Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The People Power Hour...

I had rented a truck last night and unfortunately it did not come with a CD player or cassette deck, so I was left with radio.  I decided to try and find some talk radio program while I was driving and I ended my search when I came up with something called the People Power Hour with George Crossley.  Sadly, the talk radio program was on 810 AM, Central Florida's only oldies station (Clear Channel's WEBG changed from oldies to a Spanish-language format a few years back).  I rarely listen to talk radio so I figured I would give it a chance.

On the program they were discussing the NAACP so I decided to listen on.  The dialogue was very interesting.  The comments pretty much followed the typical right-wing talking points, claiming that the NAACP was attacking the tea party movement as a whole for racist beliefs held by a minority of the groups classified as being part of the "movement."  They were obviously referring to the recent resolution condemning racist elements found in the tea parties.

"We take no issue with the Tea Party movement. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy," the NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous wrote. "What we take issue with is the Tea Party's continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements.

"The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement."

Tea parties all over responded in defense to the resolution, with Sarah Palin even writing about the matter on her Facebook account:
I am saddened by the NAACP’s claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America’s Constitutional rights are somehow “racists.” The charge that Tea Party Americans judge people by the color of their skin is false, appalling, and is a regressive and diversionary tactic to change the subject at hand.
Palin even claims to be on the receiving end of racist claims because as governor, she failed to issue a proclamation in 2007 for Juneteenth, a celebration commemorating the freeing of U.S. slaves, which was required by state law.  Palin retroactively issued the proclamation right before she left office (probably to cover herself) and the lawsuit was eventually dismissed.

The callers to the program seemed to share these opinions.  One elderly woman from the south called up upset about the NAACP's resolution.  She claimed that the the Democrats were being duplicitous and that the difference between the north and the south is that blacks know where they stand in the south.  Blacks may think they are being treated equally in the north, but in the end they are just the white man's pawn, unlike the south, where they know their place in society.

The radio hosts agreed.

The woman also mentioned the Dixiecrat party, claiming that the Democrats party is the Dixiecrat party (didn't the Dixiecrats eventually become integrated with the GOP?) and that back when her daddy bought their first television set in 1952, there were only three television stations - ABC, NBC, and CBS - and can you guess who controlled them all?  The Democratic party!

The radio hosts agreed.

The second caller I heard thought it was important to discuss the fallacy of the human race being one race, believing that humans can be further separated into races based on attributes, whether they be short or tall, dark-skinned or light-skinned, or fast or slow.  The caller believed that each race can then be accurately classified.  The caller believed that while individuals can eventually change race over time, integration of races is not possible, and that we must accept the racial differences before we move on.  He sounded oddly like Del Preston from Waynes World 2.

The radio hosts agreed.

Fortunately, I was done driving and turned off the program, but it somewhat surprised me as to just how radical these comments were.  What bothered me even more is that these are the same people that are steering the conservative narrative, attacking things like universal health care or economic and environmental regulations - things that every other Western nation has adopted.

As a side note, I found it interesting that the right-wing latched onto the "race" aspect of the NAACP's comments and not the others, such as the "homophobia" aspect, but then again, what else can you expect from the people who believe in Fistgate?

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