I think I speak for all Mutineers and rational humans when I ask for your civility here. We are ALL outraged, but we’re trying to act constructively. Hate speech is NOT constructive, nor is it welcome on this site. That doesn’t mean that we’re censoring you, telling you to take it like a bitch or turn the other cheek.

We do appreciate irreverent, funny commentary…

But RACISM and BIGOTRY are neither of those things. If you have something to say, please feel FREE to say it. If, however, it’s homophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, anti-Black, anti-Amreekan, …please start your own blog and spew venom there.

You don’t fight hate with hate; you fight it with righteous indignation, moral superiority and passionate activism.

We will delete hate speech.

This project was created for many noble reasons; the content of certain comments does not honour those beginnings at all, indeed, it makes us sound like hypocrites who don’t deserve the victories we are struggling for.

If we want respect, not only must we demand it, we must conduct ourselves with it as well.

Be the change you wish to see.

Thank you. Continue reading →

How you livin’, readers? Are you fine? Or are you just okay? More importantly, has your ire gone away?

Well get ready, I’m about to stir it up again. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

WUSL-FM (Power 99) conceded yesterday that an on-air routine by morning shock jocks Star and Buc Wild was “racially inflammatory” and pulled an audio clip of it off the station Web site.

Community-affairs director Loraine Ballard Morrill, who has fielded more than 130 angry e-mails and phone calls, said the station reprimanded the employee who posted the clip on the Web…

Please understand– I’m THRILLED that mainstream media is picking up on this very important story. I’m also heartened by the fact that Power99 is…um…starting to pay attention.

They are partially correct; the employee who chose to post that clip on the Power99 site wasn’t wise to do so, and it is nice to see the station doing…something.

But something is not enough.

Power99 “conceded”? I don’t need concessions, I need responsibility. Honour. Integrity. If Loraine Ballard Morrill was the ideal Community Affairs Director, she’d sincerely own the station’s gaffe, she’d get it, she’d make amends. But nothing regarding this incident is ideal… Continue reading →

Richard Lewis & Thea Mitchem
Power99 WUSL-FM
440 Domino Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19128

Dear Power99/Clear Channel/lowly radio intern,

How are you? I hope you are well rested and relaxed, that way the contents of this letter will be better absorbed. How am I? Why thank you for not asking! IÂ’ll bluntly tell you; I am MAD.

Earlier this week, your prized morning “talent” Star thought it would be funny to call an Indian Customer Service agent for the sole purpose of threatening her with assault while verbally abusing her. His justification for this outrageous lack of decency was her race; she was foreign, “a rat-eater”, potentially involved with outsourcing, and that made her okay to target.

Wrong.

This was inappropriate, disrespectful, violent and below you. It was below all of us. That didnÂ’t stop you from publicizing a clip of StarÂ’s verbal assault on your stationÂ’s website before hastily retracting it a few days ago.

Since you took the mp3 off of your site, you must be at least slightly aware that you were in trouble. Please allow me to dispel any confusion regarding this matter: you ARE in trouble. You are in trouble with me and every other good American.

Our soldiers are dying to protect our freedom and our values. Those values donÂ’t include hate.

You can make amends.

You can take responsibility, and own your error in judgment.

You can reach out to the South Asian community and apologize for this unconscionable incident.

You can apologize to the woman that Star and his amoral crew harassed so wantonly.

You can discipline the DJ, as well as the staffers who perpetrated this revolting act.

You can clean up your own mess by airing PSAs that speak out against the ignorance and hate that YOUR programming may potentially incite.

I will conclude by stating that if you do not respond to this letter or its requests appropriately, you should consider yourself on notice: your unprincipled behavior will have social, public and fiscal ramifications and I swear to you, they will hurt. Stop the violence. Change starts with you.

With hope that you will do the right thing,

listen: all you people who were or are moved by this bullshit situation, who think, “yeah…i should do something”, right before you succumb to inertia and to-do lists and daily life…

that was for you.

you didn’t even have to write a letter. i did it for you. now do something for me. do it for “steena” who suffered through Star’s hatred for no reason. do it for your dad, because someone heckled him like that thirty-five years ago, when he came here to get rich for you. do it for your mom, who was afraid to wear indian things in new jersey, in 1987, for fear of attack from “dot-busters”. do it for them all, i implore you.

however.

if you don’t feel a familiar sadness whilst reading the paragraph i just wrote, if you are one of the lucky ones and you walk on streets paved with gold, and you live somewhere where it never rains, and you have always been accepted, respected and treated kindly…then may you always be so blessed. may one of us live in nirvana, where it is safe. may one of us not suffer the humiliation, the pain, the isolation that hatred brings. may one of us be so lucky.

so if you get some time in your golden, respect-laden nirvana, do it for those of us who aren’t as fortunate as you.

do it for all of us.

in other words, do it for you.

When I was a wee girl, my parents brought home one of what would be a scant handful of Malayalam phil-ims; the plot involved an extremely loved child who drowns and the inevitable emotional Sturm und Drang that accompanies such tragedies.

I almost don’t remember anything about the movie: not the actors, not the words, not the setting…I blank when I try and reach back for those details. I only remember one thing, and that thing is so big, it seemingly takes up all of the space my mind has allotted for this memory; I remember the recoil, the vomit in my throat and the gasp I made when they retrieved the boy’s “corpse”, tattered and grotesque, from his watery grave.

:+:

They are the “untouchables”; the lowest of the low in India’s ancient caste system. No job is too dirty or too nasty, and they are the ones cleaning up the rotting corpses from last week’s killer tsunami.

Apparently, the vast majority of men who are working 24 hours a day to clean the “poor south Indian fishing town of Nagapattinam” are Dalits (untouchables); members of this caste comprise about 16 percent of India’s population.

These “lowest of the low” are municipal sanitation workers who have migrated to the chaotic aftermath of the tsunami– 40 percent of India’s total fatalities occcurred in Nagapattinam–from nearby areas, drawn by the promise of “an extra 50 cents a day and a meal.” Continue reading →