Kansas City's Own

Jason Whitlock has been a staple in the Kansas City media scene for years, and not all for good reasons. Actually, for a lot of bad reasons. NPH remembers when a staff writer for the Star told him and a group of Kansas sports writers (back in 1997) how Whitlock wrote off the cuff, was rude to his colleagues, and was generally a bad guy to work with.

That being said, here he is offering a distinctive take on the Imus affair. Now, it's not lost on NPH that many viewers will be unimpressed by accolades of "impressive" from somebody as embedded in the white media establishment as Tucker Carlson, but Carlson's fawning aside, Whitlock's critique speaks to aspects of the controversy that are being overlooked by the rest of the media.

Foremost of those aspects is the fact that Imus (who Whitlock does not like) has sincerely and repeatedly apologized, and that the people to whom he has apologized and from whom he has sought forgiveness and reconciliation, two ministers, have denied him forgiveness. Further, they have made use of him for their own agenda.

You may not like Whitlock's take. There are parts of it that NPH is a little iffy about. But it's more nuanced than most of what's being thrown around, and we think there's some value to that.