Honestly I’m soooo tired of the following topic. I know that I should be completely jaded by such things already, but I like to think that they can still bring out the fight in me. The same mob mentality over the radiowaves that we have seen in the past has happened once again. SM tipster “Ayyner” alerts us to yet another racist outburst by some East Coast on-air personalities. The following is a partial transcript (a longer transcript here) of the Jersey Guys Radio Show on NJ 105.1 FM. The Jersey Guys are Craig Carton and Ray Rossi.
[Caller]: You just said it all, the last couple of Â… callers, I guess they donÂ’t know that they live in America and weÂ’re being overrun. I had just moved out of Edison because of what has happened in the past 10 yearsÂ… Orientals are all along, the whole complete route 27. And Indians have taken over Edison in north and all over.
[Carton]: Damn Orientals and Indians.
[Caller]: I..i moved out..36 years IÂ’ve lived in Edison
[Carton]: And what was the biggest problem you had with the Orientals and the Indians ?
[Caller]: I canÂ’t handle them! ThereÂ’s no American people anymore.
[Carton]: Eh..
[Caller]: There shoving us the hell out!
[Carton]: ItÂ’s like youÂ’re a foreigner in your own country isnÂ’t it?
In my opinion the above excerpt is rather tame compared to the rest. Their ignorant invective seems to be particularly focused on East Asians. Unlike previous on-air incidents, this seems to have occurred in the middle of a “political discussion” instead of one meant to be funny. Specifically, the conversation centered around the upcoming race for mayor of Edison, NJ. The discussion basically degenerated into Carton bashing liberals who he thinks care too much about getting minority votes. You should be concerned with the majority (“me”) to paraphrase Carton. According to an article from a few weeks ago this duo has a large audience.
Touted as the most listened to FM talk show, the afternoon program commands nearly 1 million listeners a week, said Ray Handel, director of marketing and promotions for the station.
Of course this is really nothing new. Limbaugh gets away with this kind of crap all the time but is clever enough to not be so blatant. If you can’t even be clever enough to veil your racism [sarcasm] you deserve to be smacked off the airways. In any case, we’ve been informed that “South Asian legal organizations are coming together again to craft a concerted response.”
Update (4/27/05): The reaction.
Great work Lester! I have used your sample letters to write to several sponsors. Let us continue our mission of getting Jersey Guys fired.
Thanks Ravish and Mavinder. It’s good to know I’m not the only one working on this. Let’s show them what the power of the pen can do!
You’re welcome, Gester Lesteland 🙂
great idea, Lester. I just sent in a letter to the parent company of GEICO (Berkshire Hathaway) asking them why they support such programming. Let’s see if I get any response.
Can some one point us to the local newspaper where we can follow the events or post updates?
Vivek
The best local paper to read is probably The Star-Ledger, which you can peruse at nj.com. BTW, here’s a juicy update:
This evening my wife was listening to the infamous Carton & Rossi show when she heard Jun Choi being interviewed — the same Korean-American mayorial candidate the shock jocks had ridiculed on April 25. She also told me that Craig Carton made mention of his apologizing to Mr. Choi and to the Asian-American community. I just checked my e-mail, and this is what I found:
80-20 New Jersey Chapter, who is also a member of New Jersey Coalition for Asian American Civil Rights announced that 101.5FM agreed in writing to the following.
o Issue an on air, formal & blanket apology by the “Jersey Guys,”
o Invite Jun Choi (the KoreanAm candidate who was attacked) to be a guest by “Jersey Guys.” [The acceptance by Choi is unknown.]
o Cultural sensitivity training for all 101.5 FM employees,
o Public access programming focused on promoting awareness of the contributions of Asian Americans, and
o Diversity committee established at 101.5 FM with community members to foster cross-cultural understanding
Also their members ran e-mail campaigns targeting Comcast, Verizon and Dish Network, urging them to pull ads from the station. As a result, Comcast and Verizon agreed to suspend their radio ads.
We would like to thank 80-20 and everyone else who worked very hard on this issue. As always, AMWD will follow up closely on any new development in regards to this NJ 101.5 FM campaign just like we did with any other major campaigns.
Our e-mail campaign, http://www.citizenspeak.org/campaign/5366.php (“Kick The Jersey Guys Off The Air!”) collected the largest amount of signatures in the shortest amount of time, even more so than our last major campaign, Hot 97. We would like to thank everyone who participated in this campaign through AMWD and other APIA organizations as well.
James Fujikawa
Co-Founder/Campaign Director
Asian Media Watchdog 676 A Ninth Avenue New York, NY 10036 Phone: 212-560-5683 Fax: 212-957-9191
Visit our website at http://www.asianmediawatchdog.com
The Asian-American organizations I’ve been working with seem satisfied with this result; and if they’re satisfied, I’m satisfied. Thank you all for visiting this site and helping with this campaign. This shows you what consumer power can do.
I have the audio of Craig Carton’s on-air apology on my Web site: http://www.CeaseRacism.blogspot.com/
wow hearing this is said all mai friends are indian guju and punjabi and i never was racist towards them maybe becuz wen mai paretns 1st came here it was an indian familia that helped us out actualli punjabi family i watch vdesi and all the bollywood movies i luv ur culture adn they respect mine and eat each otehrs foods that how things should be