Rutgers players describe how Imus' remarks hurt: Stole "a moment of pure grace"

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: CNN

Rutgers players describe how Imus' remarks hurt
April 10, 2007


Rutgers players listen Tuesday as coach C. Vivian Stringer weighs in about Don Imus' controversial remarks on the team.

PISCATAWAY, New Jersey (CNN) -- Don Imus "has stolen a moment of pure grace from us," the captain of the Rutgers women's basketball team said Tuesday, responding to the uproar over the radio host's description of the players as "nappy-headed hos."...

Essence Carson and other players spoke out at a news conference in their first public statements since Imus' inflammatory remarks last week.

"I would like to express our team's great hurt, anger and disgust toward the words of Mr. Don Imus," Carson said. "We are highly angered at his remarks but deeply saddened with the racial characterization they entailed."...

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Carson said that she and her fellow players will meet privately with Imus in the near future....

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"I would like to speak to him personally and ... ask him, after you've met me personally, do you still feel in this category that I'm still a 'ho' as a woman and as a black, African-American woman at that?" said Kia Vaughn, a sophomore center.

"I achieve a lot, and unless they have given this name of 'ho' a new definition, then that is not what I am."...

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Coach C. Vivian Stringer praised the accomplishments and character of the team members, five of whom are freshmen.

"Before you are valedictorians of their class, future doctors, musical prodigies, and yes, even Girl Scouts," she said. "They are young ladies of class, distinction, they are articulate, they are brilliant, they are gifted. They are God's representatives in every sense of the word." Stringer described the team's hard work to bounce back from defeats early in the season.

"Ultimately, they ended up playing for the national championship," she said. "No one believed in them but them."...

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/10/imus.rutgers/index.html