Posted on 04/15/2005 10:09:05 AM PDT by natelivingston
I guess this should be filed in the "Washington Politics" thread ... I'm an African American registered Democrat. I don't mind giving conservative Republicans hell when they deserve it. But unlike many conservative, I don't mind speaking out against my Party when I think they are wrong and encouraging them to do the right thing.
Anyway, white liberals are having fits about the article posted below, which was written by me and published on my blog, in Black newspapers across the country, and at the liberal Daily Kos blog.
I'm posting the article here because I'd like to have some feedback from a more conservative audience. (I also sent it to Mr. Hannity. Who knows, he may do something with it one day.)
ETHNIC CLEANSING AT AIR AMERICA RADIOWhen liberal Air America Radio Network yanked hip-hop legend Chuck D, a member of Public Enemy, off the air on April Fool’s Day and replaced him with Jerry Springer, they made fools out of Black Democrats, especially those in the hip-hop community who believed Air America would serve as a shining example of the Democratic Party’s purported commitment to tolerance, diversity, and partnership.
When the Coalition For A Just Cincinnati -- the group leading the economic boycott of Cincinnati -- decided to protest ethnic cleansing at Air America by picketing a live Springer broadcast, Jerry showed us just how intolerant he was. Like a scab, he crossed the picket line. Then he ordered a member of his all-white “Team Springer” clan to call the cops on us. In contrast, conservative Republican Sean Hannity welcomed protesting of his appearance in Cincinnati last summer. Who’s intolerant?
After being on the air for a year, Air America finds itself struggling to attract and keep listeners, just as the Democratic Party struggles to gain and keep voters. The removal of Chuck D -- one of only two daily African American talk show hosts -- represents much more than just the “whitening” of Air America, it symbolizes just how far the Party has drifted away from the Black community, it’s most loyal support base.
White liberals’ support for racial, ethnic, and viewpoint diversity appears nonexistent when it’s them, and not the government, being challenged to diversify. Air America passed over hundreds of qualified and experienced African American talk radio hosts i.e., Tavis Smiley, Bev Smith, Ed Gordon, Raqiyah Mays, and Joe Madison, for such no names as Ed Schultz, Mark Maron, and Sam Seder. But it’s not like we weren’t warned.
In announcing his debut on Air America, Springer said the radio network had cornered the “wine and cheese” crowd but needed to reach out to the “beer and pretzel” market. If you think these sentiments mirror Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean’s belief that Democrats should quit placating African Americans and start recruiting “white guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks” into the Party, you aren’t alone.
Even beyond racial diversity, Air America’s white overseers have done little to foster an ideologically diverse listener base or allow all voices within the Democratic Party to be heard. Air America has turned into an endless stream of boring bellyaching, where so much time is spent responding to conservative talking points that we can’t push an alternative agenda. This isn’t the best our Party has to offer, it is the worst. The notion that a few elitist reactionaries represent the Party of Roosevelt and Kennedy is preposterous. Springer and the rest of the second-tiered talk show hosts don’t speak for me, and I don’t think they speak for Latinos, Women, hard-working union members, or other African Americans either. Air America represents the hijacking of the Democratic Party, silencing of minority voices, and destruction of a common sense agenda.
Every election cycle, Democrats run through Black neighborhoods preaching partnership, but the alliance between Blacks and Democrats resembles less a partnership, and more a master-slave relationship where African Americans work like slaves to increase voter participation while whites reap all the benefits. Remember last year’s “voter empowerment” effort where Russell Simmons and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs were dispatched around the country and assigned to lure young African Americans into the election process? At the same time Combs was preaching “Vote or Die”, former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and Rev. Al Sharpton were being killed off in the Democratic primaries. And right after the election Ron Kirk and Wellington Webb were looked over for the position of DNC Chair in favor of Dean. What does it take for Blacks to get the message that once Democrats have no further use for Blacks, they dispose of them. They did it to Combs, Simmons, Moseley-Braun, Sharpton, Kirk, and Webb. And that’s exactly what Air America did to Chuck D.
“Fight the power” is my favorite Public Enemy song and the movie it appeared in “Do The Right Thing” is my favorite Spike Lee movie. One of the movie’s main characters, Buggin’ Out, wants the pizza owner, Sal, to put some pictures of African Americans on the wall. Lee’s movie and Chuck D’s lyrics inspired a generation to stand up to those in power and declare “…got to give us what we want; gotta give us what we need. Our freedom of speech is freedom or death; we got to fight the powers that be.” I know I’m not alone when I say white liberal Democrats need to live up to their promises on tolerance, diversity, and partnership. And Air America needs to put some African Americans on the air.
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Nathaniel Livingston, Jr., publishes the Cincinnati Black Blog which is available online at
indeed, think of Bobby Vindal, the first American of East Indian descent to be elected to either the Congress or Senate, on the Republican ticket in a usually Democratic district I believe, in Louisana no less
he is a go getter, he came out of nowhere and I believe he had a very decisive victory, someone to watch in the future....
