Something that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson should really get upset about

Michelle Malkin makes a very good point in her column today. She wonders when Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who foamed with outrage against Don Imus's despicable comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team are going to start protests against the rappers, radio stations, and record companies that regularly market songs with vastly more insulting and degrading lyrics. Just by going down the list of the Billboard Top Rap songs this week and printing out some of their lyrics, she shows how we now have a whole industry devoted to perpetrating what she terms a culture of "Bitches, Hos, and Niggas."

One dumb radio/television shock jock's insult is a drop in the ocean of barbaric filth and anti-female hatred on the radio.

Imus gets a two-week suspension. What kind of relief do we get from this deadening, coarsening, dehumanizing barrage from young, black rappers and their music industry enablers who have helped turn America into Tourette's Nation?

As linguist and writer John McWhorter points out, Imus is just a result of that culture.

What creates that hypersensitivity is a poor racial self-image. Where, after all, did Imus pick up the very terminology he used? Rap music and the language young black people use themselves on the street to refer to one another.

McWhorter argues that we need to get over the outrage over people saying insulting things about blacks and start addressing the underlying problems.

However, the quest for an America where no one ever makes passing observations that are less than respectful of minority groups is futile. And why are so many of us so obsessed with chasing that rainbow anyway? The truth is that black people who go to pieces whenever anyone says a little something are revealing that they are not too sure about themselves.

Imus hosts a radio show and a lot of people listen to it. During a few seconds last week he said something tacky. The show went on, as did life. Black people continued to constitute most new AIDS cases, black men continued to come out of prison unsupervised. And we're supposed to be most interested in Imus saying "nappy-headed ho's"?

And that raises another whole question: is that whole gangsta glorification a sympton or a cause?