Sing it with me!
Get a load of this:
On Thursday evening, the basement of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church rang with passionate denunciations of institutional racism. Community leaders called for a boycott, spoke of arrogance toward blacks, and threatened a class-action lawsuit. Their unlikely targets? Institutions that the causal observer might think would be bedfellows of the black community: The Democratic Party and Air America, the country's first full-scale attempt at a commercially viable liberal talk-radio network. [SNIP]
Al Franken, the biggest name on the new network's bench, explained in his opening monologue during Wednesday's debut broadcast that he named his noon-to-3-p.m. flagship show The O'Franken Factor, "for one reason, and one reason only: to annoy and bait Bill O'Reilly." He explained that Air America's mission is to "take back the country" from the right wing and, especially, the Bush administration. [SNIP]
A few miles north, black hearts were breaking at the sound of this proud parade of white liberals. Air America is still finding placement on stations across the country, but in New York it is leasing the time for its 19-hour broadcast day on WLIB-AM 1190, which was until this week a pillar of the black community. For three decades, the station had broadcast a mix of talk radio, funky music and news reports on local and Caribbean issues.
But 'LIB was a perennial money loser, unable to pull enough advertisers to its tiny market share, and Air America made an offer the owners apparently couldn't refuse. To some in the black community the action looked predatory, the political stripes of the predator irrelevant because they don't see a difference anyway between Democrats and Republicans.
Bob Law, an activist and former talk-radio veteran, convened the Thursday night rally in Harlem to help organize a response. In front of a small but vocal crowd that often echoed his words in a preacher's call-and-response, Law offered a primer on the economics of radio in the United States as he sees them. He accused the broadcast ratings service Arbitron of intentionally undercounting blacks and suggested Madison Avenue prosecutes an "anti-black strategy." "Ethnic radio stations are kept poor by design," he bellowed, promising a class-action lawsuit against Arbitron. [SNIP]
"We're asking every black New Yorker to turn off 'LIB! They need to restructure their on-air product," Law said to applause. [SNIP]
"The Democrats have greatly offended us with their insensitivity," he said. "We should use our vote like a weapon." If they choose to pick up that weapon when it's offered them in November, they may accidentally shoot themselves in the head.Isn’t that just too hilarious?
(Thanks to Lucianne.com)
