LETTER: Imus’ words protected speech

To the editor:

The Statesman has blissfully ignored Don Imus’ racist/sexist comments regarding the Rutgers women basketball team, but the cable news channels are running it into the ground.

Supposedly, this has even become an issue for the 2008 Presidential election with Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Rudy Giuliani all opining. Will political correctness jut die already? Don Imus did not slander or advocate violence against these women. He insulted them, identifying their race and gender as domains in which they are vulnerable. (Their hurt and angry reaction legitimizes the notion that being a black woman is something to be touchy about). Censoring an insult, even only through threat of boycott, is an unwarranted and dangerous regulation of the marketplace of ideas. Roast racism off the airwaves and you soon roast off impoliteness and then legitimate challenges to conventional ways of thinking. It’s anti-intellectualism and anti-Americanism at its most repugnant.

Alex Jackson