All Imus, All the Time

Can't help but provide more links to the coverage of the Don Imus story, which is reaching fever pitch--as well it should. Kim Gandy, President of NOW, has spoken out about the controversy, which has now earned Imus a two-week suspension from his job at CBS radio and MSNBC (which airs the simulcast of his show on television). On the WIMN's voices blog, Jill Nelson reports on her own response to the event, while AlterNet's Don Hazen gives a good overview of what happened and why Imus is allowed to get away with it. And at the NYT, Gwen Ifill is brought back to give her first person account of being called a "cleaning lady" by Imus years ago. Even Al Roker is now calling for Imus' head, a source tells me.

Despite this hew and cry, however, I've noted that over at MediaBistro they've got a poll going on whether Imus should be fired that seems to indicate that folks are pretty evenly split on the issue. Apparently, the anonymity of the Internet allows people to say privately what they don't want to say in public (or at least they don't want to say it to me, a "nappy headed ho" herself): that even though Imus said a bad thing, they don't think he should lose his job for it. Do I take this to be yet another indication that people really are more racist than they admit? That what we've gotten good at is not actually accepting and understanding each other, but simply paying lip service to political correctness? It's probably the case, but damn is it depressing to be reminded of it.