Limbaugh's statement

[fletcher]

I know it has been about a week but my dad brought up a good point to me one of many in my life time wish i had listened to more when i was younger but such is life, anyway he remembered this because he was still coaching then.

he said back in 1987 Isiah Thomas made a remark he thought it was in Si about how Thomas said if larry bird was black he would just be another basketball player. he said the media just rips players and coaches as i know that is why i got out or one reason, and people who have no business of opening their mouths about things with all the pc is what is wrong with many things in the world right now when it comes to statements made and then twisted to sale a papper or gain a head line for personal gain as some people do won't say his choices because do not want to offened anyone, but i thought about it and what is the diffrence in those statements made by both men. I do know and believe my dad and had to put up with it also as a coach that papers and people out to gain a step over the littlest things have gotten way out of hand. much more to worry about in the world then a statement that might not of been well said but it was said but it was not like the end of the world over the statement. but i see not much of a difference of what thomas said back in 87 about bird. I do believe people are to touchy anymore and papers do twist things to make a sale and others twist them to make personal gain. nothing happened to thomas not because he was black or white but 1987 people did not really care as much about the pc world we live in now,yes it is wrong to come out and say something to hurt someone on purpose. but in both of these cases i think they were just statements from how they felt, would thomas be in trouble if he said that now i would say so which in both cases is stupid to punish either but that is our world now. any thoughts about the compair of statements now and back in 1987?

have a good week

Eric

 

[big joe]

I don't think there is such a thing as PC,,or at least, there's not for whites.
Limbaugh was underestimating the liberal coilition that can bring you down, or out of the ESPN job.
This is ONLY a black issue and super-sensitivitiy on the issue. The media jumped on this and it was all over immediately.
Although I loath this about our society, it is real and Limbaugh tasted it first-hand.
Simply put,,he stated HIS opinion, and he can't do that and mention "black" in the same sentence.

 

[IntenseOperator]

i understands fully the stuff eric is talking about and i think Linbauh planned the whole thingto get out of the sprts stuf

hes to smart to make a statement lke that wit no plannin

 

[homedog]

I disagree Operator. He knew what he was going to say and said it anyway.

The thing I like about Limbaugh the most is his common sense. He did not use it here. In the business world, you cannot say everything you think unless you are willing to pay for it. He did.

As much as I admire his common sense approach to most issues, he did not use the best judment here.

 

[SixFive]

I think that African Americans/black folks, especially ones who are well connected and famous can say about any damn thing they want to say without any repurcussions. That's just how it is. Fletcher mentioned the Isaiah Thomas comment, we can also add the Dusty Baker comments (black and hispanics taking the heat better: I didn't thing the statement was any big deal, but I know it was questioned quite a bit), Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson multitude of comments especially regarding the Jewish community, and didn't a black commentator on this same ESPN say that Peyton Manning was the white man's quarterback a few weeks ago???

Look at Donovan McNabb's numbers his first 2 years and decide for yourself if he was overrated. Dusty Baker's comments did not hurt my feelings, nor did I think they were any big deal. What he said is true in my experience, especially about the intolerance of the cold. I was just in Saskatchewan and Minnesota and North Dakota. 3 cold places. I never saw a single person of Latino or African descent amidst the snowy white caucasion landscape.

 

[djv]

When useing high dose pain killers you may say lots of stuff. His problem is just starting with those. As it should be. He is not above the law. In fact after many things that he has said about drug users. Sounds like he did not have the right if he is a illegal user him self. Time will tell.

 

[fletcher]

sixfive those are the 2 my dad brought up did not want to say the names and get jumped on. So i aslo do not care what people say as long as it not hurtful to someone just to be mean.

Djv was there anything different or anyone else as to what thomas said and what was said here or is it the press and the 2 people my dad said and the time now then the statement it self? djv i take it you don't like him i could not really care about many of them i just take them with a grain of salt. But pleaes tell me your not a bleeding heart lib yhay has scewed this country all up i don't think you are but let me know

 

[ELVIS]

djv, i am an old man in a young man's body. i am so old school it makes my 60 yr old boss angry. however, rush is not a criminal. he is a victim of his success. he feels he can say anything in his intellligent manner and rehearsed verbage. his tone and delivery are practiced as well. he suffers from an inflated ego. he did not deserve to be on sundays @ espn. he was a fish out of water. he also does not deserve all of the criticism he has received, nor does a poor statement on tv invalidate an extremely well read and intelligent man.:nono:

 

[Mjolnir]

double standard

double standard

there will always be a double standard for these types of thing's. just as there is for conservatives and liberals. thay can have ex-kkk members in congress, bustamonte won't denounce his tie's to Mecha (the mexican kkk), Ariana can turn her husband queer, but they are not P.C. to talk about.

