Ethnic Cleansing At Air America Radio

The Cincinnati Black Blog ^ | April 13, 2005 | Nate Livingston

[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 RADIO

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.

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

[BJClinton]

I believe the complaint is that Mr. D was removed thus giving the program approximately 0% African-American representation.

[t_skoz]

Awesome article! It's only too bad that you're not engaging anyone in conversation here, as a lot of people are giving good thought to their replies.

It is true, sadly, that the Dems are the historical party of racism, oppresion, Jim Crow, etc. They don't care about you unless you start to question their stranglehold on your votes. They demand blind obedience, at the cost of your success, your self-reliance, your freedoms, your financial well-being... and what do they give in return? Governments in every city, rife with corruption that make it difficult for hard-working black families to be prosperous and create wealth for themselves, to own businesses, etc.

True black leaders, people who are inspirations to people of ALL races such as Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Condoleeza Rice... are hated by the Democratic elite, while phonies like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson have no message of real empowerment, self-reliance or anything else positive but are elevated to status as living gods.

It is obviously the hope of many people from various races and backgrounds that the barriers that blacks and whites worked so long and hard to break down, can be overcome, and the IDEALS they all worked so hard for can some day be achieved: Where people can be individuals, free from class warfare and racism, free to be self-reliant, free to own property and businesses, free to create and save wealth for their families and maximize life in the most free and prosperous nation on Earth.

Welcome to Free Republic!

[Voss]

Sorry, normally I wouldn't point out such an error because we all do it, but that one was particularly cute. (Or rude!)

[risk]

From "Guess Who's Back" by Rakim F/ Chuck D (getlyrics.com version)

Yo, my rhymes and lyrics, find spirits like a seance
Since fat Cray-ons, I write and display chaos
My plan is ?, the diagram know where the damage
I take advantage, until your crowd go bananas
What a rush I hear cuts and I lust to touch
Microphones get clutches by the illustrious
Word spread I inherited, many ways to say the unsaid
Born with three 7's in my head
In time no one can seem to blow your mind as far as this
To find you'll need philosophers and anthropologists
Astrologists, professors from your smartest colleges
With knowledge and scholarships, when Ra be droppin this
Some of the things I know, will be in your next Bible
When I die go bury me and my notebook in Cairo
With the great God from Egypt manifest was write rhymes
Align with the stars, I come back to bless the mic

[NoClones]

the dems also tossed sammie davis jr for encouraging blacks to vote for jack kennedy after that dem got elected, too.

[Adiemus]

Every time I see this kind of opinion from Black Americans, I am happy. It's high time all Blacks realize the simple fact that the Democrat party is using them.

How many high level Blacks did Clinton have in his administration compared to Bush? Common, wake up.

[johnb838]

NAte, thanks for telling us about this, and thanks for giving Sean a fair shake. I don't know how much you read here, or if you read the Hannity threads, but if you do, you know that there's a love/hate relationship with him. One thing he's right about -- the liberals are not the friends of the black community. The conservatives may or may not be the "friends" of the black community, but I think there is a determination to treat blacks like everybody else, to shoot for a level playing field like Dr. King talked about back in the day. THAT is the way we get to a fair and equitable society.

Here is my opinion. Sports show us that blacks can not only compete and excel, they can reign supreme in competition. THIS IS NOT A FACTOR OF GENETIC PHYSICAL GIFTS, Sports are primarily mental -- discipline and desire and belief in oneself. If we could get all the african americans competing in that mindset we could erase the legacy underclass stigma, along with the race-baiters and the poverty pimps in a relatively short period of time.

[Dean Baker]

Didn't the article say that D was one of two??

[I_be_tc]

BUMP

[Sir Gawain]

I respect Tony Brown. He has had some very good shows with Ward Connelly on there.

[johnb838]

I seem to recall that it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce court-ordered school integration.

I seem to have recently read it was even gutsier than what the above suggests. Governor Orville Faubus had called out the National Guard to BLOCK the court-ordered integration, and Eisenhower called in the freakin' 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION SCREAMING EAGLES to go up against the reservists.

I read this around the time Jeb Bush was cowed into not calling on the Fla Natl Gd. to clear out a few local cops ordered into action by a state probate judge to stop a court ordered, cruel and most unusual execution of a brain damaged woman in Florida.

But I digress...

[BJClinton]

Ah, yes. My bad. I was just angry they took him off, I still have a soft spot in my heart for PE.

[johnb838]

Before the election the were rolling in Soros money, now they have to make it the old fashioned way.

[Eagle of Liberty]

Well, hello Nate!

I remember listening to you on Hannity. It sounds like you are getting Hannitized.

I like your article. You are starting to see the truth that the white liberal strong-hold of the Democrat Party has been lying to African-Americans for a long, long, long time.

You and fellow African-Americans would be welcomed with open arms to come join our debates on FR.

It shows a good step that you actually took the time to become a member and post your article here.

Right now, the GOP is the party of true diversity and can offer more to you and your friends than just empty promises.

I for one would be truly interested to see a strong, black commentator get a good talk show going.

BTW, did you hear the bet that Leo Terrell made with Jesse Lee Peterson about a month ago? Blackwell for Governor in '06!

[PISANO]

Of course the LIBS are outraged at your article. You are straying off the plantation and that is a NO-NO.

I pray that the African American community will wake up one day and realize that their enemy keeps them very close and that ememy is the Democrat Party.

[hosepipe]

[ I know this looks terrible. Is there a way to edit it? ]

The format is adequate, Nate, its the content that needs work....
Suggest reading the "tone" of a few threads here..

Caution: some blacks and whites here are extremely extreme extremists.. and could care less what color you are.. or whether you are a house slave or a field slave.. because SOCIALISM is Slavery by Government. And willing government slaves can be mocked and savaged unmercifully.. rightfully so.. Capitalism is BOSS here.. Socialism is for sissy fags and other dependant VICTIMS...

[GloriaJane]

Did you read the post entitled: "Court Decides Reparations Suit Against Democrats"

That article should explain everything you ever wanted to know about why the democratic party acts the way they do toward African Americans.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1383873/posts

[Rastus]

I meant the text that he entered into the Body of Comment section.

[Col Freeper]

Thanks for the post on Tony Brown. I was trying like crazy to remember his name. Used to watch him a few years back.

On one of his shows, he logically and methodically pointed out how if the Black poverty pimps would stop having meetings at luxury hotels while spending large sums (as they held discussion panels about the plight of Americans who happened to be black), they could instead use the funds spent to initiate black owned businesses and turn ravaged communities around.

I believe he estimated it would only take about 2 years of saving the wasted funds to create a very large pool of money to make loans for black businesses.

I enjoyed watching his show.

[GloriaJane]

Is Blackwell going to run? If he does he's got my vote!