Trying to Explain to My Mother Why Don Imus Still Has a Job

[The Scene: Troy, Michigan. Parents' house. Ridiculously cold weather outside. Step-dad, 60, refuses to turn up heat, so he is reduced to watching the Masters just like the fans--bundled in coat and hat. Mother, 57, puts dinner on the table, but step-dad stays in living room, watching Tiger. He occasionally adds to conversation from couch.]

Mom: "Can you believe Don Imus?"

Me: "I know, I know..."

Mom: "What did he say exactly?"

Step-dad: "Something nappy-headed..."

Me: "He called the Rutgers' team 'nappy-headed hos'..."

Mom: "Why would he do something so awful? Just because his team lost..."

Me: "No, it was more about how they looked. He said the other team was all cute, compared to these girls--

Mom: "Why does he still have a job?"

Me: [shrug]

Stepdad: "Lookout everyone! There's a tiger on the loose!"

Me: "Ha. Ha."

Mom: "How does he get away with this?"

Me: "Well, at least he apologized."

Mom: "So what! You can't unsay that kind of thing!

Me: [nodding head]

Mom: "This should be a career-ending event!"

I know.

My mother is a media-savvy woman. She's watched the politicians come and go on his show, kowtowing, laughing it up. She knows Imus is not going to go gently into that good night. But these comments are so ugly. So diminishing. So hurtful. The kind you can't take back. The kind of thing you say on the air, and there should be instant karma--direct pain to the mouth, or to the place inside one's head that says its OK to say these things out loud, for these women are the kind we can spit on and not feel any repercussion.

It is not OK to sit like a coward in one's studio and speak such poison into the airwaves. I hope, for a moment, Imus might take a moment to sit with the fact that he is in the wrong here, and then take another moment to put himself in these womens' impressively-hard-to-fill shoes.

So, I'm afraid to say that I still don't have an explanation for my mom as to why Imus still has a job. Other than the one we already know: in America, no one gets fired for hurting and disparaging black women. Ever.

Thank you, Gregory Lee and the National Association of Black Journalists and all others who have spoken out against Mr. Imus, and have demanded his dismissal. An apology was a start. But it can't be the end.