Comments on Don Imus Meet Don's Teen Town.

A friend of my sister once worked for Imus. She was fired for talking back to him. I believe she called him a "cantankerous old man." When word got out she had been taken heat for it, she was immediately hired elsewhere in MSNBC. Now she's one of the anchors.

All hail the power of Rock n' Roll.

So how is "nappy headed ho" any more offensive or demeaning than "blond bimbo"? (I have heard several ladies of color complain about being nappy headed from time to time without inferring a racially contentious subplot.) And also, in a world where black organizations present achievement awards to homophobes who call gay people fagots, aren’t we moving into glass houses territory? Just asking.

I totally agree, YGBKM. It's one of those things you can't really argue without sounding like the bad guy, I guess. What surprises me the most is that people seemed shocked, SHOCKED! that Imus is a bigot. All along I thought that's why people listened to him.

This is a good example of the role that rock n' roll (or rhythm n' blues or "race music") played in the civil rights movement. White baby boomer teenagers were listening to black radio stations often hundreds of miles away from their small towns in the privacy of their rooms at night on their AM radios. By the 1950s radios and record players were cheap enough for kids to buy their own. Middle-class parents were making more money and having smaller families, allowing teenagers to have their own bedrooms so they could explore and develop their own musical tastes away from nagging racist parents. No kid growing up listening to Rufus Thomas spin Rocket 88 and the latest from Little Milton was going to see the Klan or George Wallace in a very favorable light. Rock n' Roll had as much do as anything with the changing attitudes of white people, at least young white people, toward blacks. That, and Truman's integration of the armed forces in 1947 during a time of universal conscription.

Also, Alan Freed deserves some credit for being an early integratonist. He was the first concert promoter to start hosting big integrated rock n' roll shows in Cleveland in 1951 or early '52. He resisted a lot of pressure from police and city leaders to segregate the audiences at those concerts. This and the shows he promoted in New York after he moved there in '54 is what inspired that '56 Bessemer show.

I don't care if he gets fired or not. All I want to know is who are his advertisers and I want his advertisers to know I want to know who they are.

I think rather than call for all these asshats to get fired it would be better to instead let their advertisers know that you are no longer willing to purchase their product because who they support offends you. It may not make a difference but it will certainly make me feel better.

You see, I don't listen to his show. So what am I going to do, stop listening to the radio until he's fired? No. But I can stop supporting the people who support HIM.

Rip it up Bill LaBorde. Are you a Lloyd Price fan?

Love Lloyd Price - Lawdy Miss Clawdy.

I am really shocked that ANYONE listens to Imus. Really, I am shocked. Maybe he said it just to see if anyone actually listened to his show. Just a thought. I think he should just be told to retire early. It was a stupid thing to say on the air to be sure and the two week suspension is not going far enough but firing him is probably a little over the edge.

As far as I know it's a paid suspension too.

Monkey, I was surprised I couldn't find out who advertises on his show by looking at the net. I guess only conservative Christians keep track of those things, and Imus is probably not on their radar.

As far as MSNBC, the one time I caught Imus, I don't think there were any commercials, except for some MSNBC self promotion. I'm not going to boycott MSNBC because I like Keith Olbermann and pretty much all of the MSNBC and NBC talking heads all wanted Imus canned.

As far as CBS radio, a lot of that advertising is probably local, or it's for Investment firms and luxury cars.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where the first integrated audience was in the late 1950s and it was for wrestling. The local wrestling hero didn't want his black fans stuck up in the balcony and demanded they be allowed to sit on the ground floor with the whites. He got what he wanted.

Wrestling is serious business in Memphis, as Jerry "The King" Lawler and Andy Kaufman can attest.