APPLES AND ORANGES

Michelle Malkin complains that rappers aren't held to the same standard as Don Imus.

Excuse me, did I miss the press conference where Rudy Giuliani shrugged off the criticism and said he still planned to spit a verse on Young Jeezy's next jam?

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Malkin:

Is the Sharpton & Jackson Circus truly committed to cleaning up cultural pollution that demeans women and perpetuates racial epithets? Have you seen the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart this week?...

Al Sharpton, I am sure, is ready to call a press conference with the National Organization for Women to jointly protest this garbage and protest the radio stations and big pimpin' music companies behind it.

Er...

...an anti-rap movement ... began in March [2005], soon after shots were fired by the rival entourages of 50 Cent and the Game outside a New York radio station. Al Sharpton demanded that the Federal Communications Commission ban violent rappers from radio and television, and he launched a boycott against Universal Music Group, which he accused of "peddling racist and misogynistic black stereotypes" through rap music. Sharpton expressed special concern about white perceptions of African Americans. Rappers and their corporate supporters "make it easy for black culture to be dismissed by the majority," he said, and the large white fan base "has learned through rap images to identify black male culture with a culture of violence."

Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition signed on to the boycott....

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UPDATE: Welcome, Sisyphus Shrugged, Hullabaloo, Skippy, and Sideshow readers. (Mahablog too.) If you can't get that last link to work, here's the Google cache version.

(FURTHER UPDATE: Via smartone in comments, here's a non-cache version.)

Oh, and Oliver Willis remembered the Sharpton boycott, too.