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Creating Consequential Context: A Semiotic Moral Correction for Don Imus

As we wrap up our necessary Don Imus coverage this week — Don Imus and the Rutgers Nappy Headed Hos and Race and the American Humor Line and The Lesson of Don Imus: Red is Thicker than Green — we turn the page by taking a scholarly, semiotic, examination of The Imus Incident and its created Consequential Context expressed in national editorial cartoons.

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Race and the American Humor Line

Yesterday’s post on Don Imus and the Rutgers Nappy Headed Hos has sparked a secondary discussion in our moderated comments area that — because of bad language and cruel intent — cannot be published here. The topic those horrible comments are trying to enlighten — Where is the Humor Line Drawn When it Comes To Race in America? — deserves wider, but calmer, critical attention.
I love editorial cartoons and this is how some of them are framing the Imus issue this morning. Sometimes a public correction is felt deepest in the bones under the guise of humor:

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Make Yourself a Blank Page

The task of living is can be difficult as the world in which we spin becomes smaller, time speeds up, and the distance between people and cultures shrink. Now, more than ever, we need to find ways to achieve common ground beyond ideology and narrow value sets.

Rutgers-Newark has one of the most diverse student body populations of any university in the world. In fact, Rutgers-Newark won awards in the past for several years in a row for having the most diverse student body in the nation. The great thing about teaching at Rutgers-Newark is that everyone is a minority.

No one can claim majority rule by culture or ethnicity or regional flavor. That kind of “minority rule” can teach great lessons that cross color lines and cultural obstacles unlike any other place I have previously experienced. One precious thing we are losing in current university experiences is the loss of individuality in favor of the requirement to be politically correct to the point where the world becomes grey and differences and dissent are discouraged so no one will be offended.

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