Imus Tangles with Controversy, Not Popular Enough for Public Boycott

Baba Booey

On Tuesday, radio personality Don Imus, in a poor man attempt at "shock jocking", referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" while broadcasting his awful show "Imus In The Morning." The Rutgers team is made up of eight black women and two white women.

It went down like this....

Don Imus: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and --

Bernard McGuirk (executive producer/poor mans Gary Dell'Abate): Some hard-core hos.

Imus: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some - woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like - kinda like - I don't know.

Apparently Mr. Imus in unfamiliar with freshman forward Heather Zurich

McGuirk: A Spike Lee thing.

Imus: Yeah.

McGuirk: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes - that movie that he had.

Imus: Yeah, it was a tough -

Charles McCord (co-host): Do The Right Thing.

McGuirk: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Imus: I don't know if I'd have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

Sid Rosenberg (guest/ sports announcer): It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

Those guys are so gosh darn funny.

When confronted about the remarks, Imus responded with "people should relax and not worry about some idiot comment meant to be amusing."

Fair enough.

A Rutgers spokesperson issued the obvious comeback, "We agree with Mr. Imus that this was, in his own words, an "idiot comment."

If more people outside of the women's basketball organization begin to care about the comments, Imus may be subject to a battery of insincere public apologies to the black community and a two-week, all-expenses-paid stint in rehab. I heard that's what cured Michael Richards.

Alas, controversy is regional.

Listeners of the Kidd Chris Show (94.1 WSYP, Philadelphia) hear this kind of talk every day. Some of the forbidden terms have been given codes that only the listeners, who often sling webs, will know. And while some panic-stricken lawyers stand in the way of Speedy Woo, the show will never make the headlines for "controversy".

Why?

Because his audience gets it.