BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Monday, April 26, 2004
SEVERIN REPORTEDLY TO
APOLOGIZE. Well, this should be interesting. The Council
on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) claims it has been promised that WTKK Radio (96.9 FM)
talk-show host Jay
Severin will apologize
today during his show for saying, "I've got an idea, let's kill all
Muslims." Severin allegedly made that remark last
Thursday.
CAIR quotes
from an e-mail the organization says it received from the station's
general manager, Mark Mills: "I have spoken to Jay Severin and he
knows we take this seriously and do not condone offensive remarks
toward any religious groups and he will be apologizing on his show
Monday afternoon. He did not intend to offend anyone."
Severin's alleged outburst
reportedly came he while talking about a supposed Muslim plan to take
over America, even if it takes centuries. CAIR is calling for Severin
to be fired. The organization's chairman, Omar Ahmad, is quoted as
saying: "We believe a mere reprimand and apology is insufficient and
demand that he be taken off the air as he would be if he had attacked
any other religious or ethnic group."
The Boston Globe
reported
on Severin's latest on Saturday.
I didn't hear Severin, so I don't
want to prejudge this. I'll wait to hear what he has to say shortly
after 3. But if past is prologue, this is unsurprising. As I've
observed
previously, Severin regularly refers to Arabs and Muslims as
"towelheads" and illegal immigrants as "wetbacks." He has often
advocated the use of nuclear weapons against enemies of the United
States. And with the death toll in Iraq rising, Severin has expressed
frustration that the US military is engaging in urban warfare - thus
costing American lives - instead of essentially leveling areas where
the Iraqi opposition is strong.
But doesn't Severin have a First
Amendment right to say such things? Yes, of course. What he
doesn't have is a First Amendment right to host a talk show.
Hate speech is protected, but it's up to the management of WTKK to
decide whether it wants to pay for such garbage. And CAIR has a First
Amendment right to protest and to demand that Severin be
fired.
Recently another 'TKK talk-show
host, Mike Barnicle, apologized
for using the word "Mandingo" in referring to the marriage of former
secretary of defense William Cohen, who's white, and former Boston
television personality Janet Langhart, who's black.
Last October, WEEI Radio (AM 850),
after initially trying to ride it out, suspended
John Dennis and Gerry Callahan for two weeks after they jokingly
referred to a gorilla that had escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo as
a "Metco gorilla." Metco is a program that lets urban
African-American kids attend public schools in the
suburbs.
Two months before that, one of
'EEI's sister stations, WRKO Radio (AM 680), parted
company with John "Ozone"
Osterlind after Osterlind allegedly called for the "eradication" of
the Palestinian people on the air. (At the time of his departure,
Osterlind disputed what happened, and a complete tape of his
offending remarks has never surfaced. And a disclosure: WRKO pays me
to talk about the media on The Pat Whitley Show every Friday
at 9 a.m.)
All this is only tangentially tied
to the uproar over indecency. That, after all, only dates back to the
Super Bowl. Rather, what all of these local incidents have in common
is that they involve ugly joking, or even hate speech, about race,
ethnicity, and/or religion. Such a thing would have been unheard of -
literally - 10 years ago, but it has become a staple as
corporate-owned radio chains have continued their downward
spiral.
I suspect that Severin will slide
by with an apology, and that he'll be able to claim his remarks were made within an entirely political context. In any event, stay tuned.
posted at 9:24 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
