In recent weeks, Don Imus has—yet again—sparked a state of national outrage with his racial slurs and sexist comments.

While the anger towards him is understandable, I do believe that there is also a major overreaction factor, there, as well. For one thing, there is no way that Imus could possibly ruin the entire season for the women’s basketball team he insulted with but a single comment. The whole situation has blown way out of proportion, in my opinion. When someone insults you on the street, you ignore them and carry your head high. You don’t mope around and throw away a week or so of your life just because someone you hardly know has called you names.

I don’t mean by this that racism is okay—it most certainly isn’t. It’s a major problem that needs to be taken care of. However, this isn’t the first time that Imus’s comments have put him on the spot. You can’t sit there and tell me that nobody knew what kind of show he was running when so much controversy has surrounded him for so long, or that nobody realized what kind of comments he’s been making.

In my opinion, Imus should have been fired a long, long time ago—but now that he’s finally gone, I think he was kicked off the air for all the wrong reasons. When you let someone get away with racist comments for so long, it’s rather hypocritical to get rid of him just because some famous people decided to step up to the plate and say “this isn’t right.”