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Imus should know that skin color doesn't matter

Barbara Barker

2:18 PM EDT, June 24, 2008

Don Imus, who was criticized for a racial remark about NFL player Pacman Jones, appears at New York's Town Hall at the beginning of his return to radio Monday morning Dec. 3, 2007 in a file photo. Imus returned to the airwaves Monday eight months after he was fired for a racially charged remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team. (Richard Drew, Associated Press / December 3, 2007)

What color are you?

Don Imus wants to know. Because that still has a lot to do with how he sees the world. Apparently, it is still the primary way he explains people's motivations and actions.

No matter what you believe concerning Imus' most recent on-air incident -- no matter whether you buy his explanation Tuesday morning that he was trying to make a "sarcastic point" when out of nowhere he asked "What color is he?" during Warner Wolf's report Monday on Adam "Pacman" Jones -- it's hard to fathom why he brought skin color into the discussion in the first place.

Here's my question for Don Imus: How stupid are you? No matter what your motivation, no matter what point you claim you were trying to make, why in the world after everything that has happened over the past year would you bring the race question up out of the blue?

Barbara Barker E-mail | Recent columns

What color are you? For years, this was an semi-acceptable way of looking at things, an easy way of explaining a world that is neither easy nor fair. For years, no one said anything when Imus called African-American New York Times reporter Gwen Ifill a "cleaning lady" on the air. For years, he could get away with comments like describing the Knicks as a bunch of "chest-thumping" pimps.

But then the world started changing, which is something that Imus is maybe too old or to stuck in his ways to understand.

What color are you? For many Americans, this is a question that is getting to be a harder and harder question to answer. What color is Tiger Woods? What color is Barack Obama? The color of someone's skin has never been any kind of indicator of their character. And more and more, it is not an indicator of their background and experience.

I am a white or what people sometimes call a WASP. When my mother was growing up in the 1950s, a mixed marriage was someone who married a Catholic. My mother now has grandchildren who are all or some combination of Catholic, Jewish, Korean, Japanese and Mexican. And for the record, our skin tone ranges from a freckly pink to a caramel brown.

While we might be a little more United Nations than some families, if you take a look around this country, we are not that far from the norm. Many people in this country are going to school with, working with and falling in love with people whose skin looks nothing like theirs.

Yes, there are times when a person's skin color is very germane to the public conversation, especially when discussing the legacy of racism in this country. But those discussions are long and evolving and somehow don't come across all that thoughtfully in a sarcastic-quipping talk show that for 30 years has been fueled by racist and sexist humor.

What color are you? More and more, it just doesn't matter.