Don Imus: For Republican Candidates, an Opportunity Missed

By Nadia Brown

This past April, shock jock and veteran radio talk show host Don Imus ignited a well-publicized firestorm of criticism when he referred on air to members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team in the crudest of derogatory racial terms. The controversy made clear that the Republican Party is still clueless when it comes to race and to being the kind of party that is inclusive to African Americans and, perhaps, minorities as a whole.

GOP presidential candidates senator John McCain, former mayor Rudy Giuliani, former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and others missed an opportunity to make political gains with a broader electorate outside of the usual hardcore conservative base—to win some hearts and minds from an unlikely GOP voting block.

What Imus said was wrong, and his saying it was a legitimate issue; it would have been appropriate to speak out. More importantly, speaking out was the right thing to do. Instead, McCain and Giuliani both accepted Imus’s apology even before the Rutgers women did; Huckabee criticized his comments but added that Bill Maher and other celebrities should be fired as well. While it is accurate that Maher and other celebrities have said some outrageous and offensive things, those are separate issues that have nothing to do with the comments made by Imus. The rest of the Republican field stayed silent.

An opportunity was missed because, even if no one called for Don Imus to be fired, the mere fact that a Republican candidate would have condemned his remarks in the strongest terms—unequivocally, without hesitation or reservation—would have earned some skeptics’ praise. Such a statement would have embarrassed the white liberal elites who were shamelessly trying to defend Imus’s offensive comments as comedy.

Make no mistake, one condemnation will not suddenly win over African-American voters, but following it with other such gestures would, over time. Just recently, a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed, “Majorities of both blacks and whites—54 percent of whites and 61 percent of blacks—agreed with Imus' punishment.”

Republicans can attribute their trouble getting support from African-American voters to such missteps as their silence or tepid support for Don Imus. This was the type of issue on which a Republican candidate could have made a bold statement—a Sister Souljah moment for a presidential hopeful who seeks a broad coalition.

With an increasingly diverse electorate, Republicans must expand their approach to appeal to a wide-ranging sector of voters. Candidates from the Republican Party must broaden their perspectives. This doesn't mean they should pander, but they should at least be attuned to cultural differences and sensitivities. It will take more than photo-ops with black children for a Republican presidential hopeful to win over a reasonable segment of the African-American community. 

A Republican presidential hopeful who is genuinely concerned for all Americans must also be practical and recognize that not every American faces the same problems, and be willing to deal with it as such. Blacks do not need special treatment, but they do need to feel as if the person considering becoming the next president of the United States is looking out for them, too.

Nadia Brown is a freelance writer, poet, and author of the award-winning book, Unscrambled Eggs. She is also the founder of author-promotion.com. For more information about her, visit her website at www.nadiabrown.com.

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