Imus

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 4/10/07, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> At 4/10/2007 10:16 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote:
> >Imus was thinking exactly what it sounds like, and smugly (and evidently
> >correctly) assuming that his regular listeners would applaud and his
> >employers would defend him. Whether or not he really is a racist, sexist,
> >homophobic SOB, he talks that way.
>
> Listening to the excerpt, one can hear someone else (perhaps in his
> broadcast booth, perhaps a producer with an open mike) applauding (if
> I may assume laughter fits that category) and commenting
> (unfortunately I could not make out the words).

Here's Jesse Jackson's description of the on-air exchange:

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http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/333946,CST-EDT-jesse10.article
Imus opened the bit by saying that he had watched the game. His
sidekick Sid Rosenberg announced the score. Whereupon Imus took the
conversation into the mud: "That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man,
they got tattoos," said Imus. His executive producer, Bernard McGuirk,
interrupted: "Some hard-core hos." Imus added insult: "That's some
nappy-headed hos there."
McGuirk then compared the Rutgers team to Tennessee, suggesting it was
a "Spike Lee thing." "The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that
he had." (In Spike Lee's movie "School Daze," there was a rivalry
between the dark-skinned Jigaboos and the light-skinned Wannabes.)
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--Ben Zimmer

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