6 degrees

I never met Imus or Reverend Sharpton, but I came close....

The Imus affair shows how polarized we still are on race. Even watching Meet the Press on Sunday where a panel of white and black journalists discussed the firing -- the view differed by color. Imus was an equal opportunity abuser, but I'm amazed he did this within the context of serious political debate with a litany of politicians and media celebrities.

David Brooks said Imus often went after Jews, but he could differentiate between an Imus slam and the way a Nazi would say the same words. Gwen Ifill from PBS felt differently. She said Imus went after the very best the black community had to offer, young women who excelled in both sport and academics. To her, it didn't matter whether Imus was a racist or not, a racist comment is still racist (Imus called once had called her a cleaning lady).

Earlier in the week, Snoop Dogg clarified the rapper's position by saying that they never go after college educated black women, just the drug addict bitches in the hood…

Tom DeLay called for banning Rosie O'Donnell for her remarks against conservative Christians.

Clearly, we've got a ways to go before this dust settles.

I don't know Don Imus or Al Sharpton, but I almost met both.

Here's how:

My Imus Story:

It wasn't until Don Imus started pushing the Flatlanders that I tuned in his show. I knew Jimmie from taking his songwriting workshop in '98. The Flatlanders got screwed by their record company back in the 70's and had been ignored by radio ever since. Jimmie built a cult following through the decades, and the unsolicited exposure by the I-man was unexpected, but welcomed.

I didn't like the show or its humor, but at about the same time as the I-man was playing the Flatlanders, I wrote a spoof song about Martha Stewart, called the Martha Stewart Prison Rag. I figured it was worth a shot to try and get it on his show.

Imus has a weekend mansion not too far from me, and a friend had heard that someone had once dropped a tape off at his house -- Imus liked it and played it. So I drove by his beach front, gated home, to drop off the Rag. This was after 9/11 and the Imus mail box was long gone for security reasons. I slipped my CD package underneath the wrought iron gate and hoped for the best.

About a week later a man in a beige trench coat knocked on my door, flashing a silver State Police badge. "Are you Robert Steven Williams?"

"Yes."

"Did you drop this package off at the Imus residence in Southport?" He was holding my brown bag with the CD and promo materials.

"Umm, yeah."

"Their housekeeper called us, thought it was a bomb. Any explosive material?"

"Well, it is a satire." The cop wrinkled his brow. I quickly added, "It's just a CD about Martha Stewart. I was trying to get him to play it.

"The cop shook his head and handed me back the bag. "Next time, do us all a favor, drop it off at his office.

"The Martha Stewart Prison Rag was never aired.


My Sharpton story:

I moved from England to the New York area in 1991. I was head of marketing for a new chain of record stores in the US. My first day on the job, I faced a potential Sharpton led protest against our 72nd & Broadway store.

In those days, music was vibrant, immediate; it still mattered. HMV had made a huge splash in the market.

The week prior to my arrival, HMV had fired an African American store clerk. We were part of the international conglomerate EMI Music. Sharpton planned to protest this dismissal based on racism by leveraging our corporate parent's high visibility.

The kid in question was a bad employee and had been fired properly. But when I showed up for work that first day, I had no idea if this was the case. It was my job to defend the company and mitigate the damage regardless of the facts.

I hired a crisis management PR firm to get up to speed on Al Sharpton. I couldn't believe what I was up against. I marketed records. I loved music. This was the last thing on earth I wanted to deal with. I also knew that HMV wasn't a racist company; but an employee still might have done something stupid.

During the week the rhetoric grew. We were told through the grapevine that if we didn't reinstate this kid, thousands would be outside our store on Saturday protesting. Every major network would be there to cover it.

We conducted another internal investigation and determined that the employee had been treated fairly and warranted the firing. I also discovered that HMV was one of the largest African-American retail employers in Manhattan. We did not rehire that kid.

On the Saturday, I was at the store ready to handle whatever might happen. Fortunately, the protest never materialized, and I went back to marketing music…

Six years later, I convinced EMI and HMV to put the first international record store in Harlem. I left the company shortly thereafter. HMV opened up on 125th Street, across from the Apollo Theater in 1999. Although the store was a success, EMI sold HMV. The chain pulled out of the US market in 2003.