“Comedy bends; it shouldn’t break”

Or, Shock Jock Touches Third Rail

OK, I’ve been busy doing my taxes and attending to other things that unfortunately have taken more time and energy than I would have liked, but even though this news story has probably been examined through every possible microscope, and from every angle, I still feel the need to weigh in.

Don Imus, like so many others of late who have already begun and ended their Apology Tours, including the obligatory kissing of Al Sharpton’s rump, said something idiotic (which I will not repeat here), after a career of saying other idiotic things, for which he is paying dearly and will probably never forget. Whether you found his most recent words egregiously offensive or merely stupid (I’m somewhere in the middle, but I’ve never been much of an Imus fan) the media fallout is only a symptom of a larger problem in our culture.

Part of it is a fundamental tenet of humor that spans all cultures, ethnicities and historical eras. Jokes are perceived as funnier when the oppressed make fun of the oppressors. The serfs can sit around the fire making fun of the king (out of earshot of his noblemen, of course), but when the king makes jokes about the serfs, they’re not funny; they’re merely cruel. Making fun of those who have power over you is a survival mechanism, a way of cutting off Goliath at the knees. This is why women made fun of men, slaves made jokes about their masters, Jews made jokes about…well, about everyone, and so on. Since the dawn of time, the weaker tribe of stooped-over hairy men sniggered about the stronger tribe of stooped-over hairy men.

But many of the gender and class lines in this current primordial soup of American culture have been blurred. White teens in the ‘burbs wear hip-hop clothes and rock out to Ludikris on their iPods. Black teens are wearing hockey jerseys. Women have so much freedom that the movement for equal rights is barely a footnote on their agendas, and gay marriage is gaining more and more acceptance.

Still, with all this blending, mixing and pureeing going on in our multicultural Cuisinart, some rules still apply. Certain groups can get away with using specific types of language and others cannot. Blacks can call each other the “n” word and it’s cool (I don’t happen to think so; I think it demeans everyone, but the one time when I took a kid to task about it, he gave me a blank stare and said it was a “black thing.”) but if you’re white and you say it – even about another Caucasian – you’re dead meat. Anyone who knows me or has read any of my novels should know that I’m no prude, and that I know the power of words (and hopefully a little bit about humor), but I hate to death that black comedians and rappers are polluting the atmosphere with filthy language about women and each other and no one calls them on it. Bush had P. Diddy (or whatever he calls himself these days) to the White House. Hillary had rappers perform at a campaign fundraiser. Richard Pryor used that language, but he was genuinely funny and had talent and was coming from a place of extreme hurt, which is the source of the best and most genuine comedy. Yet coming out of Chris Rock’s mouth it’s simply more racist crap. Yet these people are glorified and make lots of money.

And Don Imus gets fired. His crime – aside from saying a lot of crass things over his career and finally reaching the tipping point with his sponsors – was that he was a white man making a joke (albeit bad) at the expense of a group of black women. It might have been a different story if he were talking about the Rutgers’ men’s basketball team. I’ve lost track of the number of sports broadcasters and commentators I’ve heard compare the current state of men’s professional (and NCAA) basketball to the actions of street gangs using some very colorful and not very complementary language.

But while it’s generally considered acceptable to trash-talk your own, a white man simply can’t talk about black women that way. Even if Fifty Cent or other rappers can compare their “sisters” to gutter slime, Imus (or Howard Stern or any other white guy) simply can’t. Even if any one of those Rutgers women could take Imus in a fight before you can say “sensitivity training,” that’s one joke we’re just not ready for.

But should he have been fired for it? Yes…and no. While I believe it was a monumentally stupid and insensitive thing to have said – and a bad joke besides – listening to it in context, I don’t believe it was motivated by racism. Only a desperate and misguided attempt to be funny. And perhaps racking up enough of these incidents could be grounds for dismissal.

Yet if Don Imus were black, what he said about the Rutgers women might have been perceived as a complement.

And, most likely, wouldn’t have made the news at all.