Racist Radio

It is really interesting how an incident of racism on a college campus can stir up so much controversy, yet everyday listeners of a popular Springfield radio station that is extremely racist, do not say a word.

The radio station that I am talking about is 102.9 which plays mostly rap, hip hop, and r & b music.  Since most of these genres of music are played by black artists, I don't see a problem that the radio station plays mostly music composed by black artists.  But I do have a huge problem with their commentators, specifically "Russ Par and the morning show."

I work at 8am every day, and am driving for the bulk of the time so I have done a lot of listening of the radio and specifically 102.9 because  I love the music they play.  But one day, I heard something that really disturbed me.  It was black history month and Russ Par was asking if listeners would call in to answer questions about important figures in the African American freedom movement.  This seems fine so far, but then he said "We only want black listeners to call in because other people just don't understand as well, or aren't as aware of the black figures that made these strides."  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  He even admitted he was being a little racist but wasn't doing it "directly."  How much more direct can you be?  Other people don't understand?  I don't think that is true.  In addition, there were many white people who positively contributed to the movement as well, and they did not get any recognition on the air.  I don't understand how ignorant some people can be.  And they wonder why there is still racism in America.  It is because of the little things like this. It is the ignorance of it all.  And this isn't the first time they have said things that were outright racist towards whites or have had programming that is specifically targeting African Americans and encouraging them that the world is still the worst place for them...

In another recent show, they were convincing people that property tax increases or just the principle of high property taxes in neighborhoods that are primarily black, are issued so that they move out of the neighborhood.  Do people really have no clue what property taxes function as and why they are raised in certain areas?  Most of the time, they directly correlate with increases in standards of living, and a majority of the taxes go toward the funding of public schools.  If there are public schools that the government believes are doing very well or want to do better, they will try to increase their funding by raising property taxes.  It is not a race issue whatsoever.  So encouraging listeners who clearly are not knowledgeable on the subject that they skepticism of property taxes correlation with the demographics of neighborhoods is not doing any good.  All it is doing is increasing racist feelings among citizens.

It just really makes me mad that a radio station, which defines the democratic values that free speech has in America is still used improperly and offensively to certain racial groups.  If the radio station was the other way around, white people only letting other white people call in, or saying that their group was undermined in society for completely unrelated reasons, there would be complete uproar and drama.  If African Americans expect the race problem to go away then they also need to stop contributing to it.