The Racial Side of Liberal Media Bias
By Scott Hogenson
CNSNews.com Executive Editor
November 22, 2004
John Sylvester is brilliant.
Sylvester, who hosts a talk show on a small radio station in Madison, Wisconsin, has managed to punch his own ticket and is now basking in his 15 minutes of fame. And all he had to do was use racial epithets to attack black Republicans.
Specifically, Sylvester finds it appropriate to describe for his listeners National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as Aunt Jemima and Secretary of State Colin Powell as Uncle Tom. How progressive of him.
"I'm not a racist," protested Sylvester, a white fellow who claims the reason he referred to Rice as Aunt Jemima was because, "her price of admission to the White House is being subservient." Well, that explains everything. We all know how routinely presidents hire people who oppose their initiatives to work in the White House.
Tom Walker, a general manager for the company that owns the station on which Sylvester is heard, is sticking by his guy. "He has the right to do it and say it," Walker was quoted as saying in a Nov. 20 report in The Capital Times of Madison. "As long as he isn't hateful and as long as he isn't racist, I'm fine with it."
Walker is "fine" with this employee using racial slurs to degrade Rice and Powell -- nothing hateful or racist here, folks -- and appears to think Sylvester really is the stand-up guy he claims to be. But it's interesting how Sylvester is given the benefit of that doubt while any number of his less progressive colleagues were not.
Broadcaster Doug 'Greaseman' Tracht was twice shown the door for racial comments he made as bad jokes on a pair of Washington, D.C. radio stations back in the 1980s and 1990s, the first involving Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the second referencing the dragging death of an African-American man in Texas.
Like Sylvester, Tracht went to great lengths to convince people he wasn't a racist. Unlike Sylvester, Tracht profusely apologized in both cases but that was deemed insufficient, and Tracht was promptly thrown overboard.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh was similarly ushered out of his job as a football commentator on ESPN in 2003 after critiquing the skills of Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb by saying, "The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."
Grandstanders including Wesley Clarke, desperately seeking traction for his Democratic presidential nomination, called for Limbaugh's ouster and their indignant cries were met with the broadcaster's resignation from his TV job.
As recently as October 27, Milwaukee broadcaster Mark Belling was suspended from his position after using the word 'wetbacks.' Unhappy with this suspension, some are trying to have Belling fired.
The same term was used by Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly in his February 3, 2003, broadcast, but he merely took some heat and kept his anchor seat. Perhaps herein lies the benefit of having the top-rated cable news program instead of a decently rated radio show in a medium-sized market.
While it's difficult to give John Sylvester any credit for understanding the value of civilized discourse or the roots of American racism, I can give him credit for understanding the political dynamic that permeates American media. On that count, he's frankly brilliant.
Mr. Sylvester knows it's okay for him and others on the political left to vilify conservatives and Republicans based on their race. He understands that the consequence for such behavior is toothless denunciation, otherwise accompanied by the rewards of notoriety conferred on liberals who attack those with whom they politically disagree.
Sylvester may be a home town broadcaster in a relatively small market, but when it comes to knowing how to manipulate the double standards of the liberal media, he's definitely ready for the bigs.
Scott Hogenson is executive editor of CNSNews.com. |
