Hollywood Bigotry: Pros & Dons

Let's just get this straight:

If you are a has-been actor who, while sober, openly spew angry and superlatively racist epithets toward members of your audience who are African-American, you get a chance to apologize on David Letterman, and then you are free to live your life as the media immediately "forgets" about you.

If you are an African-American actor who in a backstage brawl with a fellow cast member call another cast member a "faggot", later prompting him to come out of the closet, you are deemed to have severe psychological problems, are forced into psychotherapy for homophobia and are incessantly derided in the media.

If you are a radio host whose career has been riddled with numerous bigoted (including racism against Blacks and Arabs, sexism, and homophobia) incidents, and again last week you took it upon yourself to call African-American women's basketball players from Rutgers University a bunch of "nappy-headed hos" (referring to the slave and Jim-Crow era derogatory reference to African hair) you are inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and allowed to continue broadcasting your boorish and completely unacceptable attitudes and personality to the public-at-large.

If you are a radio sidekick who, amongst other things, years ago called the Williams tennis sisters "animals" who've "got a better shot at National Geographic" than being in Playboy, in a broadcast years ago called Palestinians "stinking animals", and last week called the African-American female members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team a bunch of "jigaboos," you are allowed to continue publicly broadcasting your rabid bigotry for as long as you live and are not condemned for it beyond insignificant slaps on the wrist.

So, in conclusion: being Black means being open game. Good luck America!