Brian
It was okay to use the N-word as long as white people were the ones leading the charge on saying it. Black people have decided to exclusively use the word that white people used to help separate themselves from blacks, and white people are still having an issue with the very word that they supplied the English language with. So, I guess what is and isn't okay to say depends on whether or not its is okay for white people to say it because it seems that if white people say it, its okay, but if white people can't say it, then the word just shouldn't be used.
As Snoop said, rappers are referring to actual ho's. There is nothing wrong with calling a ho, a ho. If you provide people with sex for a living, that makes you a ho. Imus called a bunch of college educated women "nappy headed ho's." It is not racist or sexist to call some black chic in the hood who has sex for a living a Black ho because she is both black and a ho. However, to call a group of smart, talented and hardworking young women who are making history a bunch of "nappy headed ho's" is very distasteful and can legitimately be seen as sexist and racist.
I offer no judgement to people who are ho's for a living, because there is nothing wrong with taking money for what people do for free on a regular basis. If someone wants to pay you for sex, then so be it if you choose to accept and they choose to pay.
I guess in the end we have to take into consideration what is meant by things. Imus is old (depending on one's definition of old), white, and a man. So there is nothing racist about calling him an old white man. These women where not anything that they were called in any way. The word ho in itself may have negative undertones, but was not created out of ignorance in order to belittle and express ignorant and racist thoughts and beliefs about a particular racial or sexual group, like the n word. It is short hand way of what, has been and still is in many places, a legitimate profession. Again, it was a combination of things that made it wrong.
Things like this have a grey area as many things in life do. There is no clean-cut black and white situation here. We seem to want everything to come in these nice binary systems that is either this or that because it gives us fewer choices and requires less thought about what we say or do. We are lazy and don't want to take the time to think about what we say, when and where we say it, or even how we say it. So we want a binary system that says either it is okay to say it or not to say it because it relieves us of the responsibility of having to think about whether or not it is appropriate to say. I say that if you don't want to take the time to think about what you say, then you should just be quiet and not say anything.
So the moral of this story is that it was not what he said, but how he said it and who he said it to that made it so distasteful. Nothing he said about them was in any way warranted. He has the right to say and feel as he does, but freedom of speech doesn't mean that you won't suffer consequence for what you say. Freedom is responsibility and you are responsible for what you say because, just like your actions, your words do have consequences, even if they are not illegal. If I am a sponsor and you say something that is offensive to so many people, yes I will fire you, because I pay for and invest in your show to get listeners and customers, not to lose them. He should have thought about the consequences of what he said before he said it. It doesn't matter if people should or shouldn't be offended by it, the point is that they are offended by it, and listeners of the show and customers of sponsors are not happy with it. I would have fired him too. He failed to do his job well, the majority seems to have been offended and not entertained (which was his job) by what he said.