John Conyers has written a letter to the Salem Radio Network demanding Bill Bennett’s radio program be suspended.
President
Salem Radio Network
6400 N. Beltline Rd.
Suite 210
Irving, TX 75063
Dear Mr. Anderson:
We were shocked and outraged to learn that, on your radio network yesterday, Bill Bennett stated on his radio program, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime you could – if that were your sole purpose – you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” This statement was made in response to a caller’s suggestion linking abortions to the solvency of the Social Security program.
It is difficult for us to understand how an individual granted a show on your network could utter such a statement in 21st century America. While we all support First Amendment Rights, we simply cannot countenance statements and shows that are replete with racism, stereotyping, and profiling. Mr. Bennett’s statement is insulting to all of us and has no place on the nation’s public air waves. The fact that Mr. Bennett later acknowledged that such abortions would be “morally reprehensible,” but added again that if it was done “the crime rate would go down,” is equally outrageous.
We ask that you immediately suspend this radio program. We also ask to meet with the executives of your network to understand how you could have permitted an individual with such views to broadcast such a program on your network, and learn what you intend to do to respond to this problem. We are planning to convey our views to your commercial sponsors as well and hereby request a list of all sponsors of the show within the last year.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
It’s not bad enough that Bill Bennett has the gall to lecture America about our moral values while he gets drunk and gambles away his family’s money… but he goes on the air and equates the crime rate on a one-to-one basis with the population of African-Americans. Everyone who has the time should join Conyers in asking Salem to suspend Bennett. Hell, demand that they shit-can him.
Now this is one time where he should call on the abortion winguts to do their job… how much you wanna bet that aborting black babies is “okay” with them.
I played Bennett’s comment to my students this morning. They were startled. He tries to back away, but he can’t get away from his clear belief that being black equals being criminal.
My students are mostly white, mostly first-generation college students from rural Pennsylvania.
They thought that the person speaking must be really stupid. When I told them he had once been Secretary of Education, they were shocked.
It’s worse than that. BB doesn’t just associate blackness with criminality now. He is assuming that black babies born now and in the future are doomed to criminality by their very race.
This shyt is directly connected to efforts to fob off blame for Katrina/FEMA response onto the black people of New Orleans and rehabilitate Bush’s image.
The amount of concern, consternation and outrage; the helping hands proffered by people of color, whites and non-religious whites alike from all over the country and around the world has put a major hurt on Bush’s image for all time.
This shyt is tantamount to the infamous Willie Horton ads.
It’s their fault that they stayed in New Orleans; it’s their fault they are on welfare or have minimum wage jobs with no health care; it’s their fault that they have crappy schools…in other words, black folks are inherently too stupid and lazy and too much of a drain on the pocketbooks of average white people and they don’t deserve half the concern the world has for them. That’s what that f*ckhead Bennett and the one he took his cues from–Charles Murray of Bell Curve infamy–want to stir up among Americans.
Frankly, they don’t want to spend an enormous amount of money that may assist black people from a predominantly black city that voted Dem time and again, knowing to the marrow to their bones who these assholes were.
So what’s the best strategy? Let Babs flap her stupid-assed mouth about a people that seem to get in her and her husband’s and now their son’s way. Let Bennett open his mouth and let Murray write to the Wall Street Journal about a so-called generational disease that blacks have. Let them show their racism and get some like-minded idiots to talking it up as well.
Because when the deal goes down:
This Is an Over-Reaction
Sure it’s shocking to the ears and an onslaught against one’s moral values, but the facts in your letter aren’t straight-forward regarding Bennett’s remarks. Bennett (icky guy that he is notwithstanding) didn’t “later acknowledge” (as you characterize it) his verbal faux pas, as I understand it. He qualified it in the same breath, if a later sentence.
I think if you are going to point the finger, you better be like Caesar’s wife* when you do it. This letter, as written, is sloppy and plays fast and loose with the accurate characterization of Bennett’s broadcast.
You have done better in the past; you have set a higher standard of accuracy; you have rightly stood atop the moral highground. Be careful not to get lax.
And for all you overanxious readers/commenters — I agree with the tenor and salient points of Rep. Conyers’ letter.
[*clarified in this down-thread post:
I’d meant to imply that when pointing the finger, one should be “pure” in one’s characterization of the other’s fault. Otherwise the letter-writer is open to attack for mis-representation of facts.
Caesar’s wife was supposed to be the paragon of purity, “above suspicion.”
Probably not a good choice of words on my part.]
I choked on the word ‘later’ too.
Yeah, there’s a temporal quality as used in the letter. There was only a spatial (next sentence) quality in the actual “later” of the broadcast.
Did Conyers’ staff jump a little too inconsiderately into the letter-writing? Will this one do more good than harm?
I think it is o.k. for us to be outraged by this. This statement came from the man who wrote “The Death of Outrage”. Well, let’s see if we can bring it back to life using his scummy words against him.
Republicans have been taking our words out of context for over a decade to stir up outrage. Now it is our turn.
