What do Imus and the Duke Lacrosse players tell us about our culture?

Since last week, I've thought about writing something about the case of Don Imus and his sexist and racist remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball players, but it's been difficult to know what to say. Imus' remarks were reprehensible, but the reasons why he got away with saying similar remarks for so long and why this time things turned out as they did are complicated.

I have only listened to Imus a few times, so I don't really have an informed opinion about him. I have read that this is not the first racist and sexist comment made by Imus. If so, I really don't understand why so many politicians and journalists went on the show. My sense is that Imus is probably insightful and known for making outrageous comments, and therefore people excused his offensive behavior as showmanship. The line between entertainment and offensive behavior is always moving in our culture. This last week Imus ended upon on the wrong side of that line.

I have heard that the difference in this case is that the Rutgers women were not celebrities or politicians to be lampooned but champions who overcame personal and athletic odds to reach the top. In this case, remarks that denigrate women and African-Americans were without excuse. I have to ask, however, in what cases would such language be appropriate? Even if the objects of Imus' ridicule were lacking in virtue or were criminals or prostitutes, would it then be appropriate to denigrate them because of their race and gender?

The most offensive thing about this whole episode for me is not Imus' comments about a winning women's basketball team, but the fact that little regard, if any, is given to the way women, especially women of color, are marginalized through speech and action in our culture. Are these particular remarks that different from the kinds of things said about women by Howard Stern for years on a daily basis, or that "shock jocks" have said on morning shows around the country? Our media is filled with images and language that demeans women. The question is not why did Imus get called out this time, but why are people silent in all of the other cases?

At the same time Imus was getting canned, the charges were dropped against the Duke lacrosse players. I sensed that these two stories were related, but the only connections I saw being drawn between them were conservative commentators decrying the attacks upon poor defenseless white men. (The editorial in the St. Joe News Press this past Sunday was a prime example.) This nation's history is filled with white men viewing black women as nothing more than sexual objects to be exploited. The same is true of both of these cases.

I've been searching for someone to draw some intelligent connections between the two stories, but I found little if anything worthwhile being said. That changed today when I read a column by Diana Butler Bass. I quoted her in a recent sermon and I'm growing to really like what she has to say. In this case, she critiques the pornographic nature of our culture and says that our tacit acceptance of sexual exploitation explains a lot of what is going on behind these stories. She writes the following:

The Rutgers and Duke stories are not only about race and gender. They are about pornography. As a result of the Rutgers case, some journalists promised to address the pornographic tendencies of rap and hip-hop. But what about pornography in general? Can we sensibly critique – and offer sound policy solutions regarding – the pornified culture? A culture where privileged men can think it is acceptable to hire a poor black woman to perform sexual acts for them? A culture where adult entertainment companies, X-rated Web sites, and “gentlemen’s clubs” rake in huge profits?

Both the Rutgers women and the Duke men are victims of pornography – the women were overt victims (don’t forget the woman in the Duke case); the men victims of culture that stresses control over women and easy sexual gratification. It is tempting to see the men only as perpetrators of a sin (hence the silence); yet that seems too simplistic. The lacrosse players “bought” an idea about porn and sex that has been culturally “sold” to them. Ultimately, pornography victimized them all – their self-esteem, sexuality, gender identity, wholeness, and in these two cases, public reputations.

When I usually come across condemnation of pornography, I groan and keep moving, because in my experience, such screeds are usually by people who paint all sexuality as sinful and who use their soapboxes to promote their own puritanical visions of America (I'm thinking here of Focus on the Family, The Family Research Council, etc.). Yet, I think in this case, Bass has a point. Our culture does cheapen sexuality and peddles it as a commodity rather than as a meaningful and sacred form of intimacy between people. Most especially, our culture presents sexuality in a way that demeans women, especially women of color. Any time a person ceases to be viewed as a person and instead is viewed as an object to be used and exploited to gratify others, that person is dehumanized and God's creation is abused.

No matter how appropriate or inappropriate the earthly punishment, this sin of dehumanization occurred in both the case of Imus and the Duke lacrosse players.

Grace and Peace,

Chase