RE: IMUS

Is the Planned "Dream Concert" a Reoccurring Nightmare?

I came across a story this morning and I remembered Arsenio Hall's comment: Things that make you go Hmm?
Why?

Because the "nice" story in today's news mentions that media giant Viacom is going to donate in cash, $1.55 million toward the fund for building the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the National Mall and the company will also sponsor The Dream Concert, a musical tribute to Dr. King at Radio City Hall next month.

On might think that's really nice.

There's also another story that was out yesterday regarding Don Imus, the former darling of CBS, who has settled with CBS for an undisclosed amount of money. The Imus settlement is the result of a $120 million breach of contract lawsuit. As you might recall Imus was fired from CBS Radio weeks, not days, after he made derogatory comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

The Ties that Bind

Both CBS Corp and Viacom Inc. are both owned by one individual, Sumner Redstone, who presides over both companies as CEO. Redstone is the man who gave Tom Cruise his walking papers from Paramount. Why? Because Mr. Redstone owns it and Mr. Cruise's I'm-so-in-love jumping-on-the-couch antics and his dislike for the practice that makes you lay on the couch (psychology, not Hollywood) didn't sit well with the esteemed Mr. Redstone. CBS and Viacom are traded separately on the NYSE, but both have the same owner. Essentially, both are rooms in the House that Redstone built: In one room houses a shock-jock misogynist and racist and in another room, is housed a Corporation doing Civil Rights-poser-philanthropist-good will.

I've always contended that amid the whole Imus-Rutgers brouhaha that the responsibility should also be focused on the corporate entity that gave Imus a platform for his often misogynistic and racist diatribe. But folk settle with just Imus. After all, he said it, right? And while we (Black America) start to consider how we speak to one another and bury the N-word. No one wanted to focus on the corporations that actually make a huge profit on the B-word or the N-word. Our scope is sometimes too narrow.

At What Cost?

Lawd, Lawd Bless This House and Bless Ties that Bind. (I have a faint recollection of the movie Green Pastures) But these days it's all about the green, the Bejamins, the Almighty corporate dollar. But right here, right now it's only about $1.55 million. In the meantime:
The Dream Concert is a go!

Imus negotiates with another American icon of race relations past-and-present -- DISNEY -- via WABC radio.

Behind the the 'Dream Concert' rests an all-too familiar American nightmare where corporations continue to malign Black people and it's all business-as-usual.
So Black America I'll ask what is the cost of a racial epithet... Priceless?

I think the Dream Concert should be just that, a dream. It should be investigated and if it stinks any more than described above then call it off or in the spirit of MLK, boycott it.

Sent by Joseph Williams | 11:16 AM ET | 08-15-2007

Michel, I felt compelled to respond to this mornings Tell Me More with Robert Putnam. I listen to your program every morning and always learn something new. I was somewhat saddened about Robert Putnams study. Let me tell you why. I am a Caucasian woman 60 years old and have lived in Las Vegas for the last 9 years. However, I grew up in and around NYC and lived in the Bay Area for 28 years. I have always had many friends of different backgrounds. In college in Boston in the late 60s one of my best friends was Puerto Rican. In the Bay Area I developed friendships with many people of different backgrounds: Mexican, Indonesian, Ugandan, Surinamese and African-American. All of these friends I have known for between 15 to 25 years and are still very close to them. They have all enriched my life in so many ways. I thought it was interesting that Dr. Putnam said that even in diverse cultures, people tend to stay with their own kind. Since living in Las Vegas, I have not felt that sense of diversity and I miss all of that so terribly. My soul craves it and I find it difficult to find opportunities in this city for mixing on a social level with diverse people. I work in a very small, all-white office which of course is very limiting. This lack of diversity is extremely boring and stifling to me--everyone is basically the same. I guess I just wanted to express the fact that I am totally the opposite of what "most people" feel in this regard. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sent by Carolyn | 12:43 PM ET | 08-15-2007

Michel,

My interest was piqued when you asked Zala Siddiqui and Narsi Narasimhan during Tuesday's segment "Counties See Minorities Become the New Majority" about the prospects of minority candidates in the 2012 Presidential Election. I thought of governors.

Since Jimmy Carter, only George Herbert Walker Bush (Dubya's daddy) was a president without serving as a governor first.

I decided to quickly skim the current governor roster at National Governors Association, and it seems that the vast majority of current governors are white. While there are some women, most are men. Only looking at the 50 states, other than New Mexico's Bill Richardson -- who's running in the 2008 Election -- I could only see Massachusetts's Deval Patrick. He's black. Oh yeah, California's Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't born in the country. Did I miss any other racial diverse governors from the 50 states?

What former governors? Are there many racially diverse individuals in that cohort who could run as a viable presidential candidate in the 2012 Election?

Sent by Steve Petersen | 6:21 PM ET | 08-15-2007