 

[british bulldog]

Although our two countries are many miles apart they are similiar when it comes to what is politically correct and wrong.

I watched NFL live last Sunday afternoon here in the UK, and when I heard the comment I did not give it one moments thought, much like most. We have all heard the disqusting names thrown around for which ever ethnic race who come from.

Let me remind you that it was the BLACK community that kept requesting that they be called BLACKS. I am not racist. Never have been and never will be.

It is though an unfortunate society that we live in where racism will always rear it's ugly head.

Here are the facts, plain and simple, and those that feel offended should ask the question before responding.

If any other race calls a white person white then nothing is said. Is it not a fact that the person has just made a racist remark about the colour of someones's skin.

If a white person is to call a Black skin person black then they are racist. That I am afraid is live and the society we live in.

Is it not also correct that if a black skined person is shot or mugged then it is often stated as racially motivated where as if the white skined person was shot or mugged it is nearly un heard of being racially motivated.

I am afraid that in todays society there is a rule for one colour of skin versus a rule for other colour skin.


One last thing, ESPN should be dragged over hot coals for their introduction to yesterdays NFL live programme. When the comment was made a week ago their were two black persenters who did not blink or make a comment back. Yet this week those two same guys slate Limbaugh. Real nice that when the guy is unable to defend himself from what was a public designed mauling. The comments passed if you listen again a racist although there was no mention of his skin colour. They branded the guy as a racist because of his comment and I am sure that Mr. Limbaugh although outspoken is far from being a racist.

I am sure I am going to get slated for what I have just said but this is a free society, I am not racist, I understand alot about African culture and afro americans. All I have to do is ask my step dad who's from the West Indies.

 

[djv]

Fletch I was brought up in a very strong right family. By Grandad and Father got rather pissed at me when. I said your wasting your vote by not thinking a little out of the box and being more independent. No one party has the answers. So we dont talk politics at home anymore when I visit. Hell no liberials are not right but neither is the right. I look for compromise and truth. Im sick of our leaders either missleading us or just plain lieing. As for Rush. I dont care for guys like him that believe he is so right about everything. That the others are not only wrong he talks down to them like there chit. Now if Black or White kid on some corner was caught useing drugs no matter what kind. Well we know where they would have went to jail no questions asked. If He is useing drugs bought on black market or from drug dealers. He is no better then those kids and other drug users he has condemed many times. If story is true he should say so and move on.

 

[StevieD]

To get back to Fletcher's question I think that both statements are racist. The difference is that Limbaugh makes his living talking and is an expert at it while Thomas made his playing basketball.
Both statements are basically the same. Each claims the other is over rated because he happens to be the color of the day.
Limbaugh didn't deserve to be on ESPN. I do not thin a sports show is a place to bring in politics.
And if you think Thomas got away free and clear with his statement you were not sitting in Boston Garden when the Pistons came to town.
Now, Limbaugh still has his radio show. And he can go on day after day explaining what he meant. So it is not like they took everything he had. He simply lost a job he never belonged in. And he didn't stay and fight it, he resigned!
At least Thomas showed up at Boston Garden to face the heat.

 

[Chanman]

Toogood Reports
Monday, October 6, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST
Bonnie Chernin Rogoff

Excerpt:

The smear snipers and trashy tabloids are out tampering, with little evidence. In America, a respected, white, conservative talk show host becomes a bigot overnight. Facts be damned. A simple accusation will do.

Let's start with Rush Limbaugh. James Golden (a.k.a. Bo Snerdley) is Rush's radio call screener. He's black. Rush routinely pays tributes to Professor Thomas Sowell and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. They are black. One of Rush's most frequent guest hosts is Dr. Walter Williams. He is black. Rush is a huge fan of golfing legend Tiger Woods. For a man purported to be a racist, that's a pretty good scorecard.

