Don Imus Must Go

Black women in America are mad and are not going to take it anymore! The latest straw was Don Imus's vile, misogynistic and racist comments last week calling the talented young women on the Rutgers University basketball team "nappy-headed 'hos." Every Black woman we know, love and respect is mad about it. The horrific comments coincided with the 39th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.

These beautiful, young student athletes, freshmen and sophomores mostly, took their team to the "height of sports achievement" by reaching the NCAA Women's Basketball title game. They performed beyond their abilities for C. Vivian Stringer, an extraordinary coach who put their well-being first, even before winning

In a statement, Coach Stringer said: "Throughout the year, these gifted young ladies set an example for the nation that through hard work and perseverance, you can accomplish anything if you believe. Without a doubt, this past season was my most rewarding in 36 years of coaching. This young team fought through immeasurable odds to reach the highest pinnacle and play for the school's first national championship in a major sport."

WNBA President Donna Orender said: "Mr. Imus' remarks were repulsive. It is incomprehensible that he would use the public airwaves to make comments so egregious, and so blatantly off the mark. He made his comments, which are never acceptable, at a particularly inopportune time, when the accomplishments of womens basketball were being celebrated. We had just had the predraft camp, it was the day of the draft in conjunction with the Final Four. The womens game is all about bringing people together, no matter their religion, nationality or other differences.

What has made it OK for men -- White and Black -- to make Black women the butt of jokes and scorn? These women are descendants of those who marched with Dr. King and tirelessly worked, often behind the scenes, for the civil rights African-American men and women so richly enjoy today.

In today's society Black women are too often an easy target. They have been referred to as welfare cheats, out-of-wedlock baby mamas, bitches and 'hos. Even the (white) Feminist movement, for which they also toiled, has given them short thrift. (Where is the outcry from our white 'sistahs'?) Despite all of this, Black women do what they're supposed to do. They go to school and earn degrees, in disproportionately larger numbers than their male counterparts, get good jobs, then work hard to improve their neighborhoods, their nation and the world. They take care of business! They do this even as they go out each day overlooking how they are dismissed and dissed by society from too many Black rappers who make millions on music that call sisters out their names and too many filmmakers who ignore how much money Black women spend on movies that never seem to feature them.

Yet, who stands to defend Black women? Where are the outraged calls to fire Imus from the powerful men -- newsman Tim Russert or Sen. John Kerry, are two high-profile examples, who continually go on his show to talk about issues of power and influence. It can't always be Jesse (Rev. Jesse Jackson) and Al (Rev. Al Sharpton). We don't always agree with them, but again their voices can be heard above the din of silence.

As they say, "If mama ain't happy, no damn body's going to be happy." And Black women should not be happy until Imus and his producer Bernard McGuirk (who first referred to the Rutgers players as "hardcore hos," and the game between the Lady Knights and the Lady Vols of Tennessee as "jigaboos and wanna-bes") resign or are fired.