hos". She got a Huge laugh...it was done to be funny. Imus said it to be funny.....on Hannity and Combs, hannity dared not repeat the phrase...what the hell is going on here?..Its a good thing that we cant get our thoughts read(yet)...we'd all be in trouble..this is ridicules...I want a list printed to know what can and cant be said,,,and who can or cant say it.
-------------------- jordan Posts: 5812 | From: st paul,mn | Registered: Feb 2004
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Time for Jackson, Sharpton to Step Down Pair See Potential for Profit, Attention in Imus Incident By JASON WHITLOCK AOL Sports Commentary
I’m calling for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the president and vice president of Black America, to step down.
Controversy Rolls On
Their leadership is stale. Their ideas are outdated. And they don’t give a damn about us.
We need to take a cue from White America and re-elect our leadership every four years. White folks realize that power corrupts. That’s why they placed term limits on the presidency. They know if you leave a man in power too long he quits looking out for the interest of his constituency and starts looking out for his own best interest.
We’ve turned Jesse and Al into Supreme Court justices. They get to speak for us for a lifetime.
Why?
If judged by the results they’ve produced the last 20 years, you’d have to regard their administration as a total failure. Seriously, compared to Martin and Malcolm and the freedoms and progress their leadership produced, Jesse and Al are an embarrassment.
Their job the last two decades was to show black people how to take advantage of the opportunities Martin and Malcolm won.
Have we at the level we should have? No.
Rather than inspire us to seize hard-earned opportunities, Jesse and Al have specialized in blackmailing white folks for profit and attention. They were at it again last week, helping to turn radio shock jock Don Imus’ stupidity into a world-wide crisis that reached its crescendo Tuesday afternoon when Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer led a massive pity party/recruiting rally.
Hey, what Imus said, calling the Rutgers players "nappy-headed hos," was ignorant, insensitive and offensive. But so are many of the words that come out of the mouths of radio shock jocks/comedians.
Imus’ words did no real damage. Let me tell you what damaged us this week: the sports cover of Tuesday’s USA Today. This country’s newspaper of record published a story about the NFL and crime and ran a picture of 41 NFL players who were arrested in 2006. By my count, 39 of those players were black.
You want to talk about a damaging, powerful image, an image that went out across the globe?
We’re holding news conferences about Imus when the behavior of NFL players is painting us as lawless and immoral. Come on. We can do better than that. Jesse and Al are smarter than that.
Had Imus’ predictably poor attempt at humor not been turned into an international incident by the deluge of media coverage, 97 percent of America would’ve never known what Imus said. His platform isn’t that large and it has zero penetration into the sports world.
Imus certainly doesn’t resonate in the world frequented by college women. The insistence by these young women that they have been emotionally scarred by an old white man with no currency in their world is laughably dishonest.
The Rutgers players are nothing more than pawns in a game being played by Jackson, Sharpton and Stringer.
Jesse and Al are flexing their muscle and setting up their next sting. Bringing down Imus, despite his sincere attempts at apologizing, would serve notice to their next potential victim that it is far better to pay up than stand up to Jesse and Al James.
Stringer just wanted her 15 minutes to make the case that she’s every bit as important as Pat Summitt and Geno Auriemma. By the time Stringer’s rambling, rapping and rhyming 30-minute speech was over, you’d forgotten that Tennessee won the national championship and just assumed a racist plot had been hatched to deny the Scarlet Knights credit for winning it all.
Maybe that’s the real crime. Imus’ ignorance has taken attention away from Candace Parker’s and Summitt’s incredible accomplishment. Or maybe it was Sharpton’s, Stringer’s and Jackson’s grandstanding that moved the spotlight from Tennessee to New Jersey?
None of this over-the-top grandstanding does Black America any good.
We can’t win the war over verbal disrespect and racism when we have so obviously and blatantly surrendered the moral high ground on the issue. Jesse and Al might win the battle with Imus and get him fired or severely neutered. But the war? We don’t stand a chance in the war. Not when everybody knows “nappy-headed ho’s” is a compliment compared to what we allow black rap artists to say about black women on a daily basis.
