He's Baaaaack... And Still Stupid.

To get my regular sports fix, I often visit sites like ESPN, Sports Illustrated, SLAM and Sports on My Mind.

Except for SOMM, all of those sites present sports from a mainstream, or white, perspective. Anyway, whenever an issue of race is raised on those sites, particularly when it's done by a black columnist on ESPN.com, the comment sections typically take a fairly nasty turn into the racism underworld.

Random stereotypes about black people are tossed around, black columnists are called Affirmative Action babies and folks just lose their damn minds. However, without fail, at some point multiple commenters will bring up two issues that they feel clearly outline just how often white folks get the shaft in the sports world. Those issues are the Duke Lacrosse case and the Don Imus "nappy-headed hoes" debacle.

For those of you unfamiliar with sports and current events, the Duke Lacrosse case refers to the incident a few years back where several white players on Duke's Lacrosse team were accused of raping a black stripper. It turned out she was lying. The Don Imus incident relates to his decision to use the aforementioned racially charged term as a reference towards the Rutgers women's basketball team because he thought they looked a little "rough." Imus got canned, white people got pissed.

In any discussion of race and sports, those two incidents are the Big Joker and Little Joker for white folks and people who think like white folks. They whip those suckers out as soon as it looks like the discussion is proceeding on a logical path that will eventually lead to the condemnation of the current white power structure. The shit is like clockwork.

It seems like those incidents represent the deepest darkest fears of many white folks when it comes to racial matters. As I've said before, most white people are deathly afraid of being labeled racists for any reason, and in both of those incidents that term was thrown about like a cabbage ball. In addition, despite all the evidence to the contrary, many white people felt like neither of those incidents had anything to do with race, so both incidents seemed like false accusations of racism, which made things even worse.

Anyway, I brought up this phenomenon because Don Imus is back in the news. Like most racists, Imus could only keep his disdain for black folks bottled up for so long before it had to spew forth from him like a geyser. If you think in racist terms it's only a matter of time before your thoughts reach you lips, no matter how hard you try to behave like a civil member of society.

Imus was recently discussing NFL player Adam "Pacman" Jones on his radio show. A producer told the Wrinkled Wonder that Jones had six arrests in the past two or three years and the racism kicked in. Donny Boy asked the producer what color Jones was, and when the producer notified him that Jones was of a darker hue, Imus simply replied "There you go. Now we know."

Now we know.

Imus did not immediately elaborate on what it was that folks now knew. After the usual suspects surfaced to call him a racist, (Yes, The Perm was involved,) Imus said that he really meant that Jones had been arrested all those times because he was being targeted by the police as a black man. Yep, he really said that.

Whatchu talking 'bout Imus?

See, that's the part of the story that really pushed things over the top for me. I wasn't surprised that Don Imus made a racist comment; he had been making racist comments for years before the Rutgers incident. I wasn't surprised that Imus' most recent comment was about a troubled black male; we are the easiest targets to take shots at.

Nah, what's surprising is that when he needed to find a quick way to deflect blame, Don Imus blamed The Man! Seriously, Don Imus is The Man, and yet he's blaming The Man for causing his words to be misconstrued and distorted. That is the apex of hilarity.

Does Imus really think black people are that stupid? You know, I'm going to have to say that he doesn't. See, his comments weren't really to forestall the outcry from black people and our surrogates. Nope, Imus' bullshit explanation was directed at another group.

He was talking to the folks who gave him a pass that last time.

See, those folks are scrambling right now to find a way to give Imus the benefit of the doubt so they don't have to admit that they've been supporting a racist these past few years.

They know that racism is a communicable disease and they don't want anybody to suspect that they might be infected. So, Imus knows that all he has to do is offer up any sort of excuse and those folks will fall all over themselves to give him a pass just so they don't become suspect. That's what happens when you are clearly on the wrong side of an issue, you have to create more and more ridiculous explanations to justify your opinion.

Racism makes you stupid.