"Shock-jocks" suspended over sexist, racist slur against Native women
Thu, 2008-04-17 04:34
#1
"Shock-jocks" suspended over sexist, racist slur against Native women
Thu, 2008-04-17 04:34
#2
Shock-jocks suspended over slur against Alaska Native women
By Rachel D'Oro
[url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080416/ap_on_re_us/alaska_radio_insult]Asso... Press[/url]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A radio station suspended two disc jockeys Tuesday over a derogatory remark about Alaska Native women made on their show, a comment that has Alaskans comparing the shock-jock duo to Don Imus.
The Anchorage DJs, known as Woody and Wilcox, were joking about what makes someone a real Alaskan, when one of them said it's somebody who makes love to the Yukon River and urinates in a Native woman. It's a twist on an old saying - also offensive to many - that real Alaskans have urinated in the Yukon River and made love to an Alaska Native woman.
Some Alaska Natives are calling for sanctions against KBFX-FM, the hard rock station that features Woody and Wilcox on its morning show.
Michelle Davis, who is part Tlingit, said she was listening to the show April 9 while stuck in traffic on her way to work when she heard the comment.
"I was horrified," she said Tuesday. "It was a very ugly image."
Natives are likening the remarks to those made last spring by Imus, who called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." (...)
(Distributed by [url=http://www.global-sisterhood-network.org/]Global Sisterhood Network[/url])
[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Thu, 2008-04-17 05:02
#3
Maysie
Two comments (aside from the obvious one of men being paid to be professional assholes): I don't think these kinds of remarks are happening more often, I think they're happening as often as they ever did, only they're getting called on, and the utterers (or the corporations from which they come) are forced to apologize.
Is this progress? I suppose. Wake me up in 20 years if this is the rate it's going.... [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img] [img]mad.gif" border="0[/img]
My second comment, why must the media run to the nearest random person from the named group and get a response? Anyone, everyone! should be offended.
P.S. Re the media: Please note that Michelle Davis and State Rep Mary Nelson's heritages are named, but neither market manager for the station Gary Donovan's heritage, nor the heritage of the two disc jockeys are named. This is so very tiresome.
P.P.S. martin, I know you took the thread title from the headline on the news page, but the comments were both sexist and racist.
[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: bigcitygal ]
Thu, 2008-04-17 05:49
#4
BCG, I thought "slur against Native women" - and the ensuing story - pretty well made the point about racism, and inserted 'sexist' to better make the point about sexism, but I'll be glad to insert racist too.
Good point about covering up the responsible parties' heritage and about anybody needing to take offense at this - I sure did -, but isn't there something to be said about allowing the communities being slurred some 'voice' about the issue, being accountable to how they feel about it?
As for how often this kind of shit has been occuring, there certainly has been long-standing racism and sexism in white-dominated male-stream media.
But I am also seeing a "raunch culture" taking over, where low-lifes are pushing the envelope further and further with previously unheard-of pornographic woman-hating imagery being flung at listeners as just "good fun", part of the [url=http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr203/stack.htm]"new lad"[/url] ideology.
[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Thu, 2008-04-17 07:05
#5
Maysie
martin, no you don't need to change the thread title, I just find it fascinating (I'm in a meta-mode these days) the twists and turns the mainstream corporate media will get itself into to NOT use the word "racism". For some reason that's irking me more than usual this morning.
"slur"
"derogatory remark"
"joking" (which is supposed to be about intent)
"offered a variation on an old saying - offensive to many - "
It's like their word processing program automatically deletes any use of the word "racism", but that's of course assuming anyone's typing that in the first place.
Sexualized racist violence as humour and jokes, in the context that Native women in Alaska "are disproportionately targeted in violent crimes, including rape". Sickening.
I see your point about the community directly offended having voice in the public media condemnation, but even as I type that I don't think I agree with it. I'll think about why that is and get back to you.
As for raunch culture, and the mainstream-ization of women-hating imagery, you're probably right. Now I'm really depressed. Even imagining that this is one of the end-time signs of the decline and fall of the USian empire doesn't cheer me up.
Thu, 2008-04-17 08:47
#6
Hey, I just received this essay from the Abigails Daughters list, taking on a media pundit about precisely what you just described, the tendency for the media to push racism (and sexism) issues to the back burner because of an allegedly more important crisis:
quote:
April 14, 2008[url=http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_080414_sex_2c_race_and_..., Race and War[/url]
By Rady Ananda, Op-Ed News
Two different groups of media activists met this
year to discuss strategy. Based on the
composition of those groups, two very different
strategies were raised.At a March Common Cause forum, blogger Brad
Friedman collected applause when he marginalized
gender and racial equality:"I don't think we have the luxury to concern
ourselves with these things. We're talking about
remodeling the furniture in the house while the
house is burning down."Because these ideas were met with applause, I am
compelled to illuminate the danger of
internalized racism, sexism, homophobia,
xenophobia, etc. My hope is to remind those
applauding-progressives of some very basic values
we all share.(...)
Do click on the title above... It's a great read with quotes going back 232 years about how this ploy has *always* been used by allegedly progressist men against "the ladies" and against basic rights and freedoms.
Thu, 2008-04-17 09:24
#7
Maysie
Wow, thanks martin. Rady rocks!
quote:
The very ills the Founders decried (when they were the object of oppression), are the same ills created by their privilege-blinded vision of equality.These are not marginal issues. Oppression is the cause of all conflict, and it is driven by lust for wealth and power. Oppression is what the democracy movement seeks to end. It cannot be relegated to "later."
quote:
We are all part of the system and we need to make a commitment to be aware of our own racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism/homophobia, ageism and to move against these isms in ourselves and others in everything we do.
Thu, 2008-04-17 13:22
#8
Makwa
This argument reeks. Primarily, it repeats the 'progressive' oneuppersonship game while clinging to a fundamental and egreggious colonialist error - to portray the 'founding fathers' of the USofA as idealistic goody two shoes, except for the unfortunate, gee how did that happen, aspects of a few 'birth defects' of character like sexism and racism:
quote:
The very ills the Founders decried (when they were the object of oppression), are the same ills created by their privilege-blinded vision of equality.
The first lie is that the [b]colonialist thieving rapist enslaving bastards[/b] who collectively stole this major chunk of Turtle Island from it's rightful inhabitants were suffering any oppression other than that shared by contemporary right wing christian zealots who whinge and moan that they are being 'oppressed' by those who refuse to allow them to beat and jail homosexers and aborturers. There may be other issues that are raised here worth discussing, but I'm too peeved at this initial 'merica first appeal to the propoganda twitch, so I can't be bovvered.
Thu, 2008-04-17 18:03
#9
Maysie
Makwa, it seems I've believed the US creation myth of the old "escape from oppression". Yikes. Thanks for the wake up call.
Thu, 2008-04-17 18:24
#10
But but but (sputtered the white man)... Couldn't those floundering fathers have both fought the British to affirm *their* freedom from an oppressive British regime (I do recall a rather bloody war), all the while plundering and killing and enslaving Native Americans (and Africans), as you point out? Aren't both true? Which would validate Abigail Adams' original argument that their non-inclusiveness made them not really freedom fighters but continuing oppressors?
[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
[ 17 April 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Thu, 2008-04-17 19:28
#11
Maysie
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
I'm tired and going to bed. Maybe some insights will reach me in dreamland, but for now my answer to your question is: Nuh-uh! [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]