Potty Mouth Protection?

I watch Real Time with Bill Mahr on HBO every week. I don't always agree with Mahr, but I applaud his willingness to take a stand. However I have to say that this week he really missed the boat.

To summarize and perhaps overgeneralize, Mahr basically asked what's the big deal with Don Imus? So he made a disgusting, racially degrading remark. It's not like those women would have heard it had the remark not been blown out of proportion by the media, and thus obscuring the real story in the news: the bombing of the embassy in the green zone. While I've written about the gossipy nature of the media in the past, I have to say that Mahr misses the point. The fact is that the bombing in Iraq and the Imus comment are branches of the same story, and that is the increased tolerance of intolerance in this country.

The reasons for being in the war in Iraq can be debated, as I suppose can the ethics of the war. What cannot be debated is that the war in Iraq is a war against "the other." The same is true for the other side. The difference however, is that America is supposed to be the great melting pot, founded on the single principle that all humans are created equal. For a nation whose fundamental principle is tolerance and understanding to fight an ideological war of aggression is an oxymoron; even a war where the opponent hates us. Because the other fact of the Iraq war is that if we are fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, we've overshot our target. The terrorists came from a country a little south and west of Iraq. But, we attacked a country that had a recognizable bogey man, and as a country we bought the message that Saddam Hussein was a threat, not on current evidence but on memories that were fifteen years old. The current war is based on that fear and disgust of a tyrant who, while unspeakably horrible to his own people a) had been pretty much neutered by the United Nations, and b) had nothing to do with 9/11. But he was Muslim and led a Muslim nation, and because the terrorists were Muslim, Iraq must be guilty by association. That may be an over-simplified analysis, but it's mine and I'm sticking by it.

The Imus comment, which was preceded by Hardaway, Richards, Gibson, and many others, reflects the boldness of the current climate of intolerance, and just how casually that intolerance has been accepted in this nation. Imus is the first to suffer any tangible consequences for spewing his hate over the airwaves, and he should. Mahr, understandably, views this as a free speech issue, and to an extent he may have a point. But the free-speech argument does not take context into consideration. There was no point to the Imus comment beyond degrading and humiliating women who should have been recognized for their accomplishments. It was a throw away statement, made in an unguarded moment and one that I believe reflects his view of African American women.

Does he have the right to air those views? Absolutely. But so does the American public have the right to respond. The political right has used threatened boycotts as a weapon for decades and it's a little disingenuous to object at this stage when one is threatened against a bigot, simply because he's an outspoken proponent of the right-wing agenda. To summarize the Reverend Al Sharpton on Real Time, Imus spoke. America responded. Imus lost his job. That's how America works.

But the larger issue here is the tolerance of intolerance, and I believe that when America demanded consequences for Don Imus's diarrheic mouth, we began to speak up against such tolerance. The message really was, "ENOUGH!" I'm hoping this is just a clearing of the throat before the aria of outrage begins and not the entire opera, but at least in one instance in these dark, dark days of American history, an echo of the America that is yet to be was heard.