Friday, November 19, 2004
Don't You Mean "Uncle Ben"?
I had planned to take the rest of the day off from blogging, but I am forced to rise to the defense of a former colleague. The most e-mailed story at Yahoo News this afternoon--by a three-to-one margin--is "Radio Host Calls Rice 'Aunt Jemima'." The host in question is John "Sly" Sylvester of WTDY here in Madison. (Sly and I attended the University of Wisconsin at Platteville together back in the day, and we both worked at the campus radio station. I always thought I was the first program director ever to suspend him for something he said on the air, until I found out years later he'd been kicked off the air in high school, too.) In the intervening quarter-century [!], Sly's fearless attitude toward, well, everything, has turned him into the top radio personality in Madison, a position he's held for the better part of 10 years.
You can read the story linked above yourself for the details of what he said. I'd call your attention to Sly's quote in the Wisconsin State Journal this morning:
Here's the weird part: A couple of weeks ago, Milwaukee talk show host (and sometime-Rush Limbaugh fill-in) Mark Belling referred to Mexicans as "wetbacks" and was yanked off the air in response. (As program director of WTDY, Sly says he has no plans to suspend himself.) Latino groups in Milwaukee have attempted to organize advertiser boycotts and get Belling fired, but he returned to the air this week full of sarcastic apologies. Belling's remark was almost exclusively a Wisconsin story. However, if you Google "sylvester jemima" this afternoon, you'll find over 170 links to the story from all across the United States and from Australia and the UK, too. So Sly, who is generally an unapologetic progressive, takes out after two powerful individuals and it's a worldwide story, but a conservative throws a comparable insult at an entire ethnic group and barely breaks through the torrent. The so-called liberal media strikes again.
About Sly personally: In college he was (and I don't think he'd dispute this), an asshole. (It takes one to know one; so was I.) He was utterly contemptuous of almost everything, starting with authority and moving on to most other students, the faculty, the city of Platteville itself, etc. I don't think you could find very many eminent Plattevillians who would have a lot of good things to say about him as he was back then. I can't say we were friends, exactly--colleagues is a better term. Officially, as a manager, I had to look askance at his renegade nature; unofficially, I admired his renegade nature a little bit. We lost track of each other over the next 20-plus years, but we got reacquainted this past summer. In a roundabout way, he's become the successful professional lots of us aspired to be 25 years ago. He's still an iconoclast and still as blunt and opinionated as hell--but he's also thoroughly dedicated to what he does and utterly serious about it. He didn't get to be successful by accident (as I think some of our Platteville colleagues from back then like to believe). So this remark isn't a simple matter of popping off by a guy starving for attention.
My hope is that the management of WTDY will stick by him; I suspect they will, but I can't be entirely sure. This town is far more self-consciously liberal than Milwaukee, and self-consciously liberal outrage is just as capable of inflicting casualties as conservative outrage. I hope WTDY won't go stupid and fire the guy--because by assuaging Madison's white liberal guilt, they'd be contributing to the wingnut crackdown on criticism of the Bush cult.
Late Note: Right after I posted this, I saw that Lean Left had blogged the story also--and a commenter there reported that the Belling story logged over 300 weblinks when it broke the week before the election. So contrary to my statement above, the Belling slur got national attention too--but I stand by my contention that it didn't penetrate the zeitgeist to anywhere near the extent that the Sly story has, if the Yahoo most-emailed designation means anything. (5pm)
I had planned to take the rest of the day off from blogging, but I am forced to rise to the defense of a former colleague. The most e-mailed story at Yahoo News this afternoon--by a three-to-one margin--is "Radio Host Calls Rice 'Aunt Jemima'." The host in question is John "Sly" Sylvester of WTDY here in Madison. (Sly and I attended the University of Wisconsin at Platteville together back in the day, and we both worked at the campus radio station. I always thought I was the first program director ever to suspend him for something he said on the air, until I found out years later he'd been kicked off the air in high school, too.) In the intervening quarter-century [!], Sly's fearless attitude toward, well, everything, has turned him into the top radio personality in Madison, a position he's held for the better part of 10 years.
