Why Some Get Laughs and Others Get Fired

April 26, 2007 — -- For a country founded on free speech, some people are getting a lot of flack for opening their mouths.

On Monday, CBS Radio, still reeling from the fall of Don Imus, suspended two local DJs for rebroadcasting a prank call to a Chinese restaurant. The call featured the hosts of WFNY-FM's "The Dog House With JV and Elvis" asking for "flied lice" and referring to the restaurant's female employee as "hot, Asian, spicy."

The same day, Russell Simmons, music mogul and founder of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, announced that the recording and broadcast industries should ban three racial and sexist epithets from so-called "clean" versions of rap songs to make hip-hop more socially responsible.

And a New York police sergeant was reassigned after calling three female officers "hos" during a roll call at a Brooklyn stationhouse. In a statement, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called the sergeant's comments "unacceptable under any circumstances."

From the airwaves to the arts to the street, it seems as if the language police are out in full force. Maybe that's the way it's going to be in the age AI. -- After Imus.

After the talk show host got kicked off the air for calling the women of the Rutgers University basketball team "nappy-headed hos," talk of racial and sexual slurs -- who is saying what and why -- is on the lips of people all over the country.

Political correctness is nothing new. But some say the debate Imus started about what can and cannot be said in public could forever change the language used in pop culture.

Bob Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, believes that after Imus, certain people -- especially on-air personalities -- should censor what comes out of their mouths.

"CBS is obviously hypersensitive about this now. If you're on a CBS show and you're making egregiously Asian jokes, you ought to be scared," he said.

But David E. Bernstein, professor of law at George Mason University and author of "You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws," fears that if everyone who says anything offensive gets reprimanded, people will shut up altogether.