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Rutgers team has more class than Imus

Thursday, April 19 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Peter Spitz, Denver

I was listening to all the uproar about Don Imus’ rude comments about the Rutgers Women’s basketball team and I had to ponder it all. My mother was Japanese and my father a Jew. After 45 years, I’ve grown rather accustomed to about any insensitive comment one can make about my heritage. While in the Marines, it was a common joke amongst my fellow jarheads that I was representing both the axis and allies of WWII. My son, a Marine sergeant on his second tour of Iraq, is often teased about his grandmother, whom he was extremely close to. I remember as a child that was pretty offended when called a Jap-Jew or a “slope", “slant-eye” or “hebe” or “kike” but it got to the point where I would just laugh it off and consider the mouth that was spouting these epithets. Usually, it was either a complete moron or some guy desperate to test my boundaries.

Today, I couldn’t care less what somebody calls me. If they insult my family, I might respond butI know that if I allow stupid, disgusting, and insensitive remarks to eat at me, I will be a miserable person. A couple years ago, I converted to Christianity and am now a member of the Mormon church. Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire! Now, I get the remarks about having multiple wives, get told I’m not really Christian even though my church is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, am informed, quite sincerely at times, that I belong to a cult, and get mixed up with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. That last part doesn’t phase me, the Witnesses are as reverent a group as I have ever met. That’s similar to being comparedc to being as compassionate as Mother Teresa, hardly an insult.

Don Imus is a jerk who makes his living being a jerk. Just like Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, G. Gordon Liddy, and all those other loud mouth talking heads, his chosen career field is in insulting people and pushing the boundaries of acceptable speech. I havne’t listend to a word he has siad in twenty years, don’t listen to Rush or Al, or Howard Stern either. It’s a simple task to NOT listen, takes no effort whatsoever on my part.

I think the Rutger’s Women’s B-ball team has a right to be angry and hurt. I think it’s a waste of their obvious academic and athletic talents to even recognize Imus’ remarks let alone respond to them. I listened to their news conference and was impressed by their articulate, controlled and intelligent remarks. They have already surpassed Don Imus and his ilk with class that he will never know.

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