I’m putting out a call to desi college students in the Philly area: come up with a list of companies that advertise on Power 99’s Star and Buc Wild show.
Why? Well, let’s take a little tour through social science, an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.
First stop: Anthropology
Anthropology directs our attention to the use of discourse in the construction of meaning. Huh? In simpler language, Anthropology teaches us to listen closely, not just to what somebody is saying but to how they say it.
Everybody? Get out your Turbanhead.coms, we’re going to do a close reading:
Community-affairs director Loraine Ballard Morrill, is quoted as saying “Essentially [we’re] apologizing for things on our Web site that were racially inflammatory and insensitive, saying, ‘We took it off our Web site and it won’t happen again.’ ” She said the more serious matter was posting the clip on the Web site. “That probably made it a much more – just a worse situation. Then people could click on it and hear it. That was not cool… . He made a big ol’ mistake in judgment.” [snip] Secondly, the Inquirer story tries to diminish the scope of the problem by taking Morrill’s word that “Most of the e-mails came from people who do not listen to Power 99, whose audience is mainly African American. What does the demographics or geographic location of the offended have to do with this offending clip?
Let’s try to answer Turbanhead here. Why is Power99 apologizing for putting the clip on the web rather than for having recorded it in the first place? Why do they keep mentionining that the people complaining are not their listeners?
I think their language reveals their notion of “fairness.” In their world, a company’s job is to make its audience laugh. In their minds, there would have been nothing wrong if the skit had simply aired as planned, heard mainly by their on air listeners. The mistake was putting the clip on the web, and exposing it to a broader audience who might be offended by it. That is, they’re not sorry they did it, they’re sorry we’re offended. They’re trying to be gracious.
You see something similar when they protest that we aren’t their regular listeners. They don’t think it’s fair that we, who are not their core audience, are getting upset. They’ve done their job, namely entertaining their audience. We shouldn’t be butting in. The fact that they butted into our realm by calling India, using lewd language and threats is not really of importance to them. They can call India, but we can’t call Philly, home of M.Knight himself.Next stop: Economics
Why do they see their primary moral responsibillity as to their listeners? Why do they see our complaints as illegitimate?
Simple – they are doing business with their listeners. If they offend their listeners, they lose money. They aren’t going to ask Star and Buc to get up and apologize to all anonymous Brown people everywhere, these two are stars, they just got a huge contract in NY. The fact that they apologized at all probably came about b/c Clear Channel announced a “zero-tolerance” policy after paying $1.75 Million in fines to the FCC last year.
Last stop, Politics
So how do we get their attention and force an apology from the shock jocks themselves? Hit ’em where they hurt, their advertisers. Once we just compile a list of advertisers, they’ll start to pay attention. They’ll pay more attention if that list finds its way into an Indian newspaper. You see, some of the same companies that advertise on Power99 are making big bucks in India selling their wares to middle class workers like Tina/Steena who work at call centers. Indians are very nationalistic. I don’t think KFC would like to start to lose Indian consumers, and carefully built brand associations, just as they are starting a big push. If they’re a sponsor of the Star and Buc Wild show, I think they’d prefer to switch their ads to another fine Philly radio station, and perhaps take out a few more ads in order to reach the same size market.
They’re not worried about a boycott amongst US based desis, this pair has offended larger and more organized US communities than us. But India, that’s a different matter. Loss of market share now could be very expensive down the road.
I also think we should continue to send missives to the FCC, but not hold our breath. The FCC can only police lewdness and vulgarity, not content. That is, we can point out to the FCC that he used the phrases “Bitch” and “Rat Eater.” He very carefully did not, however, say the word “Fuck” precisely because he didn’t want the FCC to slap him with a fine. Instead he asked “what the eff would you know” and offered to “choke the eff out of [her]” It’s possible that the FCC may also consider the threat to “choke the eff” out of Tina obscene because violence against women is generally outside the bounds of decency, but I’m not a lawyer. The main reason to write the FCC is that the more noise we make there, the more annoyed Clear Channel HQ will get, and the more likely they are to smack somebody further down the food chain.
To sum up for today’s class – follow the Benjamins. If you want to force an apology out of this pair, then your best tactic is to compile a list of advertisers. That’s our major point of leverage. Everything else is simply … academic.
question: what manner of apology are you looking for? power99’s web site says:
On air, for starters.
On air, and by the people who made the call. Also, an apology which isn’t undercut in the same breath:
As I explained above, they’re clearly apologizing for having posted the clip on the web but their apology for having harassed and threatened a poor woman at work is feeble and fainthearted. Lastly, how about an apology to Tina herself for having threatened to choke her?
easy solution/payback: some desi person needs to disrupt an “african-american” trying to do his/her job [remainder deleted by administrator]
Right, because two wrongs make a right, and disrupting people at work, that would be a great solution.
This isn’t solely an african-american-south asian issue. It is an issue of racial and gender intolerance, and no matter who conducted it (or their race) it would be wrong. By focusing on the race of the abusers, we are taking away from the main issue, that a vulguar, offensive, threatening and racist phone call was made, that a poor call center employee (in this case Indian) was told that she was a “rat-eating bitch,” and that the caller was going to choke the eff out of her. That is wrong.
The payback is taking action. Not by retribution, but by writing a letter, or fax, or email of complaint, to clear channel, to the FCC, to Power 99, so that people understand it is not ok to be racially abusive in this instance or in others.
