Imus show is how normal people talk

I was appalled to read on the National Review web site John Derbyshire reprinting an email which he describes as the "wisest thing I’ve heard yet on the Imus scandal":

—-Imus is an institution. Imus' show is how normal people talk. People who have at least a foot still in blue-collar culture. I grew up there, in mixed racial working areas, and people jokes across racial lines to one another all the time. Imus being fired feels like a part of America has died and we're moving closer to the modern day sanitized England.

What sort of world do these people live in, where calling college women basketball players "nappy-headed hos" is normal? It would certainly be nice if, as the writer lamented, that the part of American that considers such behavior normal had died with the firing of Imus. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the fight against racism and sexism is over quit yet. But the firing of Imus shows that people who are appalled by such callous disregard for the feelings of others can change things for the better when enough of us speak up.