We look foolish and cruel for kicking a man who went on Sharpton’s radio show and apologized. Imus didn’t pull a Michael Richards and schedule an interview on Letterman. Imus went to the Black vice president’s house, acknowledged his mistake and asked for forgiveness.
Let it go and let God.
We have more important issues to deal with than Imus. If we are unwilling to clean up the filth and disrespect we heap on each other, nothing will change with our condition. You can fire every Don Imus in the country, and our incarceration rate, fatherless-child rate, illiteracy rate and murder rate will still continue to skyrocket.
A man who doesn’t respect himself wastes his breath demanding that others respect him.
We don’t respect ourselves right now. If we did, we wouldn’t call each other the N-word. If we did, we wouldn’t let people with prison values define who we are in music and videos. If we did, we wouldn’t call black women *****es and hos and abandon them when they have our babies.
If we had the proper level of self-respect, we wouldn’t act like it’s only a crime when a white man disrespects us. We hold Imus to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. That’s a (freaking) shame.
We need leadership that is interested in fixing the culture we’ve adopted. We need leadership that makes all of us take tremendous pride in educating ourselves. We need leadership that can reach professional athletes and entertainers and get them to understand that they’re ambassadors and play an important role in defining who we are and what values our culture will embrace.
It’s time for Jesse and Al to step down. They’ve had 25 years to lead us. Other than their accountants, I’d be hard pressed to find someone who has benefited from their administration.
-------------------- The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits Posts: 10204 | From: NYC | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
It is sad that Black people can make racial remarks all day long and its o.k.
Jessie Jackson, Al not so-shapton ---Preachers without a church and politicians without an office.
Posts: 1178 | From: Mobile, AL | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Its getting a little ridiculous. Ill bet if you asked the "victims" if Imus should lose his job, majority would say "no".
P.S. Imus sucks anyway, and shoulda been pulled from the air for sucking long before this
heh, if that was so? Monica, Bush, Cheney and Limbaugh would be gone....
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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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.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to
Posts: 388 | Registered: Jan 2006
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excellent article! Thats what you'll NEVER see on TV. oh well. At least I had the privilege to read this.
Posts: 361 | From: CT | Registered: Feb 2007
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quote:Originally posted by rimasco: Its getting a little ridiculous. Ill bet if you asked the "victims" if Imus should lose his job, majority would say "no".
P.S. Imus sucks anyway, and shoulda been pulled from the air for sucking long before this
Just call me the Iyatollyah So....
Rutgers team: We accept Imus apology By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 39 minutes ago
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - 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.
-------------------- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" Posts: 4005 | From: Shaolin | Registered: Oct 2005
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Imus ‘fight’ is over money, fame JASON WHITLOCK - The Kansas City Star When I criticized his and Jesse Jackson’s irresponsible and divisive methods of seeking social justice Friday morning, Al Sharpton dismissed the attack by questioning my credibility to lodge a complaint.
“There are always guys that are not in the ring who want to call the fight,” Sharpton said. “You know that going in the ring; you’re going to have critics … You can’t satisfy people who are not in the ring.”
It’s a clever response. It ignores the obvious.
Jesse and Al don’t want anyone else in the ring. They’ve turned the fight for racial equality into a money and fame pit, a place to wrestle for camera time, “consulting” jobs and handshake deals that would make NCAA investigators blush in astonishment.
If people with a modicum of integrity were allowed in the ring and, more importantly, allowed to choose the opponents and the length of the battle, the money would run dry and Jesse and Al would be forced to look for real work.
Fighting bums is easy. Just look at what Jesse and Al James did to Don Imus, a washed-up, recovering drug addict. They knocked out Imus in a couple of rounds.
But at what cost, and what was the real purpose?
The young women on the Rutgers basketball team are now targets, the recipients of death threats and harassment, according to East Coast media reports.
I have no problem with young people engaging in battle and suffering severe consequences for a righteous cause. We need more of that. The people who really provided the energy for the civil rights movement were in college.
