Don Imus and the hypocrisy of American culture

I found what Don Imus said to be distasteful.

Not so much racist as sexist. I am appalled by the tendency, in the urban subcultures, to call all women by degrading names. I am annoyed that some, including some women in those subcultures, just accept it. When I speak out in defense of women in these manners, I am accused of being, as a white male over 30, prejudicial for speaking out.

But, I digress.

What Imus did was wrong. Of course, just about everyone I have ever known has some of that "private talk/public talk" hypocrisy. We laugh at jokes we'd never tell in public. We say things to friends we'd never say out loud. I used to work for a guy, a great guy, who would caution people about the mildest of potentially sexist language, then sit at his desk, turn to a co-worker and say about a young woman who just walked by "I like her boobies".

It is difficult to reconcile public and private faces, difficult to not find oneself in an hypocritical stance. Imus was wrong, and I agree he should be penalized for it. That a corporate entity or ten finds it morally necessary to end his career is perverse and hypocritical, as the very existence of a corporation as as a means to allow a business to function without personal responsibility.

We have the amoral calling the indefensible "inappropriate".

And here, in America, the great bastion of Christian propriety, we overlook our obligation to forgive. "Forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive those who trespass against us." As we are well to accept another person's apologies, so should God forgive us our sins. We are commanded to accept the apologies rendered. It is difficult, but it is one of the few things demanded of Christians.

It is gonna be standing room only on judgement day, with a lot of people saying "I'm sorry" just to be told "You already set the parameters of mercy".

Jesus never spoke on race relations. Drugs. Abortion. Homosexuality. Public obscenity. The right to bear swords.

He did speak, at length and repeatedly, on the topic of forgiveness.

I wonder if any of the Apostles ever cracked a Babylonian joke.