For those of you guys who haven't heard, this Dr. Laura Schlessinger lady used the "n" word 11 times in a tirade, which I assume stemmed from her not being able to say it. However, she said it 11 times, which begs the question can white people really not say that word. I would argue that you can do anything you want, but you need to understand that everything has a consequence. I could go into a crowded movie theater and yell fire, but I'd have to accept being thrown in jail for public safety violations. I could go into a meeting consisting of all confederacy supporters and talk negatively about Jefferson Davis, but again I would have to face the consequences of my actions. The same goes with unassisted human flight and unaided breathing underwater. During her rant, she argued with several Black and African-American listeners of her show about their double standards in the use of that word. She then apologized and said that she was trying "bring awareness" to a situation that was divisive to American society.
With the increasing amount of people who I have heard state that racism is not a factor anymore, it's not really that surprising to me that these types of events have continued to happen. In these times, it seems that the only way you can get your message out is by making outrageous statements and then leave it up to the public to sort out the details. It's not really important to a lot of talk show hosts to be accurate in their statements. What's important is getting people to tune in so that they can make money on advertising. They don't really care about telling you the absolute truth because they assume that you will do your due diligence and research the information to see if it is accurate. I mean, that's what any rational, clear thinking American would do right. For example, when the birthers said that Obama was not born in America and then the Governor of Hawaii, who is a Republican, verifies Obama's birth certificate as being valid and people still question his citizenship. Yet, people are still refusing to serve in the military and, to this day, continue to protest his presidency. This displays how clear thinking and rational our populace is...doesn't it? The problem is that too many people do not realize the fact that talk show hosts are merely doing their jobs. Their job is to get you to listen to them for three to four hours a day. They are not obligated to say anything truthful at all, and yet many people take the talk show host's word as gospel, because they are the professionals; and professionals would never mislead people intentionally...right?
So I guess my question again is, why is this surprising? Are we really surprised when Don Imus made his "Nappy Headed Hos" comment? Are we really surprised that he was back on the air 7 months after that comment was made and he was fired? Are we really surprised when Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity make their comments about people of color, people who are low socio-economic, and people who are homosexual? Are we really surprised when Fox News fabricates a story about an African-American woman who has dedicated her life to helping farmers of all races, making her seem like a racist to put pressure on the NAACP so that the NAACP will back off of it's demand that the Tea Party monitor and sanction some of it's racially motivated rhetoric? I don't find it surprising one bit. And I ask why is it that most of America is surprised when another story like this appears in the headlines. To be fair, I have to mention liberal talk show hosts who portray all conservatives as being only concerned with money and the fact that they don't want to spend a lot of their tax money on welfare issues as being evidence that they hate poor people.
I find two things offensive about this. First of all, I find it offensive that people like this continue to have jobs and make millions of dollars a year for perpetuating hateful messages that divide Americans. Second, I find it offensive that all of this hateful speech is excused when the person in question flippantly apologizes. It's like this is all you need to do, along side with saying that everything was just to bring awareness to an issue, after saying something completely insensitive and everything else is just people overreacting. I wonder why this still goes on and the only thing I can come up with is that maybe these people really don't care about you, or America for that matter. We, as a country, are wasting a lot of time focussing on the extremes of conservativism and liberalism. We all have things in the middle that a strong majority of us agree on. We all don't want to live with a trillion dollar deficit, but we also don't want to pay more in taxes. We want government to help us with jobs, but we all agree that government control over a lot of things is not desirable. We want the best schools in the world, but don't agree that that can be fixed without funding the total development of a student. Nor do we believe that government solutions (i.e. No Child Left Behind, Benchmark Testing, CST's, Charter Schools, Vouchers) will work for everyone in every community across our country. I challenge us all, as Americans, to focus on getting the things that we all agree on put into motion and make our country the unified, so that we can return to our stature in the world.
So here's what I think we should do. We need to monitor what we listen to. One cannot get offended if one does not listen to what they are saying. And one can't listen if one isn't tuned in. We need to stop giving all of these people who pass on racism and a divisive spirit a voice in our society. Stop listening to them. It really doesn't matter why you listen to someone, if they are spreading lies and hate, then stop listening to them. I have a friend that says they listen to some of these people for entertainment. How is it entertaining listening to hateful speech? How is it entertaining listening to lies and be deceived? If you don't listen, they don't get sponsors, and they cannot continue to do their show. Lastly, get informed. They can't trick you if you do your own research. Get both sides of the story, and stop being lemmings. Sorry if the truth of these talk show hosts not really caring about you or America offends you, but I'm just thinking out loud.
