Sorry Doesn't Cut It

Don Imus called the Rutgers female basketball players something offensive to them as women and as women of color (which I am choosing not to repeat; once was enough). He has been slapped on the wrists, with a two-week suspension from his radio show, and has been running around apologizing left and right. He says he wants to apologize directly to the Rutgers women, but I will not be surprised if they choose not to accept his apology, not least because it's all about him, and not at all about them. He kissed up to Al Sharpton on the latter's program, and Sharpton cut to the point:

“I’m scathed,” Mr. Imus said. “Are you crazy? How am I unscathed by this? Don’t you think I’m humiliated?”

Mr. Sharpton replied, “You’re not as humiliated as young black women are.”

Exactly.

All the sorries in the world won't change the fact that those young women were called that name. (Need a little Ntozake Shange right here.) All the sorries won't change the fact that he even thought that for a moment about them (even if, as he claims, he meant it as a joke--the fact that he thought the remark was humorous is just as offensive as if he meant it seriously). All the sorries in the world don't change the fact that these women have worked hard in their sport, and what do they get? Called a racist, sexist, all-around offensive name. How exactly does sorry make that go away? How does beating his breast in public and calling attention to his sorry do anything for anyone but Don Imus, when you get right down to it? It doesn't.

Firing Don Imus (which won't happen) wouldn't make it better. I don't know what would make him experience the same degradation that he dished out by deriding and dismissing young black women's accomplishments with an epithet. In fact, there is probably nothing that could be done to him that would be equivalent.

Which is itself the heart of the problem.