A face for radio, in D.C., anyway…
One would think—wouldn’t one?— that I could listen to a baseball game on my car radio without being jolted intro an Ethics Alarms column, but nooooooo…
Here I am, sort-of listening to the Orioles game while running to the grocery store, and suddenly I hear two morning jocks have this exchange:
“So there, in line for the roller coaster, is this woman eating a funnel cake, and she has this comically huuuuge badonkadonk butt! It is the biggest butt I have ever seen! I couldn’t take my eyes off it!”
“How was she going to fit into the roller coaster seat with that badonkadonk?”
Well, I don’t think she could! And I came this close to saying, “Ma’am, would you please stand over here so I can take a photo of your comically gigantic badonkadonk butt as you eat your funnel cake?”
(hysterical laughter)
I don’t know who these idiots are, and I don’t want to know. I could tell they were white and male, and that they thought they were clever as hell. The station was WSPZ 570 AM, a D.C. market station that is all sports and conservative talk—in the District of Columbia the most Democratic of all US jurisdictions, all AM radio is either news, conservative talk, or sports. This exchange was playing at around 5 PM, on programming, the baseball game, that has fair number of kids listening.
What does that exchange signify? It signifies two adults thinking it is funny to ridicule a woman they don’t know a thing about because of her appearance, her weight, what they deem an unattractive body-part, and, I think, her gender and race as well: badonkadonk is generally an urban term of slang for a black woman’s “bodacious booty.” Such conduct is rude and juvenile, not to mention uncivil, disrespectful, cruel and unfair, in a private exchange between high-school drop-outs. Broadcast as entertainment over a major market radio station, however, such an exchange is poison. It trivializes personal denigration. It stands for the proposition that how people look is the basis on which they should be judged and treated. It justifies contempt and disrespectful conduct towards strangers based on their weight, features, physical attributes, deformities, age, race, and gender. It tells the young that how they appear is the measure of their worth, and that they should use the same standard to assess others.
Yet this was broadcast by the radio station as a promo. That’s right…this was deemed such quality content that it was the clip chose to attract listeners
I don’t comprehend it. The standards of this country regarding civility and what is considered acceptable discourse have no integrity. Personally, I regard what these two disc jockeys said, broadcast repeatedly on a mainstream radio station as a highlight, as far more offensive, deliberate and cruel than a single uttering of the word “nigger” by a rowdy, probably drunk pro football player in a crowd. Yet the football player’s career is in jeopardy and he is being vilified as a racist, while the two white disc jockeys may be getting raise, How do we explain such standards to our children? That treating people with hate and disrespect is always bad, but disrespect towards certain groups and individuals is more acceptable than being hateful to others? That we can be hateful and disrespectful, as long as in this nation of supposedly freedom of speech and thought we don’t use certain words that have some magic, evil power…if the wrong color speaker uses them, that is?
Inconsistent, unevenly enforced, irrational and constantly changing standards of civility are not standards at all, but rather traps to be manipulated for cynical partisan and power agendas.
__________________________
Spark: WSPZ 570 AM
Graphic: 5 Texas Football
Ethics Alarms 
Yeah, and Trace Adkins would be so pissed….that term is used for any nice looking booty….and people should think twice before they blurt out insults to today’s generation. A good dose of mace might hit their face! Change the channel.
How could I listen to the O’s game if I changed the channel? Why should a listener to a baseball game be subjected to such crap?
This is nothing new – need I remind everyone of Opie and Anthony and WOW – Whip ’em out Wednesdays? This is just a particularly crass incident of an ongoing culture. That doesn’t justify it, but I’m just saying this has been going on for years and until a concerted effort to end this crap is made, something like this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Opie and Anthony are shock jocks. These guys are not. This is supposed to be mainstream stuff, family drive hour.
I gotcha, but it doesn’t surprise me that there is “bleedover” into the mainstream from the shock jock culture, which I think is a blot on radio that too many people just shrug at.
Large people are the last acceptable group to insult across the “comedy” board. After all, they ask for it. It’s really too bad their market rivals don’t mock the small size of parts of their bodies, but I doubt they’d get it and they’ll claim “it was all in fun.”
If I knew their mother/grandmother/aunt I’d request a remedial lesson in respect as nothing in their workplace is likely to sink in to juvenile brains.
No, old people are also routinely smeared—as in Weiner’s derisive calling of his senior opponent “grandpa.”
Because only women can teach manners.
Free speech is often hurtful. Real world? It cannot be taken away, not in America. It cannot be censored unless we all want to be censored. That means horrible, ignorant and overzealous people can say what they want with relative impunity. Now they can do it online. And we have to accept their right to be pigs.
This has zero to do with free speech. A responsible radio station should not be promoting this as wit, or encouraging such idiocy. The blog is about what is unethical, not what people have a right to do. Your comment has no connection to the point in any way, shape or form. Civility and respect are still ethical, and incivility is still unethical, and causes real harm. Yes, they have a right to be hateful jerks. They have no right to stay employed in the DC area.
Is there any question why anorexia is rampant in our society? Young girls grow up with the “you can never be too rich or too thin” standard. And many have died for it.
I have often commented that America has the fattest poor people in the world. Why? “Good’ food costs money they don’t have.
Further to the post, let’s start making fun of homely people, of disabled people, of ADHD kids, of blue collar workers, even of sick people. etc., etc.
Cruelty is not, is NEVER funny. Those broadcasters should be (1) fired; and (2) weighed, measured, and had their overall health evaluated before they dare make comments like that again.