One of the radio stations I steered clear of while I was living there was the Clear Channel owned WHAS-AM.WHAS 84 is the Louisville radio dial home of Rush, Beck and later Michael Weiner (oops Savage) after kicking a long time popular moderate talker off the air.
The host that stepped in it was conservative talker Mandy Connell, who has the lead in show to OxyContin Man. She replaced the late Francene Cuccinello in that time slot, who passed away unexpectedly back in March.
She made the derogatory comment about the president on Tuesday's show. She quickly apologized for it Wednesday morning according to the Ville Voice, but the fun has already started in Da Ville.
“The only thing I can do is express my embarrassment that was the phrase that came to mind and apologize for the offensive way I was trying to convey my point about the President’s mixed heritage. It was inappropriate, and truthfully, I was shocked when that tumbled out of my mouth. My only excuse is that when talking for three hours without the opportunity to choose words in advance, sometimes my brain doesn’t do the good or right thing. I am human.”
And so is President Obama, Ms. Connell, but you conservatives conveniently forget that on a regular basis.
The controversy has already stirred up progressive Louisville and hit the pages of the LEO and other local alternative media outlets.
This was what I had to say on the LEO's comment page:
Love the people wallowing in vanilla flavored privilege who are too scared to put their names on their disrespectful comments.
African-Americans and other people of color are sick and tired of white conservative people who comfortably and consistently make bigoted and borderline racist comments, especially those who do so on the radio and television airwaves.
Then y'all have the nerve to get your backs up when we call you on it.
You don't as part of the dominant ethnic group with a long negative history in this regard get to tell my community what we should and should not be upset over.
The local NAACP has already commented on it as well. Haven't seen anything official yet from Chris and the Fairness Campaign.
Louisville NAACP president Raoul Cunningham stated in a LEO interview, “I think it was a very poor choice of words. I know she doesn’t care for Obama or his policies, but to refer to him as a half-breed is disrespectful of the office of president.”“And racially, the term is derogatory in today’s society. It’s just not an acceptable term.”If you wish to have your say, here's the phone number for WHAS-AM Station Manager Kelly Carls at (502) 479-2222 or send an e-mail: info@whas.com.
A better strategy would be as Raoul Cunningham suggested later in his interview would be to monitor Connell's show more closely. If she repeats the negativity toward POC's, then whack her with boycott pressure on the peeps who advertise on her show.
Polar pointed out to me when I lived there that once upon a time WHAS-AM used to have distinguished moderate voices gracing its airwaves such as legendary UK basketball voice Cawood Ledford, Milton Metz, Wayne Perkey, Joe Elliott, and Gary Burbank.
Now it's just all right wing all the time. Except during UK basketball season.
But stations like WHAS-AM have to be shown that pimping on-air bigotry and race baiting isn't profitable.
TransGriot update: Chris Hartman, the chair of the Fairness Campaign sent out a press release Thursday condemning the comment as “an irresponsible racial slur.”