But getting in harm’s way over the ignorant utterances of a shock jock? Getting in harm’s way so a coach could have her moment to tell the world about the troubles she’s known? Getting in harm’s way so Al and Jesse James can flex their muscle by beating up another tomato can?
No way. It was irresponsible, self-indulgent and typical of the kind of domestic terrorism Sharpton and Jackson have come to specialize in.
Again, I am not defending Don Imus. I shed no tears over his comeuppance.
I simply question the motives of the people who pushed the hardest and shouted the loudest for Imus’ demise. Those people are now covering themselves with the fig leaf that they have a genuine interest in stopping the anti-black, women-objectifying language in rap music.
According to Sharpton, he’s been working on this issue for a number of years.
He’s clever. Fortunately, we’re not stupid. We just watched Jesse and Al sink their teeth in Imus’ rear end and not remove them until MSNBC and CBS put knives in Imus.
That tenacity and enthusiasm have been completely missing from their fight to clean up hip hop. Whether we like him or not, Minister Louis Farrakhan is the only leader with a consistent position on that issue. What we get from Jesse and Al are half-hearted public relations ploys, fights that end well before any blood is drawn. It’s a game, a game Jesse and Al have mastered.
You can create the appearance of putting up a fight, and that ensures no one else will enter the ring.
As an example, talk with black race-car drivers about their feelings about NASCAR’s dealings with Jesse Jackson. I have. Their belief is, if you sponsor the right and enough Rainbow Coalition events, you can avoid Jesse ever bringing his circus and negative spotlight to your organization.
You follow me?
The ring Jesse and Al are boxing in is just as corrupt as the one where Mike Tyson sparred.
In a one-year time span, under the guise of fighting for our equality, Jesse and Al contributed to putting Duke lacrosse players and Rutgers basketball players in harm’s way.
For what? Was Don Imus hiding weapons of mass destruction? Were the lacrosse players an international threat to escorts? Or maybe the truth just doesn’t matter to Jesse and Al when it comes to furthering their agenda.
Whatever integrity Jesse and Al say our president lacks, you have to wonder if they don’t have the exact same deficiency.
If there’s a fight to push Jesse and Al out of the ring, you can sign me up. They’re an embarrassment. They disgrace the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., a great man whose efforts caused division so that we could one day come together.
Jesse and Al cause division for profit, and demand from others the very things they’re unwilling to do — judge people on the content of their character and follow the truth wherever it leads, regardless of color.
Truth is on the side of the righteous. Jesse and Al operate as though they don’t believe in our righteousness. They are far more dangerous than Don Imus.
Posts: 388 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Hip-hop's Simmons wants to remove offensive words
By Daniel Trotta Mon Apr 23, 2:27 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prominent U.S. hip-hop executive Russell Simmons on Monday recommended eliminating the words "*****," "ho" and "nigger" from the recording industry, considering them "extreme curse words."
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The call comes less than two weeks after radio personality Don Imus' nationally syndicated and televised radio show was canceled amid public outcry over Imus calling a women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."
Simmons, co-founder of the Def Jam label and a driving force behind hip-hop's huge commercial success, called for voluntary restrictions on the words and setting up an industry watchdog to recommend guidelines for lyrical and visual standards.
"We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words '*****' and 'ho' and the racially offensive word 'nigger'," Simmons and Benjamin Chavis, co-chairmen of the advocacy group Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, said in a statement.
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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Voluntary restrictions? If Russell Simmons were serious about this he would stop producing albums by DMX, among others...
One song by DMX, produced by Russell Simmons's "Def Jam" records is called "My Niggas" and has lyrics that say the "n" word ~36 times during it's one minute 36 second length... Once every 3 seconds... And this is only one "song", by one "artist"... (If you could even call them that...)
I do not like rap or hip-hop or whatever they are calling it these days, so I do not recognize many of the names on the list below but I am sure there are far more than the one example I gave.
-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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-------------------- One is never completely useless. One can always serve as a bad example. Posts: 2430 | From: CA | Registered: Jun 2005
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