Imus takes the blame

Once again America is assuaging it's collective guilt in an avalanche of feeling over the audacity of Don Imus. Not that we Canadians have any reason to feel smug. There is more than enough racial intolerance to go around.

Imus' words are just more in the long list of social indecencies that are a regular occurence. To turf him off the air makes some people feel better. Why? Because a scapegoat is better than admitting complicity in the continuing racial war. And yes, it does come from the African-Americans too - with their angry rap that denigrates (no pun intended) their own women.

There is a fundamental difference here. The difference reminds me of the response from non-Jews defending themselves againstg charges of golf and country club discrimination. They will, instead of admitting their racism, charge Jews with discriminating because we have sometimes formed our own club. But I digress.

Black Anerica is a minority under siege. It does no one service to attack their rappers who have found a welcoming constituency among their own people. That there is ignorance, poverty, drug-dealing, and desperation is not open to question. Those elements are all part of what is now a permanent underclass.

Yes, members of that group - "people of colour" - have risen above the conditions that lived in - to become lawyers and doctors and scientists asnd political thinkers.
But, and this is often admitted by the people themselves, in their rush to move up they have often turned their backs on their origins. Glad to be finally released from the bondage of illiteracy and poverty, they thrive.

But all that is just a sop for all of us.

Poor Don Imus. He takes the blame for reflecting the thousands of unspoken epithets that crowd our everyday world. Better Don than us. He is our sacrificial lamb.