Al Sharpton

Doubt the headline's premise? Check out this YouTube of audio from the Rush Limbaugh show, featuring a rendition of

Barack

Negro

by an Al Sharpton impersonator.

Hello, Federal Communications Commission?

Of the ten beautiful, accomplished, championship athlete students labeled so vividly and unfairly by political radio host Don Imus, Heather and Katie aren't even African-American. Essence is a classical pianist. Half are freshmen (freshwomen? freshgirls?) just out of high school and by university policy are therefore considered not yet ready for media interaction.

THEY were labeled, these ten young women. Not a race, not a sex, sport or constituency. These particular, extraordinary and now extraordinarily visible young women. No one has apologized to them. Why should labeling them be a matter decided by a fight between Don Imus and Al Sharpton?

Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. The National Organization for Women is also seeking Imus' ouster.

Imus isn't the most popular radio talk-show host — the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th most influential — but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach. Authors, journalists and politicians are frequent guests — and targets for insults.

He has urged critics to recognize that his show is a comedy that spreads insults broadly.

Consider this post the result of my taking a good idea and running with it.

A letter writing campaign is more than writing the letter. Believe me, I know. While in college, I helped coordinate letter writing campaigns for Amnesty International. With AI, things are slightly easier because they refine a form letter for you. We printed the letters, learned about the causes (sometimes coupling them with presentations to the public), set up an outpost in a high traffic area, and we convinced people to read and to sign the letters. And that was merely one step for the letter signing activist and one step out of many for us.

So starting a letter writing campaign from scratch requires a little more work, unless there are websites who already have form letters. If you have a form letter, some of the work has been done for you. For the Imus situation, I understand that the National Organization for Women has taken up the massive hint they should be involved in this matter where Imus publicly insulted black women. They have form letters to the station manager Chuck Bortnick (most direct superior of Imus), CBS Communications Director Karen Mateo (CBS Radio owns the station generally), and MSNBC Television (they hype the show like it's its favorite play cousin). Now, if you want to get someone fired, those three people are good people to try to convince, right? Yes...but in our money-driven corporate media, do you think the letters telling them to cease and desist will be enough? No doubt they play a role, but will they be enough?