“…how we can get to a space where we are willing to fight racism and injustice when the victim isn’t as perfect as Rosa Parks was.”

One part of a good strategy for this tall order might be to engineer a series of incredibly scandalous instances of antiBlack racism and injustice that would get extensive media coverage. One would probably need to space the engineered scandals apart from one another so that one scandal would not be followed too soon by a similar scandal. I’m kinda kidding here. However, unless there is another effective way to grab everyone’s attention at once and, then, enlighten a high percentage of people who have the power to do something about but don’t really care much about racial injustices these days, engineered scandals may be the best way to create an America in which Blacks would get the justice they deserve no matter what their backgrounds.

As I observed the Imus scandal aftermath with great interest, I began to wish, for a brief time, that I had entered and completed a Ph.D. program in social psychology or sociology or some other social science many years ago; that I had gone on to publish a few dues-paying essays or an exoteric book in order to beef up a quasi-iconoclastic rep; and that I had worked myself into one of the top spots in the Black public intellectual edutainment game. As I struggled to locate popular journalists and commentators, who appeared to understand what Imus actually did, I wished, for a brief time, that I were in the position to help many more folks see some of the things you saw happen, and some of the things I saw happen. Then I came to my senses. There are plenty of folks who could have educated America far better than I could, even if I did have six years of graduate school and a solid, yet barely read, dissertation behind me. Those folks were simply not invited to share their expert knowledge on the most popular shows. Instead we got folks like John Ridley.

Your post hits hard. It’s on point. And, too few people heard analyses like this one. That’s a shame. Because, this Imus scandal rocked the U.S. with such force that the stage it created could have helped insightful Black scholars persuade a lot of Whites and a few of the moderate Black conservatives that antiBlack structural and psychological forces are still Black America’s most significant bales. What did we get while many millions of Americans were paying close attention to the political shows and politicized news shows during the Imus aftermath? We got a bunch of fallacy-laden and misleading rhetoric. We got anti-rap polemics. We got deflecting attacks against Black leaders. And, we got a bunch of dilettante or clueless Black celebrities talking authoritatively about stuff they apparently didn’t understand in any rich or useful sense. We watched powerful White media personalities (and the unqualified Black commentators they allowed to speak for the Black perspective) steer the rhetorical aftermath in a way that hardly left America smarter about the real reasons Imus deserved the harsh treatment he received for all the bad things he did and all the groups he did them to on April 4, 2007.

Why was John Ridley on my television screen speaking for Black Americans? Why Spike Lee and Whoopi Goldberg? Why MC Lyte? Why M1 on Neil Cavuto’s show? Surprisingly, Snoop expressed a few germane social science concepts in the comment you quote above without really trying. But I wish we didn’t have to hear that wisdom from Snoop. Why weren’t more good thinkers like you or Jelani Cobb or Eddie Glaude, politically savvy and erudite Black scholars who haven’t lost touch with real Black people, invited to share your expert thoughts on the most widely viewed political and news shows? speaking for Black America? educating all Americans? Qualified scholars like you should have been on Oprah’s April 16, 2007 show. I didn’t benefit from anything Russell Simmons or Bruce Gordon said—I had already been exposed to those ideas or figured out those simple truisms on my own. We need to figure out a way to get your public intellectual/edutainment stock up Les, so we can get you on more of those shows when opportunities such as this one pop up again.

I left some stuff that was on my mind in Cobb’s “Last Word on Imus” thread. I touched on some of the linguistic, sociological, and psychological stuff I saw happen. But, I’m not a formally trained scholar in any specialization (not yet at least). Nevertheless, since I had the time, I attempted to balance out Cobb’s entertaining, if platitudinous, political rhetoric a little bit and add some pertinent social science to what I thought was an otherwise vapid wrap-up discussion about the Imus scandal.

“For me, what is next is trying to figure out how we can get to a space where we are willing to fight racism and injustice when the victim isn’t as perfect as Rosa Parks was.”

Good with all that, Doc. It’s hard enough fighting off weasels on the egregious, open-shut, black and white cases, nevermind the ones that have a little too much grey tone.

My wish for “what’s next” is to see a return to big, proud afros, but not holding my breath.

I think you raise the perfect question here, and it wasn’t that long ago when I was doing some refresh-my-memory reading that reminded me of how Rosa Parks was chosen over and above a couple other women who also stood up for themselves on the buses, but their ‘records’ weren’t quite so sparkling clean. Although I understand what the movement leaders were doing from a strategic point of view, especially back then, I agree with you that by now the time should most definitely have come when we no longer should only reserve our ammunition of righteous indignation for the ‘right’ negroes. Injustice is injustice, and just because it’s easier to turn our head when ‘those negroes’ from the wrong side of the tracks get caught up doesn’t mean the easy way is the correct way. If we’re gonna fight for right, then we need to fight for right across the board.