This Gandhian rhetoric makes me sick. Force ONLY understands FORCE. First a bit of history: Star and Buc are Brooklyn locals. They first started out putting out a local newsletter takin on hip-hop’s holy cows. Then came a public access show in NYC that I used to watch called “Universal Player Haters” where they took on callers and talked smack. Then came a monthly column in ‘The Source’ and a MTV spot. 2 or 3 years ago they were on NYC’s Hot 97 (premiere “urban” station) doing the mornin’ shift before being banished to Philly. Star emulated his idol Howard Stern and made fun of his own community as well. I was laffing yesterday when I was reading some Desi neo-bohemian’s Friendster profile when under interests she included “uniting communities of color”. As if the brotha walking down Nostarnd Ave in Flatbush wanted to engage her in a dialogue. You can’t ask for respect, you gotta demand it. When someone steps up to you on the street, in a bar, in a party….step up and get in their face. The reason there isn’t a black or Hispanic Apu on the Simpsons is that those communities wouldn’t satnd for it. One of the two black characters on the show is a doctor….yea that’s real realistic. Please! Calls to the station is all good and well but won’t change the underlying reality. This type of stuff happens everyday in TV, movies, print, in casual converstions cuz you don’t step up.
Ben-
I hear you– I said similar wrt not waiting around for respect. If we don’t demand it, we get what we deserve. Like you, I “step up” when disrespected, no matter what, even when others think that I should just “keep quiet”. That’s why I’m here, writing, raging, agitating.
I applaud your accurate and thorough knowledge of Mr. Torain’s background…it’s obvious that you have a valuable perspective to contribute.
So tell me, bluntly and exactly:
what do YOU think we should do?
i think you should make an mp3 of star with like cool edit or something that makes him say he’s gay. do it with edits like the dan rather “racked by rope/rocked by rape” remix so you’re using his own voice.
have him insult himself, have people with indian accents insult him, talk about how dhalsim has a bigger **** than him, and cut in big artists to make it sound like they’re dissing him. then put it on kazaa and bittorrent under various names like “AWESOME DIS ON HOT 97 STAR BY EM,DRE,DMX, DESIS.”.
best would be if you have him threatening himself with “choking the eff out of him”. would be some work but if done right and circulated under the right filenames he would hear it.
In response to the comment above: What the hell? A ‘cool edit or something that makes him say he’s gay'”. So it seems that you think that insinuating that someone who is probably straight is gay is a good/valid/legitimate way of getting back at someone who insults another person on racial grounds? For the moron who wrote this, I wish I knew where to begin. Mainly just appalled by your complete acceptance of the idea that to be called gay is some kind of insult – after all, you didn’t suggest that they do an edit of him saying he was .. white, for example? Oh, let me see, that would be because bering white isn’t ‘bad’, but being gay? oh, baaaaaaad. I hope you realise your ‘suggestion’ is just as bigoted/unacceptable/plain wrong as the original source of all this discussion. If your suggested means of getting ‘respect’ for desis is to diss gay people, then I’ll do without this kind of phony ‘respect’, thank you.
Anna et al, First off I didn’t mean to belittle the efforts in making your voice heard to the radio station. Their non-apology withstanding, I don’t think you’ll be hearing any such skits in the future, at least not on that show. But you and I know, the “writers” are going to get together and drop something like the following, “Yo son, we got to chill on the dothead skits for a minute.” Secondly, I don’t have the answers and don’t claim to. My larger point is that you don’t take disrespect lying down. I appluad your stance against hate speech. The beyatch who posted those silly comments about black people is immature and ultimately cowardly. Doesn’t take alot to type some bs from the safety of your keyboard. At the same time you don’t (and shouldn’t) have to act like a walking saint. I had no problem dropping racial epithets on some punks who tried to jump me two years ago nor do I regret bustin their lips with my bag of (canned) groceries. (ofcourse if they looked like the types who were packin’ I would have thought twice.) The words I used in seething anger are no reflection of how I feel towards co-workers and friends of the same race as those kids. At the time I naively believed they’d think twice about targeting another brown guy. Or maybe they took out their frustration on some brown newstand owner. Maybe the interaction had nothing to do with my race? Who knows? Only true thing is a old Indian proverb, ‘the coward dies a thousand times before his death.’ Blacks and hispanics groups would never tolerate such treatment in the media for their respective groups. I was having an argument with close friend who’s black, he was decrying media representations of blacks; I was arguing the opposite…Everytime I watch Law&Order the crimes are committed by white people living in the Upper East/West Side while seemlingly the presiding judges seem to be black 60% of the time. If anything the media goes out of their way to represented the chosen minorities. Hmmm…we chose to disagree. So yaaa…call out the media but juat as importantly be the change you want to see. And that’s the only Ghandi quote I like. Step up to the plate.
First, this post would have been a lot more funny if it was about 70s era Pakistani music sensation, the Benjamin Sisters.
Second, you should have a standing policy on this site that if anyone spells Gandhi wrong e.g Ghandi, Gandi, Gahndi), the comment will automatically be deleted.
I agree whole-heartedly with your second point. I think I will have to mention something to the mutineers about this.
on some real crazy shit i hate the star and buckwild show i don’t like the things they do or say they are hutful