I've refereed to many of my friends as a "ho" plenty of times, but most of them are white males. That's not racist. When Imus refers to an entire team of black women as "hos" and "nappy-headed", that's racist. Where I work, if I referred to any group of people with those words, It wouldn't be tolerated and I would most likely be fired.

If Imus's employers also do not tolerate racism, then they should fire Imus. By the way, I found this Reuters article interesting, because of the way it described why those are racist terms. In case you didn't know why.

Imus made the comments last Wednesday after the Rutgers Scarlet Knights team lost the national collegiate championship game to Tennessee. "Hos" is slang for whores. "Nappy-headed" is steeped in racism and viewed as a vile slur describing African American hair.