I've finally got the Don Imus situation figured out -- and, boy, it's a much more complex issue than anybody would have you believe.

Sure, it's about racism, but it's also about money.

Yep, it's political, too.

Furthermore, there are huge ethical ramifications on any number of fronts.

But, first, a quick review of what actual damage is.

I've followed the Duke Lacrosse case for some time, and with the realization we all have now that those kids were innocent, we should be able to comprehend what real damage is. Those athletes, that Duke coach, that community -- they suffered actual damage.

Their lives are stained by the actions of the overly aggressive district attorney there in Durham, N.C., and the liar who accused them. Even though we all know they didn't rape that woman, there was enough conjecture about them still "being up to no good" that any reasonable argument could conclude that those men are stained for life, even with the exoneration.

This is actual damage.

What Don Imus said hurt the feelings of some scholar-athletes, their coaches, their families and friends and the community associated with New Jersey's state institution of higher learning. What he said awakened the sensibilities of many right-minded folk on the issue of race, hate speech and, frankly, free speech, and to be perfectly honest, everybody is a little bit right on in this scenario.

Those who suggest the left has criminalized or crucified Imus don't completely understand, I suppose, that even a fired Don Imus is a multi, multi-millionaire. He doesn't need to work. He's no longer a coke addict needing to keep up with this habit. He does do a tremendous, tremendous, unparalleled amount of work with sick children, which probably usurps a good bit of his funds, but he'll survive.

He suffered no actual damage. Sure, he lost his job, but you know what? He'll get another one, and any fans he has will flock to those airwaves.

Frankly, I never truly felt bad for those Rutgers athletes. Look, college athletes are some of the luckiest people on the planet. They have a talent of marginal worth outside of entertainment, and they get a free education. They're big girls, and to boot, they came within a few points of a national title.

Life's good.

Where Imus' words struck a sour chord with me is twofold: 1) in their relationship to a cultural stereotype about beauty and 2) in the context of their purpose.

On the first point, as I've written here just a couple days ago, women of color have societally been instructed for centuries, subtly albeit, how to keep their hair. That naturalness, that kink, that curl which is physically native to their physicality is too black for middle America. Over the decades, the most effective way for modern culture to encourage black women to assimilate is to belittle them.

Call them nappy-headed.

White culture is guilty, for sure, on this point. However, the hip-hop culture is totally guilty on the other half of the equation, the "hos" barb.

However, most of us under 40 are so attuned to pop culture, at least those of us who like hip-hop and rap, that the term "ho" doesn't bother us much at all. It's pretty innocuous in the big picture.

On the second point though, if I had heard Imus say these things, I would have thought, "That's pretty mean. What did those women do to you?"

This is where I think a lot of folks got fed up with Imus. His history has been such that this was just the tipping point in a career of insults, which honestly are the markings of all of national morning radio, public or private. It is what it is.

So, should he have lost his job?

Well, here's the deal. Talent on the radio or on TV, whether they're supposed to be funny or insightful, are subject to an often roaming community standard. What's acceptable today might not be tomorrow, and these folks have to be super savvy about that.

If Imus had called Hilary Clinton a nappy-headed ho after a particularly bad hair day, there's no way he would have gotten fired. It's not racial; it's the context. Hilary's a public figure. She's white. She's not that well-liked.

On the other hand, these basketball players are 19, 20 years old. Didn't do anything to anybody. They're primarily women of color, and being mean for the sake of being mean to more and more people is just a turn off. They pressure the company's advertisers, who then pressure the company, and then -- you bet -- he's fired.

That's the way it works.

However, this is also highly political, and Imus and that team are merely pawns.

Both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are a couple of millionaires who never met a controversy they didn't like. The anger is disingenous, self-righteous and self-promoting, not to mention obvious. However, these guys have nothing on the hatchet job Republicans did on John Kerry in 2004.

Or on one of their own, John McCain, in 2000.

Republicans don't mind this a bit because Imus was pretty liberal in his leanings, and racists aren't exclusively conservative. I mean, what Rosie did in terms of mocking Asians was clearly racist; however, I'd point you to the roaming community standard. What nails one person to the cross won't necessarily kill another.

It's a dynamic situation.

Conservatives also don't mind this hub-bub because it really does paint Al and Jesse as a couple of race-baiting fools, when in actuality, they've done a ton of good in their day as well. Nobody is all bad. Oh, and as a bonus, this excitement takes our collective minds off a war.

Anybody hear of Divertor?

If you watch SNL, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The problem is, from my perspective, the real issue here is free speech and the public airwaves. While Imus wasn't crucified, while he wasn't imprisoned, this controversy has all of a sudden injected life into a debate about what we can say and what we can't, which is a discussion we all lose every single freaking time.

Think I'm nuts? Here's how it works.

Today, we can't say "nappy-headed hos," and tomorrow, we can't refer to evangelicals as "crazy Christians." They in turn can't refer to Spanish as "ghetto language" any more (Mr. Gingrich), and we won't be allowed to render any negative opinions about the war.

This is a problem, a scary problem.

In all sincerity, the free market worked in this case. Imus lost his job through a completely legitimate process for a completely legitimate reason. However, by allowing this consequence to be rendered, we have opened our public airwaves not to nicer speech but to censorship, and with every fiber of my being, I'd rather live in a nasty, mean place with mean, cruel people over somewhere where I lived in fear of what I say.

We can be nice and be free all at the same time.