Racism's Ugly Head

Don Imus' remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team remind us of the persistence of racial ugliness in sports and American society.

Editor's Note: Some of the words and terms in this piece will be offensive to many. We believe their use conveys necessary information and context.

In racial terms, I admit to having been shocked a time or two over the course of more than two decades of covering sports.

Once I approached former NBA player Rick Mahorn, who is black, for an interview.

"I don't talk to white boys," he said.

I told him I considered myself Japanese American.

"I don't talk to Japs either," Mahorn replied.

Another time, a photographer friend, Harley Soltes, and I went to city hall in Benham, Ky., to solicit help in locating relatives of Bernie Bickerstaff, then the coach of the Seattle Sonics, now the coach and general manager of the Charlotte Bobcats. "You need to go down to Niggertown," someone there told us. Soltes and I stood there, slack-jawed, for several minutes before heading to a part of the small, coal-mining town that literally was on the other side of the railroad tracks.

So, yes, I've literally looked into racism's ugly face and, more than mortified, was astonished to discover that it not only was alive, but thriving. But I can say without hesitation that I was never so utterly flabbergasted as I was hearing the words that escaped the mouthes of radio personality Don Imus and, particularly, his longtime producer, Bernard McGuirk. By now, most of you must know that Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's."

Don Imus (right) appeared on the Rev. Al
Sharpton's radio show on Monday

This was no mere slip of the tongue or an attempt at humor gone awry. It was a veritable racial rollick, ostensibly a discussion about the women's NCAA championship game between Rutgers and Tennessee, whose players Imus called "cute." McGuirk did most of the instigating, including an on-air comment that the game was "The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabees."

Yes, this happened in America, five weeks after Black History Month and nearly 40 years after the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

Imus, 66, has been suspended by NBC, which simulcasts the show, "Imus in the Morning," on MSNBC, and CBS Radio, his principal employer. The two-week suspension begins next Monday because Imus had scheduled a telethon to benefit research into a cure for sudden infant death syndrome, and neither NBC nor CBS wanted to hurt that cause. Whatever. What about the causes of racial equality and human dignity?

The proper move would be to remove Imus from the air, and never allowing him to return. McGuirk should be dismissed immediately. Sharpton and other black leaders say they will press for Imus' removal by calling for boycotts of NBC, CBS and the show's advertisers, which have included Bigelow Tea, Chrysler and the New York Stock Exchange. Already, some of Imus' regular guests, including the author and Newsweek editor Tom Oliphant, who appeared on his show on Monday, have come to his defense.

Imus' own lame defense was to say he was trying to be humorous and that he was not at heart a racist. Oh really? People generally reserve slurs for times when they truly want to inflict pain. Because of my multi-racial background, I've been called many things - white boy, gook, beaner, whatever someone thought I was and believed I would be hurt by. Once, while walking the streets of Vancouver, B.C., I was called something that my aunt later explained was a racial epithet for East Indians.

Racial insults slip past our defenses the way, say, a dagger slips out of a slasher's coat pocket. We cannot quite say that it is ever unintentional.

We are concerned here at HoopGurlz.com about the Imus incident because women's college basketball is just a skip pass away from our subject matter, girl's basketbal. In our world, we've seen the kids revel in the normalcy of racial blending. It is in the stands where we receive the nasty reminders - where black parents complain that officials penalize against PWB (playing while black) and white parent complain of "those people" being so rowdy and lacking self-control.

Hopefully, the more this all happens, the less surprised we are that racism persists and the better equipped we will be for eradicating it. So, before Don Imus is dumped on his butt by NBC and CBS, we need most of all to thank him. For the reminder, that is, that he and his ugly ilk still exist.

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