Finally, Brendan Haywood and Don Imus have something in common besides being below average at their chosen professions. The latter is on the receiving end of a prosaic beatdown delivered by Etan Thomas (above), courtesy Slam Online.

For Don Imus to refer to the women of the Rutgers basketball team as œnappy headed hoes is not only ignorant, it shows a connection to the centuries of racism and sexism that have been prevalent in this country. It is not a simple slip of the tongue, nor him being politically incorrect, which for some reason is what many people are claiming. While his words were degrading, demeaning and outright disrespectful, they were also doused with his true feelings.

The question remains, what exactly made him think that these women are so beneath him that he could spit on them and disrespect them in any manner he chose and not feel any repercussions for his actions? It™s almost as if he deemed this type of œhumor, as he called it, as acceptable.

Upon further research, I discovered exactly why Imus must have felt that he could get away with saying anything his heart desired. This is not the first time he has publicly made some type of racial insult on his show. He actually referred to Sen. Barack Obama as œthat colored fellow. In addition, he called award-winning journalist Gwen Ifill of PBS a œcleaning lady and referred to columnist William Rhoden of the New York Times as a œquota hire. According to a November 20, 2001, Newsday article, Imus™s sports anchor Sid Rosenberg said on the air: œListen, one of these days you™re gonna see Venus and Serena Williams in Playboy. Imus replied, œYou™ve got a better shot at National Geographic. Rosenberg also referred to Venus Williams as an œanimal. On the November 12, 2004, edition of œImus in the Morning, Rosenberg referred to Palestinians as œstinking animals and said, œThey ought to drop the bomb right there, kill ˜em all right now.

Since his Rutgers statements, Don Imus has been quoted as saying œour agenda is to try to be funny and sometimes we go too far. There is not, however, a drop of humor in any of those statements. They are insulting, laced with hatred and somewhat indicative of a superiority complex.