The Editor of the New York Times Book Review admits to being an Imus enabler

Books
Playing Along With Imus
By SAM TANENHAUS
Published: April 15, 2007

....there have been surprisingly muted signals from some of the most thoughtful people who have traveled in the curious orbit of the “Imus in the Morning” program, specifically the authors and journalists who at various times lent their voices to his program.

One reason may be that they are sifting through the complex issue of their own culpability and complicity. For the guests on Mr. Imus’s program knew they were also implicated as participants in his comic, and sometimes abrasive, act.

I wrote “they.” I mean “we.”

For a period lasting many months I was one of Mr. Imus’s collaborators, or enablers — in fact one of the more conspicuous ones. In October 1997, when I was a freelance writer, a friend phoned with the news that Mr. Imus had begun talking up my book, “Whittaker Chambers: A Biography.” He did not succeed in making it a best seller, as he did in some other cases, but his efforts resulted, by my estimation, in an additional 10,000 sales, plenty for a densely footnoted biography with a $35 price tag.

More gratifying still were the letters and phone calls from readers, not the presumed yahoos we’ve been hearing about in recent days, but civil and courteous people from all walks of life — students, retirees, history buffs and, in some instances, professional authors — who also were part of Mr. Imus’s following....

***

I was transcending the role of mere author and had become a bit player in the daily Imus comedy routine. I enjoyed all this, but knew it wouldn’t last. I had listened closely enough to the show to realize that Mr. Imus was capricious, and regulars on the program often became the butt of jokes or abuse, some of it quite cruel....

***

By now, I was tuning in regularly. It had become part of my routine: waking up each morning to WFAN and the frisson of hearing my name broadcast on the radio. Of course, I was hearing other things, too, and they were disturbing at times: slurs against black athletes, an “impersonation” of Clarence Thomas that didn’t sound like him at all (unlike the impersonations of white figures), but instead drew on the stalest of the “here come de judge” grotesqueries of a previous era; the almost continual soundtrack of leering sexual comments.

Today, in the harsh light of Mr. Imus’s disgrace, it is hard to explain why none of this bothered me very much. But the truth is I tuned it out. One reason, I think, is that my position seemed paradoxical. I was pleased to have been admitted into Mr. Imus’s club — alongside famous columnists and TV pundits and celebrated authors....

(Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of the Book Review.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/weekinreview/15tanenhaus.html

The insult that Imus gave those young black girls won't soon be forgotten, nor his enablers.

into why so many people went along with Imus for so long.

He and his radio crew were like a pack of school bullies, calling people names, getting them in headlocks and stealing their lunch money. Some kids saw them and decided it was better to try to be like them, to be accepted and be part of their "gang," than to try to fight them. Others were horrified by what they did and tried to fight it--and they suffered. When they tried taking their complaints to the "teachers" and the "principal," these authority figures did not do anything to stop the bullies, because they too were intimidated. Rather, they simply tried to separate the victims from the bullies. This, of course, only resulted in the bullies coming down harder on the victims for being such wimps that they had to go tattle to someone about their oppression. Some of the victims were even kicked out of school, or left on their own just to get away from the bullies.

Now, finally, it has all come down--and why? A perfect media storm, to be sure. But the perfect media storm wasn't just about one incident. It was about an entire climate of intimidation created by a group of people--a group of bullies that made themselves into the "in crowd" whose acceptance and praise was actually craved by some of the decent kids. Why? Because it was better to earn their acceptance and praise than to suffer the fate of being one of their victims.

Goodbye and good riddance.