Comment by Imus is far from a ‘teaching moment’

Harry Krebs is no Don Imus. For one thing, Krebs is more entertaining and has a better voice than the longtime radio star.

But just like Imus, the former Garden Grove councilman knows what it’s like to be on the hot seat over perceived racial or ethnic insensitivity. So does Richard Nichols, the former Newport Beach councilman.

On Monday, Imus starts a two-week suspension from his radio show after referring to members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos,” using the street lingo for whores. MSNBC announced it will no longer simulcast Imus’ radio show. Since his remarks, what should or shouldn’t be done to Imus and what America will or won’t learn from the incident has been a staple of the media talk show world.

At present, I’m torn over what is more annoying: Imus’ remarks or the hand-wringing on TV over what this means to the Republic.

One TV host asked aloud the other night how and when the “healing” might begin. I groaned and changed channels.

Neither Krebs nor Nichols went national, but the local spotlight can be plenty uncomfortable. Krebs made a public apology in September 2005, and Nichols withstood condemnation from some of his council colleagues and demands that he resign in 2003.

Krebs and Nichols no doubt were thrilled to hear from me Wednesday, so they could recall one of their more unpleasant moments in public life.

Actually, Krebs didn’t mind talking about it, perhaps because we’ve talked before on other council business. Nichols was less eager, repeating that his remarks were taken out of context in 2003 when, in discussing proposed Corona del Mar State Beach improvements, he referred to Mexicans showing up early in the day and staying late and taking up the spots. He said later he meant to focus on the issue of people taking up space, and that most of them just happened to be Mexicans.

I asked him to stroll down Memory Lane, but Nichols wasn’t interested. He said he hadn’t followed the Imus matter and said that his own controversy involved “a whole lot of misunderstanding and, yes, there were people trying to make something out of it.”

When I asked him to continue, he said, “I think I ought to sit this one out.”

Krebs got in trouble when he made an innocuous or offensive (take your pick) remark to then-council member Janet Nguyen when trying to explain his position on a development issue.

As she continued to question him, Krebs eventually said, “I already expressed it very simply; I can’t do it in Vietnamese.”

That brought two busloads of Vietnamese Americans to the next council meeting, at which Krebs apologized. I asked him this week if it was an unpleasant experience.

“I would say it was certainly disconcerting, since I knew it wasn’t like it was perceived,” he said. He didn’t relish apologizing but did it freely, he said, because he thought it was necessary to clear the air and to show he wasn’t defiant over what he considered a slip-up.

Krebs said he and Nguyen were friends at the time, and that he and his wife attended her wedding.

He still thinks the dust-up was politically motivated by elements in the local Vietnamese American community but reiterated that his apology was genuine.

“I decided that I needed to say that if I offended anybody that I was sorry and that it sure wasn’t meant that way,” he said. Some of the leading antagonists brought him wine and fruit baskets a few weeks after the episode, “so I’d forget the whole thing,” he said.

Krebs said he feels no kinship at all with Imus. “I think he’s just got a big mouth, and he doesn’t think sometimes.” Imus’ remark, he said, was a racial slur, “which I didn’t consider mine to be.”

Do we ever learn anything from these things? Do they really become “teaching moments,” as another pundit asked the other night on TV?

I would mark the “no” ballot.

They instead seem to fall into a rather predictable cycle of outrage followed by absolutely nothing coming of it. So much for teaching moments.

Imus’ remark should be condemned, but it seems laughable to me to suggest that it will serve to “open a dialogue” on race in America or heal any wounds.

I’m guessing countless black Americans are amused in watching white America agonize over Imus’ remarks. They’ve heard much worse than what Imus said.

Not that you asked my opinion, but I’m a free-speech guy and don’t see the point of having it if someone gets fired for exercising it. I would heartily criticize Imus, but probably not fire him.

But that’s where my perpetual conflict begins over these kind of issues, because I fear I insist on putting too fine a point on things.

But let me try: I’m less bothered by what Imus said (but only because it was a stale and unfunny retread insult) than I am by his arrogance in thinking he can say it with impunity.

His dull reference ought to be offensive only to the young women on the Rutgers team. Why anyone else would dwell on it is beyond me. It speaks to nothing other than to Imus’ belief in his own infallibility and flagging sense of what’s funny or acceptable to say.

Others have chosen to expand the insult to be offensive to all African Americans. It’s a free country, but if I were black, I’d reserve the right to decide for myself what offends me. If I think Imus offended me, so be it. But I’d be almost as offended to have someone else, especially some white guy on TV, telling me I’m offended.

Assuming, that is, I gave Imus and his tired act more than a moment’s thought.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.