Read Linda Bates Parker's comments after the article

Trash Talk Radio By GWEN IFILL (April 10, 2007)

Washington, DC LET'S say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names.

Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather. The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women's basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee's Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers' Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That's the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It's what explodes so many March Madness office pools.
   
But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded 'nappy-headed ho's' ' a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The joke' ' as delivered and later recanted ' by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny. The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he's done some version of this several times before.
   
I know, because he apparently did it to me. I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus's producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn't return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.
   
Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.
   
It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella ' his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network ' that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.
   
Isn't The Times wonderful,' Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. 'It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.' I was taken aback but not outraged. I'd certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show. I haven't talked about this much. I'm a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I've been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.'s juvenile slap will define or scar me.

Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me. It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know ' black women in particular ' develop to guard themselves against casual insult. Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus's program? That's for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don't know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.
   
Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It's more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.
   
So here's what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.
       
Let's see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for 'The News Hour With Jim Lehrer' and the moderator of 'Washington Week.' ________________________________

Comments from Linda Bates Parker

I am certainly personally outraged by the insulting comments of Mr. Imus. I have a beautiful 4 year old grand daughter. His comments could have been as much directed toward her as the talented, young women on Rutgers basketball team whom he so willingly assailed by his sick humor and tarnished their moment of glory.

I want to protect my granddaughter in every way from hostile environments, people and situations and yet I know that I can't. Evil words and intent are often shrouded under the guise of ignorance, humor and free speech. Mr. Imus wants us to understand the context in which he spoke. I understand it and it is wrong. I teach college students the importance of appreciating and valuing differences. This kind of understanding is essential today, for our nation and our world. As Martin Luther King reminded us, it is not the harmful acts of bad people, but the silence of good people, that allows evil to prevail. I will not be silent. Assailing any people should not be condoned on our national airways. Of course Mr. Imus should apologize and of course the networks should take a strong position and remove him from the airwaves, for no amount of apology can undue the harm that has been done. Let him speak freely on his own time. I do not listen to Mr. Imus. Shock radio is not my thing. But when it gets picked up by CNBC and CBS or any other major network, then I want those organizations held accountable, just as they would have to, if Mr. Imus revealed his penis while on air, as a joke. Public assault on innocent victims, public indecency -- what is the difference? This is a teachable moment. Let others learn from the public scorn the he is now receiving, that this is not acceptable in this society. Apologies are not enough. Accountability is required. His rights end, where mine begin!

Linda Bates Parker
Cincinnati, OH

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