It has been 15 years since CBS fired the late sports prognosticator Jimmy \The Greek"" Snyder for saying blacks are superior athletes because of breeding habits encouraged by slave owners. I'll give 30-to-one odds this wasn't the first racially insensitive thing he ever said. His very nickname, ""The Greek,"" was an unsubtle racial stereotype.
Ideally, in 15 years, television executives would have learned to not hire people they would eventually have to fire for making unintelligent and racially divisive comments. I don't think I need to tell sports fans they have not.
NFL enthusiasts everywhere shuddered disgustedly upon tuning in to the first week of ESPN's ""NFL Sunday Countdown"" to see Rush Limbaugh glaring back in smug triumph (or perhaps drugged euphoria). Rush landed a job commenting on a sport he knew almost nothing about. Better yet, he'd get to bark away, from the safety of his extra-sturdy swivel chair, at his favorite targets: black people.
Of course, those same viewers were not surprised when Rush lost the job he never should have had for saying Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because ""the media has [sic] been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.""
Rush is wrong. McNabb's stats speak for themselves. And, to turn the tables on Rush, 20 years of barfing up right-wing clich??s on mics lead me to believe that ESPN hired him because they want to see a white man succeed, despite his obvious, and frequently voiced prejudices.
This is a man who once told a black caller: ""Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."" He said the NAACP should have ""riot rehearsal"" and ""get a liquor store and practice robberies."" When Carol Moseley-Braun was an Illinois senator, Rush was fond of playing ""Movin' on Up,"" when she was mentioned.
None of this bothered Disney, ESPN's owner, when they brought him aboard? They must have a real sieve working in human resources.
To be fair, they aren't the only ones playing the ""oops, you're a bigot"" game.
MSNBC had to let go of talk show host Michael Savage in July after he advised a gay caller to ""get AIDS and die."" If homophobia wasn't enough to keep him out of MSNBC's ""hire"" pile, the shiver-inducing dehumanization of minorities that marks his syndicated radio career should have.
On his show, Savage has referred to poor nations as ""Turd-world countries,"" and called American children killed by guns ""ghetto slime.""
I don't argue that Rush and Savage don't have the right to say the things they do. This country is awash in hateful, illogical thinkers who exercise their constitutional right to be wrong. But why do TV networks keep trying to help them expand their influence?
ESPN hired Rush for the same reason MSNBC hired Savage-because outrage sells ad minutes. It was no real problem for them if Rush said something insufferably offensive. They would fire him, clap him off their hands and say ""We had no idea he was racist."" They would pay no mind to the fact that they had rewarded Rush's long history of racially divisive rhetoric with a cushy spot on a nationally broadcast program.
It would be nice to think that someday TV execs will stop hiring right-wing extremists as on-air talent, or at least give equal time to crazies from the other side. They will probably do neither.
But maybe they'll at least start checking r??sum??s before they make the hire.
dlhinkel@wisc.edu.
