anti-pedanti

Ok. Perhaps some people were offended by Imus’ comments.

Fine. But this is pathetic.

I’m sorry, but calling one group of people a name, rightly or wrongly, is not the end of the world.

The Rutgers women’s basketball coach and several of her players expressed pain and outrage at the racially charged comments Don Imus made about them, saying he overshadowed their success with remarks that degraded women across the globe.

Pain and Outrage? At being called a name? Go ahead, call me a name.

Watch what happens.

Hmmm…Nothing. It’s because I don’t think that I deserve to have everyone think well of me. It’s because I don’t let my little feelings live on my sleeve where they can get hurt. And it’s because my opinion of my own achievements is not going to be undercut by some old man who calls me a name.

One of the teammates, Heather Zurich, had this to say:

“We were stripped of this moment by a degrading comment by Mr. Imus,”

Stripped of this moment? Please. How are you stripped of something so completely yours? Did your achievement mean anything less in the sports world? Did it all of a sudden feel like an easy thing to do what your team did?

Or is this whole thing political grandstanding? What is it, really?

What made me laugh (in a cynical sort of way) was the fact that they players have agreed to meet with Imus, and that they hope that this will make it all better.

Junior forward Essence Carson, who said she felt “great hurt, anger and disgust” over the remarks, explained that she wanted to meet with Imus to understand why he said what he said.

“We just hope to come to some understanding of what the remarks really entailed,” said Carson.She also said the team was optimistic that the meeting with Imus could be productive.”We all agreed the meeting with Mr. Imus will help,” Carson said. “We do hope to get something accomplished during this meeting.”

I’m sure that once you meet with him, you’ll all come away happy. You’ll be slapping each other on the back, telling jokes and getting along like chums.

What malarkey! This meeting will accomplish nothing but giving yet another chance to demand groveling from someone who has committed the worst crime in our nation: offending a black person by a seemingly “racist” comment.

But underneath it all is this sense that name-calling (at least calling black people names) should not be tolerated:

Carson added that the incident served to show that underneath the media’s apparent embrace of diversity and equality, bigotry can still rear its head.

“Somehow, some way, the door has been left open to attack the leaders of tomorrow,” she said.

Yes, wide open for attack. The leaders of tomorrow are totally unprepared. When white people come after them with mean-spirited words that are actually less offensive than what their hip-hop culture says everyday, what will they do? Are you kidding me?

Anyone who can’t take a stupid comment in stride is not my leader.

And if they’re the leaders of tomorrow…pathetic.