Rush is white, rich, Republican, successful, smart, savvy and self-made. With those credentials, he is not permitted to discuss affirmative action policies. It could be argued that Rush is a progressive when it comes to race, because he believes merit and not skin color should be the deciding factor. Affirmative action discriminates against qualified whites and qualified blacks.

Limbaugh uttered no slurs against quarterback Donovan McNabb. TV news anchor Dan Rather once said his CBS bosses "got the Buckwheats," and Rather got a free pass. Mike Wallace, host of CBS' 60 Minutes said on the air that blacks and Hispanics would have trouble reading complicated contracts over their "watermelons and tacos." Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) uttered the phrase "white niggers" on national TV. Hillary has been heard to say, "f-king Jew bastard." Ditto on the free passes.

Full Story

The difference is that Limbaugh makes his living talking and is an expert at it while Thomas made his playing basketball.

But SteveieD, isn't that like saying Arnold should get a free pass on Sexual Harassment since he was a Bodybuilder and not in Public Office? If it is wrong it is wrong- circumstances don't dictate the rules- unless your talking about being Politically Correct. Remember Jesse Jackson and the 'Hymie Town' statement? Also Rush is on the air 3 hours'day, monday-Friday and on fridays he still has Open Line Friday I think. Even if his calls were all screened he still faces the heat from public & private. I haven't listened to him in years, but I know he is still on and can hold his own. Not making excuses, or maybe I am but, at least he isn't using the old "I can't recall," "Left wing Conspiracy," etc. excuses. I could be wrong but this is my slant. :shrug:

 

[Rudy]

A neat point on this controversy that I hadn't considered. From freelance jouranlist Jennifer Graham:

A couple of years ago, the husband and I were eating out ? something you don't do often with four kids under 10 ? when he lowered his voice and gestured for me to look at the next table.

I did so, expecting to find something peculiar, such as Karl Rove conspiring with Elvis.

What I saw: A young family of five ? father, mother, three young children, well-dressed, well-behaved, enjoying their night out, too. Except for the well-behaved children ? mythical creatures with which we have no personal experience with ? the family was unremarkable.

But they were black. And my husband whispered that in a nation where 70 percent of black children are born into homes without fathers, it was great to see a picture-perfect black family dining together. "I almost want to go give the guy a high five," he said, somewhat sheepishly.

He didn't, of course. When we left, we nodded, smiled at the children and promptly forgot the exchange...in which both of us unconsciously revealed that ? horrors! ? we are very desirous that black Americans do well.

It's true. We desire Condoleezza Rice to do well! We desire Colin Powell to do well! We desire Clarence Thomas to do well! We desire practically every black American ? with the possible exception of O.J. ? to do well!

So sue us.

With all due respect to Rush Limbaugh ? who is not a bigot and said nothing racist on ESPN ? what's lost in the uproar is the truth of the offending statement ? and the beauty contained therein.

When Limbaugh said, "The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well," he meant to insult not black athletes, but the liberal media, which he loathes. The liberal media ? particularly the variety that covers football in Philadelphia ? were obligingly insulted. They bit back, lethally. And they spent the week gloating.

"Limbaugh was bound to say something dumb. He was hired to say something dumb," wrote Gary Shelton at the St. Petersburg Times. "His statements were flat-out wrong. Not morally wrong. Factually wrong," opined Mitch Albom at the Detroit Free Press.

No, guys, you're wrong. In your haste to perform your triumphant end-zone boogie, you are so missing the point.

What we have here is a failure to communicate among people who ought to know better: the communicators. A caller to Limbaugh's show Friday correctly summarized the problem: The core issue here could not be confined to a sound bite, and Americans are not broadly possessed of the mental dexterity that this debate requires.

As a newspaper editor in Philadelphia wrote me this week, "I firmly believe we aren't capable of debating the deeper issues that Rush alluded to in his two- or three-sentence comment."

Translation: We can't handle the truth.

Truth is, we live in a nation where, despite the rantings of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, most white people ? not just the media, but regular folks eating side-by-side at Applebee's ? want black people to succeed.

