Imus and Coulter:
Can you tell the difference? SheSaid: Haddayr Copley-Woods doesn't see much difference
Haddayr Copley-Woods
by Haddayr Copley-Woods
What's the difference between Don Imus and Ann Coulter?
Tricky, I know. They're both horse-faced sorta-blondes with foul mouths and unpleasant reputations. They've both had bigoted comments broadcast over the airwaves.
Both claim to be political: one on the Right, one leaning leftward.
Both have signature-clothing items: one, silly cowboy hats-the other unattractive tank tops. Both make a living being shocking and rude.
Or should I say "shocking" and rude. Dull, uninspired digs aren't truly shocking. Take Coulter's recent weak jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In case you missed last month's news, in between "ums" and "ahs," The Queen of Clever quipped: "I was going to have a few comments on ... John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot."
Ouch! The Will Rogers of our times. Hats off to you, m'dear, you've bested us all with that subtle, scathing zinger. How frightened your enemies must be of your razor wit! They quake in their Birkenstocks.
Imus did a better job of shocking people (although New Yorkers weren't remotely surprised by what he said because they've been hearing him make an ass of himself this way for years). He called a group of Rutgers women basketball players "nappy-headed hos."
Just as hateful, but maybe a little more shocking. First, homophobia is still more acceptable in this society than racism, which is unpleasant but true (this could be its own column topic entirely). Second, Coulter's remark was not aimed at a gay man.
But even considering the greater shock value of Imus' stupidity, what helps us tell them apart is society's reaction to their statements.
Don Imus: Demonstrations were held on college campuses. He was suspended for two weeks. Major advertisers dropped his show. He lost his syndication on MSNBC. Finally, he was fired.
Ann Coulter?
First things first: At her dumb-ass "faggot" remark, much of the crowd laughed and applauded. Then they sheepishly remembered the rest of the country would see the genuine hatred of gays on the Right this statement exposed, so they scurried off to decry her or lamely reverse-engineer her statements in their blogs and columns.
But not before they sat uncomplainingly laughing at the rest of her talk: an endless stream of fat jokes, cuckold jokes, and racist ... jokes? Were they jokes? It's hard to tell.
This one, for instance, on Barack Obama: "I refer to him as B. Hussein Obama. He's half-white and half-black, half-Christian and half-Muslim and half-atheist. Something there for every Democrat."
Big laugh.
But was that funny?
Let's pull apart this brilliant witticism, shall we: "Barack Obama (a born-again Christian) is secretly a Muslim (which we all know means 'terrorist')! Also, he's biracial (we know how that happened: Black men are after our women)! Also I'll throw in a random atheist accusation!"
What she is saying is this: The Democrats are a diverse party. They have Christians, Muslims, blacks, whites and atheists. They think it's OK for black and white people to have children. Haw, haw!
True, for once in her duplicitous life, but not particularly funny. And the sickening underbelly of what she said is this: Conservatives are not polluted with those Others. We are white. We are Christian. We are wealthy. We are pure. We are the real Americans.
Not funny.
But people laughed. Oh, how they laughed. And afterwards, even as they decried her, they made plans for how to hire her for their next get-together.
See, Coulter was not censored. A few personalities shook a finger at her, but it boiled down to: "You naughty girl! You've made us look bad!" Did she lose book contracts? Stop showing up approximately every seven minutes on Fox News? Lose lucrative appearance fees? Nope.
Why? They've both pulled garbage like this out of their nether reaches time and time again. They've both got it coming (free speech guarantees the right to speak up; not the right to avoid responsibility for what you say).
Here's why, the ugly truth: the Left is supposed to be better than Imus. And the Right isn't supposed to be better than Ann Coulter.
So, which side would you rather be on? The side that spoke out against hate speech? Or the side that didn't even find most of the hideous things their darling said worth mentioning? The side that genuinely holds people accountable for bigotry? Or the side that says: "Shhhhhhhhhhhhh OMG we'll get caught?"
Haddayr Copley-Woods is a gay-loving, left-wing feminist who lives and works in Powderhorn Park: a bastion of anarchist schemers and suspected Muslims.
