Contact: Sarah Rode, Concerned Women for America, 202-488-7000 ext. 127
WASHINGTON, April 12 /Christian Newswire/ -- In a failed attempt at humor, Don Imus referred to women on the Rutgers' basketball team with demeaning, racist epithets. All women deserve more respect; the talented women on Rutgers' basketball team are especially deserving of honor instead of crass and coarse put downs. While the media and countless organizations and individuals are covering his inappropriate comments and demanding his resignation, Grammy Awards are given to popular and rap artists for performing songs with lyrics every bit as degrading as Don Imus' remarks.
Janice Shaw Crouse, Director and Senior Fellow of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America (CWA), said, "Both Imus' remarks and pop culture laud the objectification of women. We hope that Imus' remarks about the talented women on Rutgers' basketball team will be the tipping point that ends such language and prejudice in American media. MTV and other television and radio stations regularly air lyrics that promote selling women as prostitutes and are filled with degrading words about women. Last year's Academy Award winning song lauded the pimp culture. It's time to say 'enough already!'
"It is outrageous that there has previously been no public outcry about the crude rhetoric about women. It is also disappointing that too often young women play into the images from pop and rap music. It is disgraceful that the Academy Award in 2005 for best original song went to an 'artist' that rapped, 'N-ggaz hatin on me cause I got hoes on the tray but I gotta stay paid, gotta stay above water; couldn't keep up with my hoes, that's when s--t got harder.'
"Don Imus has become the lightning rod for cruel and tasteless entertainment that has been going on for years. The women on Rutgers' basketball team were the unfortunate and undeserving victims of a culture that callously demeans women."
Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.
