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
I listen to Air America all the time in the car... it's so wrong-headed, angry, bitter and embarrassing that it's pure entertainment for conservatives.
It's fun rooting for it to stumble and/or fail, and it hasn't let me down yet.
The BEST was how they treated Chuck D and his loser morning show, with his two dimbulb female partners. Unceremoniously canned, dishonestly as well, all so they could hire Jerry Springer!!!!
Jerry Springer!!! There simply can't be a person more cringe-inducing to add to your radio team than him. Now imagine if Springer happened to be a Republican... would we here at FR be proud of him, or mortally embarrassed? Of course we'd be embarrassed to be affiliated with such a sleazebag! Now imagine they hire him to replace, say, Laura Ingraham on your favorite radio network. Absolute disgust would be the unanimous opinion.
How STUPID is AirAmerica to hire this guy? What BONEHEAD thinks he will add ANYTHING to the left's cause??!!! And actually listening to the guy is a disappointment for anyone, including GOPers... he's trying to be the serious, reasonable Jerry, and it's humanly impossible to last more than 10 minutes without reaching for the dial out of sheer boredom. I know, I've tried.
He makes Chuck D look like Brit Hume, and that's saying something.
Oooh, Thomas Sowell. He is without one of the most brilliant minds in this country.
If I delete the comments section, posters will have a harder time replying.
I had to add that one phrase for you. Hope you don't mind.
\
Walter E. Williams reaches more people on one day as a sub for Rush Limbaugh than all of the Air America DJ's combined.
I am for more talks show hosts like Walter E. Williams! In fact I would like to see him get his own show! But he has a day job he won't give up.
-- lates
-- jrawk
Thanks. You're right. but only when the judges see things their way. That's why FDR decided to pack the courts when he was president.
We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves---we feel more attached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men---descended by blood from our ancestors---among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe---German, Irish, French and Scandinavian---men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.
Well, both parties are controlled by elites, but the Democrats are totally hypocritical about it, accusing Republicans of being elitist and posing as the party of the working man. The "plantation mentality" of the left towards all minorities is well documented, even though the left always feigns outrage whenever the subject comes up. I suspect Air Anti-America's decisions are driven totally by ratings (which they don't have anyway), and they think a bufoon like Springer will attract listeners. As I said, I think what you're seeing is a perfect example of the plantation mentality of the left. Blacks and other minorities are supposed to sit down, shut up, and be grateful to the Democrats for the handouts they are thrown. As more and more minorities realize this attitude exists, more and more of them are voting Republican, which just angers the left further.
Umm...I think (hope) you left out the words "a doubt." Hehe. ;-)
For the wedding of the daughter of a Democrat party bigwig in Michigan, they rented out the entirity of Mackinaw Island, and had a line of horse-drawn carriages as far as the eye could see waiting to take the guests from the ceremony to the reception.
"Party of the working man?" Uhhh... right.
You're not much of a lurker here.
Nate: Air America began by displacing minority programming, check this out: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=3506
There is a real difference between the left and the right. Unlike the left, we don't think that, as a group, that blacks and Hispanics are stupid and need our help. We are not condescending. We judge people as individuals. If I see a black man walking down my street, I can obviously see that he is black. But that tells me nothing about him. When we start talking and I understand his values and how he lives his life, I will be able to tell if we are going to be friends.
The left cares about one thing --- their own power. If they can keep people on plantations, they hope to regain power. Unfortunately for them, more minorites are waking up. White people don't sit around the breakfast table discussing ways they can keep down a black man today. We are too busy earning a living.
Those of us on the right tend not to let economic jealously make us angry. I don't care that someone earns $10 million a year. I want to learn some his lessons so that I can earn more.
The growth of the middle class and growth of black-owned business has been tremendous. When flamethrowers like Maxine Waters attack the police as if the police are the enemy, she damages her community. Without respecting and helping the police, the crime problem will never get better. What business person wants to invest his money in an area that is dangerous? Very few.
DemocRATS and other leftists are the ones who are the enemies of the minorities. They use minorities only for power.
Well, I'll get off my soap box. Once again, welcome.
And Walt Williams and Larry Elders :-)
I would guess the the hip-hop show was not bringing in enough bucks.
Democrats may be socialists when they when eyeing everyone else's money.
But when it comes to their own finances, they are capitalists.
It simply was not making enough money for the limosine liberal fat cats who were calling the shots.
Erp! Yeah. :X
I am surprised you didn't mention WLIB.
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