"wine and cheese" =
Boones Farm and Cheez-Whiz.
"White liberals’ support for racial, ethnic, and viewpoint diversity appears nonexistent when it’s them, and not the government, being challenged to diversify."
Didn't read the whole article, but that point is perfectly made and accurate.
When liberal Air America Radio Network yanked hip-hop legend Chuck D, a member of Public Enemy, off the air on April Fool’s Day and replaced him with Jerry Springer, they made fools out of Black Democrats...
The election's over, they don't need any blacks now. Hang loose. Hillery will call when she needs you
Liberals in particular, and Democrats in general, have been making fools out of blacks for forty years now. Not just some hip-hop guy on a radio show that hardly anyone listens to. ( I'm talking about what the "Great Society" did, and continues to do to millions black families. About the constant playing of the race card by wealthy white libs who only care about you in November but don't have a clue who you are in December. About the scare tactics of what the mean nasty Republicans are going to do to you --- like maybe allowing black kids to get out of the corrupt union run inner city schools and get a real education, or maybe poor blacks could establish a nest egg for the future with private Social Security accounts and not be entirely depended on meager Social Security checks in their retirement.
Why do the white libs fight these ideas? It's no skin of their noses. They don't send their kids to rotten union schools. They have pension plans, 401k's, trust funds and stock portfolios that give them comfortable retirements.
Have you considered that they don't really want blacks to succeed? They want blacks to stay poor and stay dependent on them? To keep blacks on the Democrat plantation?
That they got away with that stuff for a while is shame on them. That they still get away with it after all these years, means you are a fool.
I think Wallace was from Alabama... just ask Forrest Gump
[[When liberal Air America Radio Network yanked hip-hop legend Chuck D, a member of Public Enemy, off the air on April Fool’s Day and replaced him with Jerry Springer, they made fools out of Black Democrats, especially those in the hip-hop community who believed Air America would serve as a shining example of the Democratic Party’s purported commitment to tolerance, diversity, and partnership.]]
Since when is sombody entitled to a talk show host job just because they are black??
BTW, this is the same Chuch D as in Ice Cube and the racist rap group public enemy who wrote all of the the hate rap about killing whites. Personally, I hope the scumbag ends up digging ditches on a road crew somewhere. I find it pathetic who liberals adopt to speak for them.
Some of Chuck D's hate rap:
My own kind blind, brain-trained on the devil-level. . . . chasing down loot, Dole or Newt, who do you shoot. . . . rough stuff to the babies, spread like rabies";
"Niggativity . . . Do I Dare Disturb the Universe"; Chuck D, Autobiography of MistaChuck, 1996, Mercury Records, PolyGram, Philips' Electronics NV, Netherlands. PolyGram merged within Universal Music Group in 1998, the parent being The Seagram Company, Canada.
http://home.att.net/~phosphor/introtogrammys.html
Part of the problem is that leftists see "diversity" as an end in itself - except when it comes to diversity of opinion, of course.
Walter Williams doesn't sub for Rush Limbaugh just because he's black, he subs because he's an intelligent, articulate, and well-educated individual of a compatible political persuasion who has a euphonious radio voice.
Who gets on the air is who can attract listeners and sell advertising. Who gets on the staff is who's capable of doing the job right and well.
Content of their character, and all that jazz.
Thank you, I stand corrected. He was the governor of Alabama.
"White liberalism is so mired in elitism that they cannot imagine anyone having the gall to ask them to change at all. They're the ones who fly their gulfstreams to environmental rallies, have armed bodyguards accompany them to gun control rallies and complain to national TV audiences that their viewpoints are being silenced.....they are hopelessly blind to their hypocrisy."
EXACTLY! Although the blindness is by their own conscious choice....
"...they don't need any blacks now...Hillery will call when she needs you...Liberals...have been making fools out of blacks for forty years now....I'm talking about what the "Great Society" did, and continues to do to millions black families...about the scare tactics of what the mean nasty Republicans are going to do to you --- like maybe allowing black kids to get out of the corrupt union run inner city schools and get a real education, or maybe poor blacks could establish a nest egg for the future with private Social Security accounts and not be entirely depended on meager Social Security checks in their retirement.
Why do the white libs fight these ideas? It's no skin off their noses. They don't send their kids to rotten union schools. They have pension plans, 401Ks, trust funds and stock portfolios that give them comfortable retirements.
Have you considered that they don't really want blacks to succeed? They want blacks to stay poor and stay dependent on them? To keep blacks on the Democrat plantation?..."
The next time any of us goes to the poll, we need to ask ourselves who really wants to SERVE and who just wants to get wealthy?
I've voted for some lesser-knowns because I genuinely felt they'd do a better job than either of the major parties.
Race is not now nor has it ever been an issue with me. God doesn't look at the pigment of our skin and neither do I.
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