Would we allow Imus to return to the airwaves if he called Black people "cockroaches?"
Don Imus is returning to the radio airwaves, but would he last long if he blurted out that Black people were like "cockroaches?"
That would be the end of his career. Well, Imus, who is returning to radio via WABC in New York, where many Muslim and Arab bashers have shows, apparently, hasn't said such a thing. You must be wondering then, why would I even imply such a horrible thought?
Well, Radio Talk Show host Don Imus hasn't called Muslims and Arabs "cockroaches" but his colleague in hatred, radio talk show host Neal Boortz has.
According to the Council on American Islamic Relations, on his radio shwo, Boortz said, "…Muslims don't eat during the day during Ramadan. They fast during the day and eat at night. Sort of like cockroaches."
Wow! Just rewriting the sentence makes me sick. There's Michael Savage who continues to lambaste Muslims and Arabs. And there is also Sean Hannity. ALl these "Don Imus" types who get away with hatred, why? Because instead of directing their racism at African Americans, they hammer away at an easy target, a minority that no one seems to care about. People with whom many Americans are comfortable allowing to be slammed. Muslims and Arabs.
It is reprehensible. But what is more reprehensible is that the response from the mainstream American news media. They argue that "Radio Talk Show hosts are not journalists, but people who express opinions."
The responsibility, they say, is to put the burden on Muslim and Arab Americans to respond. Okay. That's fair. They have, launching a growing advertising boycott against sponsors of the radio shows. But the fact is that the media then becomes a part of the problem, because the media does not report the boycotts and protests from Muslim and Arab Americans.
In a way, mainstream American journalism is responsible for not holding people like Neal Boortz, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage accountable.
Hate is okay, apparently, if 1) the media isn't watching or doesn't care and 2) the people expressing the hate target minorities who are below the racism line of concern.
I understand the haters like Boortz, Hannity and even Savage, who at least has the courtesy to try to respond and defend his views while the others do not.
But what I don't understand is the mainstream news media. Is it fear of raising this issue? Or, is it that members of the mainstream news media agree?
Read the CAIR statement:
Ray Hanania
PS ... I learned today that Muslims and Arabs are not only ignored by the mainstream media in America, but also by the mainstream media in London. More than 25,000 Muslims and Arabs packed a convention center to declare their hope for World Wide peace at the Global Peace & Unity Conference, and they got some press. (By the way, have any of you ever had to address an audience of 25,000 people, or try to make them laugh. What a rush!)