Imus canned by MSNBC

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:30:51 -0400, "Bill O'Neill" <me@billoneill.us> said:

> Dan Strassberg wrote:
>> ...some things that a member of a minority group can say
>> with impunity about other members of that group create a firestorm when
>> someone who is not a member of that group says them...

> Nope.  That bus has has left the depot.  All people should share equally 
> in the responsibilities that are ours in a progressive and civilized 
> culture.  Lead by example.  No further passes.

Bill,

If you were intending to respond to Dan's statement, could you please
rephrase your response in a way that actually responds to it?  I'm
having trouble making a connection between what Dan said (and you
quoted) and what you said.

I would say that there are some words and phrases which can
legitimately be used within a subculture without giving rise to
offense, but which would cause offense when used by someone outside
that subculture.  There is nothing wrong with this; it's simply a
difference in (culturally-assigned) meaning and in some cases intent.
I note that many prior flaps over broadcaster "insensitivity" are
precisely of this sort.  It is particularly the case with group
epithets: often, a word which is used by a particular group to
describe themselves has a pejorative (if not downright offensive)
connotation in society at large.  An audience may legitimately assume
that, if a broadcaster applies such a word to someone and not to
himself, then he *intends* to give offense by it.  (My canonical
example is "queer", although the pejorative connotation seems to be
fading somewhat.)

This case is quite a bit different.  Although I'm not the world's
foremost expert on AAVE (hell, I barely even know the first thing
about it), the reporting seems to suggest that there is no
non-pejorative sense to what the I-man said -- and that, to me,
entirely legitimates the offense taken.  He knew, or should have
known, that what he said was offensive (most of all to the women he
was insulting), and should have kept his trap shut.

-GAWollman