Hate Radio, Patricia J. Williams Comments on Term Paper

Hate Radio," Patricia J. Williams comments on the growing trend of "anything goes" talk radio, led by radio personalities who seem determined to anger as many people as possible, and who cater to an audience of people empowered to say almost anything, no matter how prejudiced or ill-informed about other groups of people.

She describes how she first became aware of this type of media broadcast. In 1991 she accidentally heard two radio personalities commenting about George W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Their view seemed to be that Bush deliberately nominated a poorly qualified Black American candidate knowing he wouldn't be confirmed. He could then place someone there "with intelligence," presumably a non-black. They made up a new pejorative label: "Blafricans," which eliminates the reference to the American entirely.

At first she thought this exchange was unusual, and she wrote the conversation down. As an isolated and overtly racist conversation on the public airwaves, she was sure the radio station would soon be inundated with protests.

She was shocked to see that there was no "firestorm of protest." Three years later, she sees "hate talk" on the radio as thriving and flourishing, with such "shock jocks" as Howard Stern, Tom Lykie and Morton Dowey, Jr. accepted as guests on mainstream television shows such as Jay Leno's "Tonight" show. She notes that this validates prejudicial attitudes and beliefs and has made it OK to say in public what used to be held privately and discreetly. She describes the callers as "grown people sitting around scaring themselves to death with fantasies of black feminist Mexican able-bodied gay soldiers earning $10,000 a year on welfare who are... criminally depraved." At first this reader wanted to believe she was exaggerating.

Williams is not naive about racism in the United States, and is concerned that what she hears on the radio simply says out loud what people have always felt. The attitudes may always have been there, but she notes that when not spoken publicly, were restrained to what Williams calls a "tolerable" level. She notes cycles in the United States, periods when we are more or less tolerant of differences among people. She believes the hate jockeys have made it OK to "verbally stone" any one or any idea different from their perceived norm.

Williams argues, however, that these hard-bitten polemicists aren't atypical or unusual. As a Black woman, in the eyes of both the radio personalities and their fans,…