College basketball is over, but controversy continues to mount over comments made by broadcaster Don Imus about the women’s team at Rutgers .
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights women’s basketball team consists of eight black and two white players.
Imus referred to the team, who lost to Tennessee in the final game as “hos” and also paralleled watching the game to Spike Lee’s School Daze scene of the “jiggaboos vs. the wannabes.”
Imus and his producer Bernard McGirk traded jabs at the Rutgers team the morning after the game.
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“That’s some rough girls from Rutgers,” Imus said. “Man, they got tattoos …”
“Some hardcore hos,” said McGuirk.
“That’s some nappy headed hoes there, I’m going to tell you that,”Imus fired back.
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Imus took the verbal assault a step further with the Spike Lee analogy (which McGirk incorrectly credited to Do the Right Thing).
“The girls from Tennessee, they all look cute,” said Imus. “Kinda like a Spike Lee thing – the jigaboos vs. the wannabes.”
Since the comments aired, a number of people have expressed outrage and have called for Imus to either resign or be fired.
“Has he lost his mind?”Bryan Monroe, President of the National Association of Black Journalists, asked in a statement released Friday. “Those comments were beyond offensive. Imus needs to be fired. Today. …What he has said has deeply hurt too many people — black and white, male and female. His so-called apology comes two days after the fact, and it is too little, too late.”
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The Rev. Al Sharpton says that he accepts Imus’ apology, but still wants him fired.
“I accept his apology, just as I want his bosses to accept his resignation,” he says. “This is not some unemployed comic like Michael Richards…This is an established figure, allowed to use the airwaves for sexist and racist remarks.”
Imus will appear on Sharpton’s syndicated radio show today from 1-4pm EST to discuss the matter. The program is available online at http://www.sharptontalk.net/.
The radio shock jock apologized again for his remarks this morning, saying he’s a “good person” that did a “bad thing.”
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“Here’s what I’ve learned: that you can’t make fun of everybody, because some people don’t deserve it,”Imus said today. “And because the climate on this program has been what it’s been for 30 years doesn’t mean it’s going to be what it’s been for the next five years or whatever.”
