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Posted on 04/07/2004 1:59:01 AM PDT by kattracks
After listening to Air America for a week, I now know what liberal radio is. It is Janeane Garofalo bantering with her co-host about swallowing her own saliva, and then dismissing the American victims of the Fallujah lynch mob as a pack of mercenaries. It is a woman named Randi Rhodes talking dirty and cracking on Condoleezza Rice's "plastic hair."It is an announcer intoning: "The station Rush Limbaugh would listen to if he hadn't lost most of his hearing to drug abuse" - followed, without irony, by an empathetic public service announcement aimed at drug abusers.
It is, in short, pretty much what I expected. Now I want WLIB back.
WLIB used to be New York's only black talk station. Now it's the home of Air America. Not everybody is happy with this change. Some are more unhappy than others. Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron, for example, is really, really unhappy.
"Just because you want to react to Rush Limbaugh, that doesn't make you a voice that speaks to our issues," he says. Barron regards the new venture in liberal broadcasting as a form of white colonialism, "racist by omission." What about Air America's black hosts, Chuck D and Mark Riley? "They're on with white co-hosts and they have national concerns now," says Barron. "It's just watered-down white liberalism."
Garry Pierre-Pierre, the editor of The Haitian Times, is unhappy, too, although he doesn't see the changeover in such radical terms. " 'Moment Creole,' which was on WLIB on Sunday mornings, was the most important program we had," he says. "It was the proverbial glue that held the community together. Now it is going to be broadcast in the middle of the night. Essentially, it is gone, and there is nothing to replace it."
A lot more is gone, too: WLIB's prime-time Caribbean music and island updates. The community-service broadcasts. Even Al Sharpton's "Sharp Talk" show has been moved from its regular Sunday evening spot to a slot at 9 in the morning. The Rev's spokeswoman calls it a promotion.
"It's understandable that the WLIB audience would feel betrayed," says Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers magazine. "They've had the rug pulled out from under them without an explanation."
Still, Harrison offers encouragement to those who want WLIB back. He thinks Air America may fail. "To succeed commercially, Air America needs a 1.5 market share in New York," he says. "It won't be anywhere near that."
If Air America crashes, and WLIB returns, Charles Barron, Garry Pierre-Pierre and a lot of other black listeners will be delighted. And so will I. Not that I'm against the right of self-expression for rich, white entertainers. Not at all. They deserve a spot on the dial. Just not WLIB's spot. Until last week, 1190 AM was the place you could go to eavesdrop on the cadences of the distant communities that live right next door. Now it is wit and wisdom warmed over from old George Carlin routines. That's why, when it is gone, it will be remembered as nothing more than a sonic baby boom.
Originally published on April 7, 2004
I hope this proves to the black community in NY that black issues mean nothing to Libs, except when they are seeking black votes.
Not to mention more masculine.
And I'll bet that the racially hypersensitive Charles Barron is none too thrilled with Randi Rhodes referring to any black persons's hair (even Condi's) as plastic.
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