You can read the story linked above yourself for the details of what he said. I'd call your attention to Sly's quote in the Wisconsin State Journal this morning:
"I'm not apologizing for what I said," Sylvester said Thursday in an interview. "I stand by it.As usual, it seems to be the language used to express the sentiment and not the sentiment itself that's got people upset. Because Sly's pretty much right on the substance--Rice and Powell have been part of an administration that's been an absolute disaster for black America without, as far as we know, raising a peep about it. They have served as a kind of window dressing for an administration whose commitment to diversity and equality is appalling. And people like Senator Russ Feingold and the Madison Urban League, both of whom criticized the remarks, have to know it. You can argue that the non-focus on Rice's and Powell's race is a great step forward for racial equality--but we all know we don't live in that country yet. Race still matters here, even when we try to act like it doesn't, and this flap is Exhibit A.
"I was aiming that directly at a black person that is letting himself (and herself) be used by an administration that has been extremely hostile to minorities," he said.
"Being subservient and being a black role model are two different things. I think (Rice) has not only been bad for the country and for national security, but I think she's been a bad black role model.
"I don't think being subservient to white people and not blowing the whistle on their misdoings is a good role model at all." . . .
"I did call her the Aunt Jemima of the administration because I think not only have they used her race as a trophy, but I think her price of admission to the White House has been complete obedience to the white power structure in the White House," Sylvester said. "(And) I called (Powell) Uncle Tom. Frankly I think they bought his silence."
Here's the weird part: A couple of weeks ago, Milwaukee talk show host (and sometime-Rush Limbaugh fill-in) Mark Belling referred to Mexicans as "wetbacks" and was yanked off the air in response. (As program director of WTDY, Sly says he has no plans to suspend himself.) Latino groups in Milwaukee have attempted to organize advertiser boycotts and get Belling fired, but he returned to the air this week full of sarcastic apologies. Belling's remark was almost exclusively a Wisconsin story. However, if you Google "sylvester jemima" this afternoon, you'll find over 170 links to the story from all across the United States and from Australia and the UK, too. So Sly, who is generally an unapologetic progressive, takes out after two powerful individuals and it's a worldwide story, but a conservative throws a comparable insult at an entire ethnic group and barely breaks through the torrent. The so-called liberal media strikes again.
About Sly personally: In college he was (and I don't think he'd dispute this), an asshole. (It takes one to know one; so was I.) He was utterly contemptuous of almost everything, starting with authority and moving on to most other students, the faculty, the city of Platteville itself, etc. I don't think you could find very many eminent Plattevillians who would have a lot of good things to say about him as he was back then. I can't say we were friends, exactly--colleagues is a better term. Officially, as a manager, I had to look askance at his renegade nature; unofficially, I admired his renegade nature a little bit. We lost track of each other over the next 20-plus years, but we got reacquainted this past summer. In a roundabout way, he's become the successful professional lots of us aspired to be 25 years ago. He's still an iconoclast and still as blunt and opinionated as hell--but he's also thoroughly dedicated to what he does and utterly serious about it. He didn't get to be successful by accident (as I think some of our Platteville colleagues from back then like to believe). So this remark isn't a simple matter of popping off by a guy starving for attention.
My hope is that the management of WTDY will stick by him; I suspect they will, but I can't be entirely sure. This town is far more self-consciously liberal than Milwaukee, and self-consciously liberal outrage is just as capable of inflicting casualties as conservative outrage. I hope WTDY won't go stupid and fire the guy--because by assuaging Madison's white liberal guilt, they'd be contributing to the wingnut crackdown on criticism of the Bush cult.
Late Note: Right after I posted this, I saw that Lean Left had blogged the story also--and a commenter there reported that the Belling story logged over 300 weblinks when it broke the week before the election. So contrary to my statement above, the Belling slur got national attention too--but I stand by my contention that it didn't penetrate the zeitgeist to anywhere near the extent that the Sly story has, if the Yahoo most-emailed designation means anything. (5pm)
