So you finally did it Jay, you finally got out from underneath that WTKK rock that you’ve been hiding all these years. I was wondering how long this jewel of Boston’s right-wing radio would be kept out of the limelight. I will confess that I like Jay Severin; I listen to his show a lot, mostly to hear what ridiculous claim he will make next. So I wasn’t surprised when he made the claim that Mexicans are primitives and that their country’s leading export is VD and women with mustaches.
Yes, these statements are racist and are inappropriate in any setting, unless you’re at your local KKK meeting. Yes these statements, when broadcast over the radio, breed hatred amongst susceptible people and therefore make the world a worse place. With all that being said, I still don’t think his future firing will accomplish anything.
First of all, there is a huge market for this media and therefore he will find himself a new job very quickly and someone equally as ignorant will take his timeslot at WTKK. Severin not being at 96.9 will not change anything in anybody’s life, except that Bostonians will have to listen to someone less talented than him.
Second. While these particular statements were very straight forward with their racism, they weren’t that different then what usually comes out of these right-wingers mouths. Regardless of whether its Michael Savage claiming that autistic kids are faking it or Billy Cunningham calling the President of the United States a Marxist-Leninist-Gestapo-Fascist, these statements are unified in that they skirt around their blatant bigotry while everyone who is listening understands the underlying ignorance that is the base behind what spews out of their vile mouths. The problem arises when people agree with this unspoken bigotry, but otherwise listeners understand that these people make inflammatory borderline racist remarks to generate ratings.
So why listen to this? It’s a question I get all the time from my friends. Don’t you have something better to do then torture yourself with angry and scared people that yearn for a past that never really existed?
Well, the current news culture can be broken down into three parts. 1) Fawning over Obama 2) Liberals who don’t think he is doing enough 3) People who disagreed with him from the get-go and who still despise most of what he is doing. The people in the last category are by far the most hysterical and therefore the most entertaining. And if one wants to learn about the political landscape, s/he can’t just cut out a third of it because it offends his or her sensibilities.
Also, I don’t need to listen to people with whom I already agree. They aren’t going to tell me anything new. They will not present an argument to make me see the world in a new light. If I think waterboarding is torture, why would I listen to someone telling me that over and over again? However, if someone could convince me otherwise, that could be valuable. So that’s why I think that listening to right-wing radio is important; so that I can know what the other side is thinking and to keep my own liberal ideas in check.
Finally, Jay Severin embodies everything that is great and awful about Democracy. It’s great that people are free to voice their opinions, but with that comes the drawback that you have racism, sexism, anti-Semitism etc. If you are going to live in a free society you have to let people like Savage and Severin exist. There is a price to pay for being the leader of the free world and he is ours. That’s why I listen to him, and I sorely hope he comes back, because that way at least I can keep an eye on him and know what the right-wing is thinking.
millennialisms.wordpress.com 
Where was the outrage when Jay was beating on George Bush?
And people are genuinely upset about what is going on to democracy these days. In a 52-48 election the “left” is going to get a colt jolt of realty. Centrist America is unhappy with what is going on and the bums will be voted out in 2010.
Alot of what Jay said was true and he crossed the line with some of his comments. Illegal Aliens are criminals per legal code. His comments were in context of Mexicans living in a primitive country. Could have phrased it more PC agreed.
Save me the rhetoric hate reply. I am educated, not a racist and not a radical redneck like Garafollo spewed. Why are you not writing on her racist outburst?
Jake,
I’m glad you commented, but I don’t see where the beef is between you and me. We see eye to eye on this despite our ideological differences,
1) I haven’t been listening to Jay Severin that long and only heard him reference that he was against the war. So can’t comment on that.
2) the 2010 election has nothing to do with right-wing talk show host getting suspended. I happen to disagree with you on the 2010 election. And will actually write a separate post on it soon.
3) I had no problem with him calling them Criminaliens, but calling a nation primitive, and calling its people, even if they are criminals, unclean leaches who import women with mustaches and VD is a innapropriate. That being said, the whole blog post argues that he should come back.
4) Why should I write about Garafollo. I don’t like her, I don’t find her funny and I don’t like her on 24. I write about things I’m interested in and am not the Bigot Comments Hall Monitor.