A conducive environment provides the base, unconstitutional legitimacy and invincible power to an issue as deep and culturally rooted as racism. The menace, its deep analysis, will take us through a strange ‘hard-hitting’ and ‘unbearable’ reality most of us might be hypocritical enough to deny, but, we are equally racists, on relatively measurable terms. Survival, in this man-eating-man world, for a majority of the population, is an easy and effortless task largely on the basis of a fair complexion or money flaunting capacity. Where does this ‘unaccepted’ truth leave blacks, browns and/or the poor among them? ‘Blacks, browns and/or the poor among them’ may pass a racist remark and it must get condemned, but is the remark at all effective? The existence of the evil ‘racism’ is pure indication that racists’ identification, authority and power are absolutely intact.
Imus, American radio talk show host, was ‘pulled up’ and ‘pulled off’ air for expressing his bigotry in an atmosphere he felt safest to disgrace the ‘vulnerables’. Imus has a history of passing racist comments, but he has always escaped unpunished purely because, in the US, someone has to stand up like Imus did (it is different matter that he had to pay a price for it, eventually), to exemplify, though subtly or at times harshly, the dominance and justification of whites over blacks. It gives the ‘white lot’ a sense of glory when their dominance is perpetually unchallenged. Hypocrisy in them might compel us to believe they are anti-racists, but manifest in different forms and apparent revelations, the scourge of racism comes from birth and it lies at least on a sub-conscious level if not surfaced under pretense.
Immense appreciation and support chased Imus and all from advertisers to politicians, journalists to broadcast networks and others lined up to have their glimpse on his shows. Does CBS Radio need to be commended for expelling Imus? Why did it take the broadcaster this long when being fully aware about Imus’s past and records? How could they, as a medium of mass communication, justify the collective conscience of the most affected at the hands of racism? Imus is just one example of bigotry, however it reflects, nurtures and encourages a deeper racial reality thriving at the ground level, perpetrated by the perpetrators.
One can sense the future of racism in the US when Republicans like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani suggest Imus should be forgiven, whereas Democrats’ Barack Obama, a biracial, took his own grand time to condemn the radio host’s remarks.
Racism debate has to be an ongoing process. Imus, from the popularity angle and its reach, ignited the issue and gave it a fresh look, but his removal from the radio show is not a solution yet.
Via: Reuters
