Let's not forget that he's a man who dresses up as a cowboy every day to go to work.
He lives and works in New York City.
Have you heard/seen/read his apology? It was 20 minutes long and is fucking priceless. I've copied and pasted the second (and funniest) half where he uses the old "I have black friends" excuse - which never fails to dig any hole deeper. One thing to keep in mind is that the cancer camp is a huge PR/tax outfit where the cancer kids come to supply free work under the guise of teaching them what it's really like to be a cowboy: something Imus knows nothing about.
It's long, but it's really worth reading. It's way more offensive than anything he's actually apologizing for:
These young women also need to know—not as an excuse—and not after what I’m going to say now, do I expect these young women to say, Oh, well, he works with black children, or he has black friends, that means he can say this. That’s not what I’m saying. But they need to know that I’m a good person who said a bad thing. And there is a big difference.
We have a ranch in New Mexico for kids with cancer, blood disorders and so on. It opened and we founded it—it has been almost 10 years.
And half, nearly half of the kids who come there are from minority groups, Native American, Hispanic, Asian American—an Asian American girl just won the Imus Ranch rodeo this past spring—African American. Ten percent of the kids who come to our ranch are African American.
I’m not a white man who doesn’t know any African Americans. And my wife and I—Deirdre Imus—we run this ranch. We don’t have counselors. The whole basis of ranch is, these parents from all over this country and all over the world, they send their children to this ranch because they know that my wife and I are going to be their parents for 10 days. They live in the house with us. They eat with us. They are with us 24 hours a day. There’s not an African American parent on the planet who has sent their child to the Imus Ranch who didn’t trust me and trust my wife.
And when these kids die, we don’t just go to the white kids’ funeral. Little Michael Mordan (ph), god bless him, he turned 17 years old on Christmas day, he died January 1st, and my wife and I of course went to his funeral. It was a home-going service down in—near Philadelphia—my wife is from Connecticut, never been to one of those. He knew that we loved him and he had been to the ranch twice.
Two years ago, he came to the ranch and he desperately wanted to win that ranch belt buckle. And I knew what—he was terminal then. And I have the stopwatch and I could have let him win, easily. But he would have known that and I would have known that. And so, he was pissed at me and everybody else because he didn’t win. And he came back last year, he came back last year, and he tried with all his heart to win and he didn’t win again. And I could have let him win, but he—well, I wouldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t have wanted me to do that.
And then he went home and he died on Christmas day, so—and these kids come out there and—with sickle cell anemia. So I know—I know African American children. And—so I don’t need a come-to-Jesus experience.
And you might say, Well, if that’s all true, why would you say this? You know, I don’t know why I said it. We are trying to be funny, but does that make it okay? Of course not. My wife and I were stunned, this past summer, at the number of kids with sickle cell. I came on this radio program, when I got back, talking about sickle cell. I talked to politicians about it. I said, Well, how much money is being spent on sickle cell? I don’t know. I said, Well—and I ask doctors, doctors at the ranch and others, Is there any research being done?
Nobody—nobody—nobody called me, nobody called me. No black journalist called me. Nobody ever called me about any of that.
So, my wife and I took a child with sickle cell, who we had to send home because he was so sick. So we had to take him to the hospital, which is 120 miles from the ranch, so we all got in the pickup, because he liked the pipes on the pickup, and we roared on down to—with the doc sitting in the back with him… And we roared on down to the University of New Mexico hospital, which is a marvelous place.
And Charlotte (ph) was getting a hold of his mom—we were flying her out from New Jersey. So he was holding my wife’s hand, because my wife was his surrogate mother for the time being, and he said, Am I going to die here? And she said, No, you are not. And he did not. And so that’s when I came back and talked about this. Does that—does that mean that I should be forgiven for saying what I said about the Rutgers women? That’s not what this is about. But that’s what I’m about. Because I’m a good person who said a bad thing.
Do you want to know what people called me for supporting Harold Ford, Jr.? Do you want to know the mail I got that called me a ‘n-lover’ and—do you want to know what people said to me for the years that I played Bishop Patterson’s sermons? People telling me, they didn’t want to hear that—well, you can imagine. Do you know what people said to me when I booked the Blind Boys of Alabama here years ago, and they have been on fairly regularly ever since then? About what they said about them and about me having—about all of the African American musicians, over the years, who I have had on this program, and so on? Does that mean that it’s okay for me to say what I said about these Rutgers women? I hope you don’t think that, because I don’t think that.
So I’m going to go talk to these women, if they will let me, and tell them what I have just told you. And what have I learned from this? Because Reverend DeForest Soaries said, I want you to tell me what you have learned. Here’s what I have learned: that you can’t make fun of everybody, because some people don’t deserve it. And because the climate on this program has been what it has been for 30 years doesn’t mean that it has to be that way for the next five years or whatever, because that has to change. So—and I understand that.
And wouldn’t you think—our job at that ranch is to restore the self-esteem and the dignity and the confidence of these children. Why would I think then, it’s okay to go on the radio last Wednesday and make fun of these kid, who just played for national championship? Well, I can’t answer that. I’m sorry I did that. I’m embarrassed that I did that. I did a bad thing.
But I’m a good person. And that will change.
So he will no longer be a good person?
Please visit my Message Board so I can ban you.
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Can someone please explain to me...
