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What Has Changed?
Posted by KTK

There’s been a flap just now over Don Imus’s making grossly racist and sexist remarks about some female college students. A lot has been said about that already. One aspect of the story is the extent to which Imus repeatedly does such things in his persona as the reigning “shock jock”, and that is constantly waved away by his listeners and his guests, the latter including many prominent media figures.

That phenomenon was in evidence today, again, as Howard Fineman, editor of Newsweek, appeared on Imus’s show and found a number of ways to explain away Imus’s behavior, or to excuse him as a person from responsibility for the kind of person he is. But one thing in particular that Fineman said caught my eye: 

FINEMAN: . . . You know, I don’t know what’ll happen. I think — you know, it’s a different time, Imus. You know, it’s different than it was even a few years ago, politically. I mean, we may, you know — and the environment, politically, has changed. And some of the stuff that you used to do, you probably can’t do anymore.

IMUS: No, you can’t. I mean –

FINEMAN: You just can’t. Because the times have changed. I mean, just looking specifically at the African-American situation. I mean, hello, Barack Obama’s got twice the number of contributors as anybody else in the race.

IMUS: Amen.

FINEMAN: I mean, you know, things have changed. And the kind of — some of the kind of humor that you used to do you can’t do anymore. And that’s just the way it is.

What, exactly, is different today? What ”things have changed” of which Barack Obama’s popularity is evidence?

Obviously, very little has changed about the overall willingness of whites to harbor and openly express racist sentiments. The code-speech of racist right-wingers, and the repeated racist eruptions and prejudiced eructations of supposed non-racists, have grown more sophisticated over the years, but it seems hard to believe - and on the evidence impossible to credit - that those patterns have noticeably diminished since “even a few years ago”.

What has happened is that black America has passed a significant milestone, fielding a front-running Presidential candidate from within the mainstream of a major party, and under conditions in which his race is an important, but far from the dominant, issue in his campaign. (Sharpton, and Shirley Chisholm before him, were essentially protest candidates; Jackson was an underdog and ran as one. All were seen as “the blacks’ candidates”.) This has not happened overnight; Obama is not the sole reason for it, nor has he done the most work to achieve it. Rather, conditions have gradually changed, over a period of decades. But Obama’s candidacy is the thing that got us over the hump - or the first significant post-hump event that made it clear how different things are.

Vast racial disparities still exist. Race-defined social problems are of enormous significance, and still require solutions that still are lacking. But at the same time, minorities have gotten to the point that, while remaining underrepresented at most levels, they are now underrepresented at the top level. One major party has never fielded a serious black or female contender for president or vice-president - but one has (twice, on the female side). And where prior black candidates were seen as “representatives of their race”, Obama - while speaking clearly and powerfully about race - is seen as grounding his candidacy on other issues. Chisholm and Jackson played the Jackie Robinson role; Obama is Willie Mays, or maybe, mixing the metaphor a bit, Muhammad Ali. He is black and bold and unshy about both those facts, but neither dominates his personality. What has changed in America is that it is possible for him to be seen in that way.

Obama did not achieve this ny his own efforts, and to some degree he was not the first. Clarence Thomas had already achieved MLK’s dream: he’s widely regarded as an asshole entirely for the content of his character. Alberto Gonzales proved that minorities could be malicious and incompetent for reasons unrelated to race. Condi Rice and Colin Powell proved they could humiliate themselves in service to undeserving whites without becoming racial stereotypes. And innumberable political, sports, and media figures have made popular and prominent black and female faces, even if still minorities, at least a non-rarity. But Obama, benefiting from the non-racialized public faces of minorities who had clawed their way to the top before him, has become the darling of millions of Americans simply because of the way he makes them feel.

It would be insane to proclaim that America’s race and gender conflicts are a thing of the past - but we have at least reached a point where a strong woman and an outspoken black man can fight it out for the presidency with race and sex in the background, not the foreground. As I said, neither of them created that situation - they are symbols of it as much as anything - but their candidacies prove that it is true, and are helping stamp that on the public’s unspoken expectations about racial and gender issues. In that way, Fineman is certainly right: the climate has changed.

But, getting back to Imus . . . . What does it mean that America is now at the point where race and gender do not have to dominate issues involving racial minorities or women? That is what has changed, that has made it wrong to say the things Imus said? (He called the black female Rutgers basketball team members “nappy-headed ho’s”.) Why should that make it wrong?

What Imus said would be racist and sexist in any “climate”. And there would certainly have been voices of protest if he had said such things 5, 10, or 20 years ago. (There were voices of protest when he did say such things, repeatedly, at those times and since.)

Nothing has changed about racism or sexism. Nothing has changed about the existence of racism and sexism in our society; very little has changed about its prevalence in public discourse. Imus-style offensiveness has long been the specialty of a few insecure and angry reactionaries and the blowhards who cater to them; even as most of society matures, the background noise from the few who refuse to grow up remains constant.

What has changed is, partly, the number of people who are simply tired of that nonsense - who have grown up and embraced the liberal ethos; partly, also, what has changed is the diminished degree to which Imusism, Limbaughism, Savagism, Coulterism, Malkinism, Republicanism, tracks with public expectations regarding discourse involving women and minorities (more minorities than women, though). Racial “code” now fails to hit the hot buttons of the large majority of citizens; slurs and stereotypes now proclaim failure of comprehension or lack of breeding, in the way that cursing in public once did. (Today, cursing is commonplace and slurs are shocking; arguably, this is two fucking good steps forward.)

What does this tell us about Imus, or, perhaps, Fineman? That what the latter, at least, perceives (and the former acknowledges) as wrong in Imus’s language is not the attitudes or hostilities it conveys, but the fact that it no longer fits within the bounds of expectation for talk about women and minorities. Fineman implies, and almost says outright, that it would be OK to say what Imus said a few years ago, before the tide of racial and gender expectations had turned. Apparently, what Imus did wrong was simply that he failed to communicate effectively, not that he expressed offensive, racist and sexist sentiments. He failed to keep up with the times. Calling black women “nappy headed ho’s” on his show is like trying to be a leading edge radio jock by using terms like “hep cat” and “groovy” - he’s just out of date in his language! Apparently, there’s nothing wrong with using sexist or racist language as long as most of your audience will approve or condone it. And, as the rest of their conversation indicates, nothing about using sexist and racist language means you’re sexist or racist - it just means you’re a cutting edge radio jock. If your audience’s appreciation of women and blacks evolves to the point that they no longer appreciate terms like “nappy headed ho’s”, well, then, you should change your language  in order to remain trendy, not because there’s anything about that language itself that invites scrutiny.

One thing we can hope is that, as society continues to evolve, it will simply leave people like Imus, and Limbaugh, and Coulter and the rest behind - not their language, not their shows and merchandise, but the people themselves and everything about them or similar to them. It’s not Imus’s language that’s out of date - in fact, it obviously represents perfectly the attitudes and behavior he himself embodies right here and now. It’s Imus as a person - the kind of person Imus is, the kind of person he and the others are, and to which so many right-wingers repair for affirmation of their own resentments and hostilities - that’s falling behind the curve faster and faster. They say history progresses one funeral at a time. I suspect talk radio progresses one cancellation at a time. It’s poised to make a big jump forward soon. That’s a change long overdue.

April 9th, 2007 General, Culture, Media, News & Current Events, Race | 8 comments