During the broadcast of his AM talk radio show
Thursday evening, former one-term repugican congressman Joe Walsh
live-tweeted that he was being censored by his radio station from having
an “honest conversation” about racial slurs. Walsh felt that the
station was practicing a double standard by allowing him to use the term
‘redskin’ when discussing the ongoing controversy over the name of
Washington’s NFL franchise, but would not let him use his airtime to say
other racial slurs, particularly the N-word.
Apparently, Walsh persisted in trying to use other
racial slurs on-air, even after the general manager told him the words
were verboten and to cease his attempts. Walsh then claimed his show was
pulled off the air early and he was sent home. His status as of
Thursday night was uncertain, but he tweeted that he should know
something by 5 PM Friday, when his show next airs.
Where should we begin? First off, we already know
that Walsh is going to claim he had his 1st Amendment rights trampled on
by the radio station’s management. He tweeted that he was censored. It
always seems like tea party-types, a la Sarah Palin, claim that their
free speech is being taken away whenever someone is criticized over
their words, or somebody gets a TV show or radio gig canceled for saying
something dumb and/or offensive. Here’s the deal. Walsh can say
whatever he wants without fear of reprisal from the federal government,
as long as he is not issuing a direct threat at somebody. However, that
freedom doesn’t provide him the right to be given a forum to speak. He
has the freedom to say what he wants, but his speech is not free from
consequences.
Another thing — what is it with wingnuts
and their specific desire to say the N-word? Not only that, but say it
without anyone getting offended? It seems like there is just
this insatiable appetite with certain wingnuts that can’t be
tempered until they can spout off racial slurs willy nilly in front of
minorities without the fear of retaliation. Recently, we saw Glenn Beck and a wingnut ‘artist’ bemoan
the fact that they can’t get away with saying the N-word or homophobic
slurs, blaming it all on political correctness and the “thought police.”
Finally, there is the whole false equivalency thing
with Walsh’s argument. Like it or not, the name of Washington’s football
team is the Redskins. While the term is offensive and the team should
change its name, you aren’t going to see the level of discomfort or
anger by saying ‘redskin’ right now, especially since their is an
ongoing debate on the use and appropriateness of it. To just make a
blanket proclamation that because you can get away with saying one slur
due to the special circumstances surrounding it, you should then be able
to say any other slur without consequence, is taking obtuseness to a
whole other level.
Then again, we aren’t really dealing with someone
who is known for subtlety of thought, empathy towards minorities or
taking responsibility for his own actions. This is a man who squelched on his child support while he was in Congress. Then, after being soundly defeated by Tammy Duckworth in 2012, he tried to get the court to lower his child support payments
because he was “unemployed through no fault of his own.” One of the big
reasons Walsh was defeated in 2012, besides the revelations he was a
deadbeat dad, was his claim that Duckworth, who lost both her legs
serving in Iraq, isn’t a true war hero.
Since leaving office, Walsh has continued to make
moronic and offensive statements, possibly to gain attention, but also
just as likely because he doesn’t know any better. After the Boston
Marathon bombing in 2013, Walsh said that all young Muslim men needed to be racially profiled. A month prior to that, he said that Americans are stupid and lazy and
Democrats just want to keep blacks and Latinos dependent on the
government so as to keep them “on the government plantation.”
It seems like a very real possibility that Walsh
will be fired. However, with his track record, one has to wonder why the
radio station hired him in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment