I see that a lot of people came here yesterday looking for the Al Sharpton - Don Imusargument on the radio. Here they are. I woke up to it this morning being replayed on WBAI's Wake-Up Call. Here's something that I haven't seen anyone talking about, and it speaks to the general politics and economics of talk radio. Sharpton's show, on Syndication Oneisn't on the radio in NY. It is too bad, because listening to this conversation between not only Sharpton and Imus, but also Rev. Buster Sawyers and Byron Monroe, the head of the National Assoc. of Black Journalists was one of the few times when I've heard a number of Black people get together to confront a white dude with his racist statements. Crooks& Liars doesn't have the whole thing, and Syndication One doesn't seem to have podcasts available.
Meanwhile, for other "Blacks in the News", here's the Black Agenda Report's commentary on the Congressional Black Caucus/Fox scandal.
Comments?
16 comments:
I used to listen to Sharpton's show on WLIB on Saturday (?) mornings, before they switched to an all-gospel format.
On a somewhat related subject (christians taking over everything), maybe it's time for an anxiety alert?
via Pam's House Blend:
What has happened here is a subtle, unspoken agreement between black and white men that black women and their minds and bodies are owed as little respect as the minds and bodies of white women. This happens even as overt racism towards black men in the public sphere becomes more and more accessible. This happens because on some level, black men know we cannot be seen as men unless we effectively subjigate, commodify, and exploit black women.
Yeah, anon. re Sharpton on LIB:
what people found here when they were looking for Sharpton's show was my post on how 1190's switch to the new gospel format dumped both AirAmerica and "Sharp Talk." Maybe Mark Green, who has his own history w/Sharpton, will welcome that Syndication One programming on the all new Air America?? hmm.
I just read this great Op-Ed piece by Gwen Ifill:
NY Times, April 10, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Trash Talk Radio
By GWEN IFILL
Washington
LET’S say a word about the girls. The young women
with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and
Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat
and Myia and Brittany and Heather.
The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an
improbable season, dropping four of their first
seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A.
women’s basketball championship game. None of
them were seniors. Five were freshmen.
In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s
Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national
championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run
last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we
love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark,
Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah,
defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.
But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their
grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls
got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly
concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a
volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused,
middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered
and later recanted — by the radio and television
personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.
The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was
suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS
Radio for his remarks, have failed another test.
The sincerity seems forced and suspect because
he’s done some version of this several times before.
I know, because he apparently did it to me.
I was covering the White House for this newspaper
in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling
to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t
return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.
Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then
quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus
seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea
what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.
It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus
and I were both working under the NBC News
umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC;
I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the
network — that I discovered why people were
asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson,
a columnist for The New York Daily News, to
finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.
“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted
Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the
cleaning lady cover the White House.”
I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly
been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance
to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses
why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.
I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl.
I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been
working in journalism long enough that there is
little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap
will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began
telling people he never actually called me a
cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.
It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That
game had to be the biggest moment of their lives,
and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They
are not old enough, or established enough, to
have built up the sort of carapace many women I
know — black women in particular — develop to
guard themselves against casual insult.
Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr.
Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and
others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any
black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr.
Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he
realizes that, this time, he went way too far.
Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly
approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls
or stops me on the street to ask how she can
become a journalist, I feel an enormous
responsibility. It’s more than simply being a
role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.
So here’s what this voice has to say for people
who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people
their own size: This country will only flourish
once we consistently learn to applaud and
encourage the young people who have to work
harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.
Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and
reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest,
easiest, most despicable shots.
”
--
Matt Stoller on the RainbowPUSH rally at MSNBC:
"...It's not that people like Imus exist that is the problem, it's that our media ownership structures and access to capital allow Imus's career to be profitable.
<...>
I spent some time talking to Gary Flowers of the Black Leadership Forum... we discussed Katrina and race in the context of antebellum abolitionists versus those 'well-meaning' liberals who wanted to treat slaves more humanely."
And responding to a commentor at MyDD who wrote,
I don't want filters on my world unless they are installed by me.
(MS) "There are lots of filters already. It's called the media. The only question is whether you have control over them or if you don't. And right now, save for the internet, you don't."
Is there anyway to get Sharpton's show as a podcast? I can't stand streaming, and at work it's not allowed because of bandwidth problems.
-- ge
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