More on Imus lawsuits

For those who are not familiar with Fr. Richard Rohr, he is a Franciscan priest who writes and speaks about Scripture, culture, and spirituality. He often speaks about the formation of male spirituality in particular and is one of those people who can say one thing and keep you thinking for weeks.

She is a victim. The comment is about our culture and how it operates. When we forget the children in New Orleans who suffer daily and will continue to do so, the victims in Iraq who cannot walk outside their homes without the terrible fear of violence and the soldiers who have been sent as many as four times in four years to war away from their families, when we forget Darfur, we forget the children in Jerusalem on both sides who only know hatred of the other - and we concentrate on something like Imus - we are deadened indeed. We do not have empathy, we have something else. Imus is probably going to profit in some way from his victimhood and it seems fair that those he called terrible names should share in that - but it is small and reveals more about our culture and its blindness to real suffering in order to be fascinated with a sort of malignant self absorption. I don't blame anyone here - Imus said ignorant things. But we must not be distracted from real suffering. We must act on it.

Don't we get into a snit when a woman stands up for herself! Yes there is greater suffering in the world. There always is. If that was the measure, no one in this country would have a right for redress for anything. There is always someone worse off.
Back in the "olden days", Mr Imus might have had to pay for his transgresions with the removal of a bodily part. Now that we are more civilized, we go to court for monetary redress. That is the only sanctioned redress.
So what if someone else has done as bad or worse than Mr Imus? Does that give him a pass?

I don't think she's playing a victim. She's not suing for psychological or emotional damages, but for slander and defamation, which Imus obviously did. I don't know if she can prove that she's suffered any financial damages to be recouped, but if his slander caused her any, she would be remiss not to seek such damages. Also, in the US legal system, if you don't defend your reputation vigorously, you can lose the right to defend it in the future as well from similar attacks.

Please don't infer anything into her suit beyond simply defending her reputation. That is unless you're suggesting that women in this country should not have the right to take action if they've wrongfully been publicly accused of prostitution.

No one is denying her victim status. Rohr is just pointing out (in a book written long before the incident happend) that we enjoy our victim status. It gives us a moral one upmanship when there is non. And we abandon the real victims - the millions dying of starvation and preventable disease, the murders by the hopeless that we call suicide bombers. The women in Iraq and anyplace there is war - losing their children to either death or rage. or disease or starvation I'd be feeling like a victim with that set of circumstances. I hope she gets her money - I hope it goes to the real suffereing in the world. Imus has actually addressed that real suffering in the past. Disgusting as I find him, he does care for the poor and dispossessed on a regular basis. We spent 3 months on every major station on the trainwreck that was Anna Nichole. We didn't hear much about war, about Bush taking away our rights. We watched reality TV where a real woman died of real drugs and left a real child to be fought over by people who didn't care for her. Now we're seening poor little Brittany Spears start to slide down the pit of celebrity and there seems only one possible outcome - it'll be Anna Nichole all over again.
Imus did us all a favor - he took regular white guy locker room jive and said it out loud. And now, Hip Hop artists are debating - in a substantive fashion - the use of some words that take the dignity from their brothers and sisters. And young women - at Spellman - are refusing to have artists who use such language. their way of making a point - stop dancing and stand when words that are destrutive are sung. I think this thing is turning out just fine. But, we don't see too many picutres of dying children in Iraq. of suffering parents, of bloody limbs blown all over the street. We like our reality shows mild and just a tad borderline personalityl
This is completely off topic - but I have gotten hooked on a really really stupid TV show called Bridezilla. Please Lord, just as soon as that terrible woman Steph gets hitched - take the show away from my innocent eyes forever. I only watch Book TV and Jim Lehrer news , the Daily Show and the Colbert report and this horrible show came into my life and I feel like a victim even watching it. BAAAD. However, rather funny. Sorry, it's late and now I'm just running on at the keyboard.