Firing of A Shock Jock

By Namaste Staff Writer

The termination of Don Imus’ four-decade run on CBS Radio came in response to an outcry from a broad range of listeners. The outcry is evidence of the growing consciousness in our 21^st century civilization, and a hopeful sign.

At the same time, it’s also likely that Imus is serving as a scapegoat for a society that in countless ways puts people down, derogating them instead of honoring their divinity.

I live five minutes from one of America’s great universities. Because college kids are around me all the time, the kind of language Imus used on his radio show is something I hear constantly. Imus’ reference to the Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos” is the language of too many of our young people today, even in high school.

We are a culture that tolerates shock, at the expense of human beings who ought to be honored. We justify it under the banner of “freedom.” But there is nothing freedom-like about language and behavior that demean any human. It is especially appalling when it is directed at the black, female sector of society, which for too long has had to suffer real oppression.

The fact is, as a people we are often guilty of dishonoring one another. What we deny and will not face in ourselves, we project onto others. This simply isn’t honest.

The derogation of women in countless sexist ways in our society stems from a widespread inability in males to embrace their own tenderness. We are afraid to feel. Consequently, our hatred of our tenderness gets projected onto the female of the species.

Imus just happened to go a bit too far in public, becoming a candidate for a scapegoat for what we will not face up to as a civilization—our flight from our own loving, kind, gentle, tender essence. For whether we know it or not, a universal Presence resides in all of us as the heart of our true being, and love is the primary attribute of this divine Presence.

In The Presence Process, Michael Brown encourages people to “show up” in their lives. It is to be hoped that the outcry at Imus’ racial and sexist slur comes not from self-righteous moral judgment, but from a growing awareness of the value and dignity of every single human being—indeed, from a treasuring of the female and black skin, both of which are aspects of the divine diversity that creates all of us in love.

CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves spoke of “the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society.” Instead of a piranha-like flesh feeding on Imus, scapegoating him for our society’s derogation of people, it behooves us each to examine our own language. Do the words we say to each other on a daily basis encourage the flowering of our human greatness? Do we listen to the kind of rap on the radio that puts women down, often with violent language?

If you’d like to engage in a little self-examination, which is the only helpful response to the CBS firing of the “shock jock,” you’ll find the tools to do it in The Presence Process. You may just be surprised how little self-respect and self-love most of us show ourselves, and therefore fail to show to our fellow humans.