This is a good thing even when it is the deeply felt longing of the dastardly liberal media (sorry, Rush). The people on Rosa Park's bus did not want her to succeed. Today, with few exceptions, they would. This is progress. But the only writer I've seen noting this is Mark Madden, who hosts a sports talk show and writes a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Says Madden, in what may be the best writing on the most-overwritten topic of last week: "....There is undoubtedly a societal push to see blacks get and succeed in NFL jobs they don't usually have, namely quarterback and head coach. Limbaugh seemed to imply there's something wrong with that. There isn't, a as long as those blacks who get said jobs are qualified."

He goes on: "But that was just Limbaugh being Limbaugh. He wasn't being hateful....What Limbaugh said was no big deal."

No big deal. Buried in this statement, rife with irony, is the truth: America does want to see blacks succeed. America wants to see Hispanics succeed. America wants to see Asians and Indians and Iraqis succeed. America ? God bless her ? even wants to see white males succeed. That's who we are. That's our core. May it always be no big deal.

 

[djv]

All Rush had to say is. There are certian QB's that are hyped. And some may not deserve it. Period. Need not mention any color. And to say Mc Nabb is so/so. Well there are 15 to 20 teams that would be happy as hell to have him. Rush just did not know what the hell he was talking about. Just blowing smoke and blew it the wrong way.

 

[StevieD]

Chan, it seems to me that the Conservative Media is not holding Arnold responsible for his actions.
As for a Liberal Media" playing up black QB's then just what Media is playing up Payton Manning whose numbers are close to McNabs. Payton and even his brother are constantly hypped by the media.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Today you can not lets statistics or opinions dictate anything that does not seem cosher to the P.C.
If 4 people stepped off a bus and one was from the middle east,one black,one a women and one a white with shaved head and swatztika on his forehead and you were told to match each to the following titles,secretary-murderer-track star-terrorist I think 99% from all classes would have same pairings,making them all profilers.
If one of these holier than thou P.C. segment of the population preach to you this month about predjudice tell them to prove it and offer to buy them dinner provided while your eating you are allowed to drop his wife and children of in neighborhood of your choice to do a little trick or treating at halloween.--but don't expect any takers--they talk the talk but don't dare walk the walk.

 

[kosar]

I don't really think that that specific comment was racist, but to me it's very simple. He said he wasn't going to drag his politics to an NFL pregame show and it took 4 weeks, but he just couldn't help himself. If he thinks McNabb is overrated, fine. But he can save the f*cking commentary about the (liberal, of course) media protecting and/or pumping up black people for his horseshit, incredibly biased radio program. Good riddance, asshole.

 

[Nick Douglas]

I think StevieD made the best points of anyone here. The bottom line is that any time someone degrades another person publicly and then brings up race as a reason for said degradation, people are going to be up in arms, white or black. White people may take greater heat for making such stupid comments because several minority groups are more well organized and vocal about these things, but life ain't fair, now is it?

One point that I haven't seen brought up to a large degree in these discussions is the fact that every single commentary I've seen from Limbaugh on that show essentially involved him trying to foist his worldview into the world of the NFL. First he rails against the NFL's version of affirmative action in their coaching interview policy by pitying poor Greg Blache and Ted Cottrell because they were "pawns" used by the 49ers to avoid a hefty fine had they hired Dennis Erickson without interviewing any other candidates. That is essentially the same argument many conservatives have against affirmative action, that minorites whose hiring was helped by affirmative action are token hires. Then he railed on the alleged liberal media and the fact that they often show bias to support previous theories. That was his basic commentary on McNabb. That the supposed liberal media had complained for years that black quarterbacks would be great if only the mean 'ol NFL would give them a chance, and now that skin color is a non issue among coaches and personnel people in the NFL, the media has taken it upon itself to annoint certain black quarterbacks as superstars to prove that they were right all along.

Personally, I vehemently disagreed with Rush on both of those commentaries, but I also didn't see them as so awful and bigoted that he should have received the reaction he did. I mean, without actually saying it in the words Rush used, I believe previously ESPN did a piece on Jason Sehorn asking if he was more hype than substance. Same racial undertones there in my opinion. Only difference is that Rush chose to go that extra mile and make a more harsh racial commentary because he has a harsher style.

 

[Chanman]

Well Rush is history as far as football is concerned and one can always turn the channel regarding his radio program.