Bloggernista

Gwen Ifill of PBS’ Washington Week calls out her journalistic colleagues Tim Russert and David Brooks on their absolute silence during the Don Imus fiasco. I love that she did so on Russert’s program with Brooks sitting to her left.

Ten years ago when Ifill was working for NBC News, Imus called a her “the cleaning lady.” Cause, you know, Black women no matter who they are or what their accomplishments are either “the cleaning lady” or “nappy headed hoes.”

You know, it’s interesting to me. This has been an interesting week. The people who have spoken, the people who issued statements and the people who haven’t. There has been radio silence from a lot of people who have done this program who could have spoken up and said, I find this offensive or I didn’t know. These people didn’t speak up. Tim, we didn’t hear from you. David, we didn’t hear from you. What was missing in this debate was someone saying, you know, I understand that this is offensive.

And she is exactly right. She goes on further to say:

A lot of people did know and a lot of people were listening and they just decided it was okay. They decided this culture of meanness was fine — until they got caught. My concern about Mr. Imus and a lot of people and a lot of the debate in this society is not that people are sorry that they say these things, they are sorry that someone catches them. When Don Imus said this about me when I worked here at NBC, when I found out about it, his producer called because Don said he wants to apologize. Well, now he says he never said it. What was he apologizing for? He was apologizing for getting caught, not apologizing for having said it in the first place.

To view the clip of Ifill, click here.

In case you missed it: Don Imus Out on His Ass
In case you missed it: MSNBC Tells Imus “Buh Bye”
In case you missed it: Imus Ain’t Nothing But a Hater