I was outraged, too. I think my last sentence in original comment makes that clear. But “outrage” isn’t the issue of my post, while it seems you think so. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Maybe I misunderstood your post, but I get the feeling that you were advising Conyers to hold his fire (you lost me at the Ceasar’s wife thing though).
not just any bullet. Meaning, don’t carelessly undermine a good argument with sloppiness.
However, you’re not alone in your gut feeling, apparently. Just got my first “0” ever for the original comment over on DKos.
What fun! Hey — anyone else been zeroed on DKos? Let’s start a club!
I got zeroed at dKos once… Some guy was in a pissing match with someone who had a similar username and he went out of his way to find my posts and give them zeros, even if it was just a “hello there” type post. I finally got pissed off enough to call him on it and e-mail Markos about it.
I wouldn’t have zeroed you for the comment, I think it was just a bit too abstract for a lot of us to fully comprehend.
And I’ll give you a 4 here to make up for your 0 there. š
zeroed, you haven’t been saying anything!!
š
JUST KIDDING!!
How about a hidden comment? Anyone join me in THAT club??
It’s all good Limelite!
Should I look?
Hidden Comments Club. Now that sounds REAL exclusive.
most of have lost our ability to read the hidden comments over there! š
Righto! Forgot about that — I can’t seem to loose my TU status no matter what I do — I have had it straight through since March, exactly 10 days after I registered…..go figure.
It took MONTHS of inactivity for that to happen to me.
and I agree with you 113% about the sloppiness — even a silver bullet does no good if it misses the mark.
There are already too many people ready to dismiss any outrage from the African-American community (or anyone else they happen not to agree with) and complete non-sense….I think though that the first sentence of your post is what threw people — it isn’t an OVER-reaction, it is a MIS-reaction, or maybe a reaction that doesn’t have it’s focus right.
Someone (and I apologize for not remembering who) in Susan’s thread asked her to change the title to more accurately reflect the outrage — he covered his ass on the abortion part, but then REPEATED the black babies=future criminals statement. If Conyers’ letter focused on THAT part of it, people would then be left to judge for themselves how outrageuos the “abortion” part of it is….
Wear your zero with pride, my friend!
No cow is sacred (not even me…private joke to Parker there…bigassgrin)
Yeah. That was my title. I over-reacted, didn’t I?
heh, I know all about over-reaction, see many of my posts yesterday!
lol
If you want to contact Salem Radio Network, feel free to do so here.
Did you get my e-mail the other day re: touristy crap?
Hey BostonJoe,
Yeah I did. Thanks. I’ve been out of it lately because of my back so I wasn’t online much the past few days. I’ll find a good home for your stuff. I’ll donate it somewhere. Just need to figure out where.
Sorry about back. Hope it wasn’t from you having to carry all that worthless shit. š
I think Bennets remarks are from the heart. He would like to get rid of Black people. This is the underlying basis on which the administration acts. Why there was such poor reponse in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.
This what white people in Washington really think.
Slightly off subject (I’d just like to stand back and watch Mr. Book of Virtues choke on this himself for a while), has anyone read Freakonomics?
A slightly askew (and too Republican sounding for me to really love) economists posits, among other bizarre associations, that the reduction in the crime rate that we have seen since ~80s is directly linked with not our country’s ungodly expenditures on a police state-like apparatus. Rather, it is related to the decision on Roe v. Wade. His explanation: Fewer unwanted pregnancies equals fewer children being raised in homes where they are not wanted equals fewer adults who are so totally skewed they will commit violent crimes.
So, go get ’em John Roberts. Be a law an order judge, and put your stamp of approval on Roe.
The Freakonomics guys were on Good Morning America this morning. I think I heard that they are becoming regular contributors. I was half asleep when they were talking so I don’t know exactly what they were discussing.
But if you have a question for the Freaknomics guys, you can ask it here. Or you can read an excerpt here.
I want to hire you to put links in everything I write. š
For me, that takes like four hours. So you know, in anything that I post, if there is a link, I have freaking slaved to make it.
Thanks. Did you get my e-mail the other day? Because while I am not too worried about all these abortions, I am really wanting to assure myself that the crappy purple bear found a loving child or someone to take care of him or her.
Yes I did – see my comment above. š
I emailed the radio station yesterday when this was first diaried by Susan. He said what he said no matter what he said later…imho. I say make him eat those words. make him pay for his racism. A man like this does not belong on the airwaves. He called for genocide against the African AMerican population as far as I am concerned. Others may not read it that way. ANd what is it about these wingnut values people that so often seem to have addiction and marital/cheating/closet problems?
Here’s my letter to Salem.
Late to the party, again, but here’s my 2 cents. This was a surprising and jarring statement and should be yet another wakeup call to the more moderately inclined members of the Republican party. That this individual has held public office makes it even more disturbing. As to the letter, if there was an over-reaction here I’m not seeing it. Letters of this sort are hardly unexpected and not inappropriate.
The Daily Show played Bennett’s appalling comment tonight on TDS as their moment of Zen.