Don Imus continues to make headlines today. Nearly two weeks after the latest in a long list of racist and sexist comments left his lips CBS developed a moral consciousness and fired Imus from his radio show. It took MSNBC-TV more than a week to reach that fateful decision which most people believe was motivated not by moral outrage but by the flight of deep pocketed advertisers like GM and Staples.

Before we as Americans begin congratulating ourselves for this big moral victory over racism lets look around at the broadcasting landscape and brace yourselves because it’s very bleak. For a tour may I suggest clicking on www.mediamatters.org this not-for-profit progressive research information center has done one hell of a job cataloging the on-going sins of conservative misinformation in the U.S. media on a daily basis. Media Matters for America uses the conservative rights own words against them, every day in real time to show how their hatred, their lies and their drum beat for the GOP distorts the news and feeds the American public lies as facts. I find them to be an invaluable public service. One thing I would like to remind each and every one of you is that the public airwaves are just that the “public” airwaves. Radio and television belong to all of us. They aren’t owned by CBS, NBC, or ABC. They are operated by them but the airwaves are owned by us the American public. In the old days, before deregulation, when the Federal Communication Commission really had power to regulate and provide some oversight and measure of control over broadcasters consumers got to control to a certain extent what went out over the air. Remember George Carlin’s old comedy bit about the 7 words you couldn’t say on the air…those were dirty words designated as such by the FCC. I remember once saying the word “fart” on the air and getting hate mail about it and having to apologize for it. I also remember working in the south and being reprimanded for saying “I swear to God” once too often and being told that was taking the Lord’s name in vain and our listeners didn’t appreciate that. That all seems so quaint and old fashioned now. Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was approved by Congress and signed by President Clinton and massive media mergers were allowed and the FCC was nearly done away with piece by piece almost anything goes now.

According to www.stopbigmedia.com only 2.5% of radio stations today have a person of color in the role of general manager, and only 4.4% have a racial or ethnic minority in the role of news director. The percentage of women in these jobs remains in the single digits. Tens of thousands of jobs in radio have been lost forever in the last 10 years due to massive mergers. White men dominate the positions of power so it makes perfect sense that people like Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilley, Neal Boortz and Glenn Beck have not only been allowed to keep their jobs they have thrived in the last few years. You don’t have to work that hard to find examples of these nationally syndicated talk show hosts bigotry, sexism, anti-Semitism or just out right hatred. Just last week, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly stated that Virginia Beach Mayo Meyera Oberndor “should be baking pies, not running a major city.” On the January 15^th edition of his TV show O’Reilly said of Shawn Hornbeck, the young boy who was abducted and held for four years until he was recently found in Missouri that “there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances,” adding that he “doesn’t buy ‘the Stockholm syndrome thing.’ O’Reilley also said: “The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn’t have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.” As a guardian ad litem who spent 16 years of my life representing children who had been abused and neglected I am beyond appalled and repulsed by anyone who would be so ignorant to think that a child who was abducted and held for four years by a child predator would “enjoy” his captivity and not be irreparably harmed by the loss of his childhood and the separation from his parents and his home. I can’t even wrap my mind around a person who is that lacking in empathy and common sense.

Rush Limbaugh is perhaps the biggest bigot/racist on the air today. He’s openly racist and no one seems to care. He calls Senator Barack Obama “Half-erican-American” He makes reference to stereotypes about race as if they were facts. According to Media Matters, Limbaugh handicapped races in the Survivor series suggesting, “African-American tribe” worst swimmers, Hispanics will do things other people won’t do.”

Other nationally syndicated radio show hosts are even more blatant in their hatred for blacks. On March 31, 2006, Neal Boortz said on his syndicated show, “Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) “looks like a ghetto slut.” Boortz was commenting on a March 29^th incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint, Boortz went on to say that McKinney’s “new hair-do” makes her “look like an explosion at a Brillo pad factory,” like “Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence.” McKinney is the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia.

CNN recently hired nationally syndicated radio show host Glenn Beck to their already conservative line up. Here’s what he had to say about Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy on a March 15^th broadcast of his radio show. “Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president…because there’s something about her vocal range.” “There’s something about her voice that just drives me it’s not just about what she says, it’s how she says it,” adding, “ she is like the stereotypical—excuse the expression, but this is the way to—she’s the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean?”

All of the above quotes come from the Media Matters website. All of those quotes come directly from the mouths of those white men, who are making millions of dollars saying them. All of those men work for multi million dollar companies who hired them because they believe they are saying what you America what to hear. Is this the kind of shit you want rolling out of your television and radio every day of your lives? I choose not to listen to commercial radio. I listen to liberal talk radio on Sirius satellite radio. I watch about 2 hours of television a day, the only way I know about most of this crap is because of Media Matters. My head might explode if I listened to these hate mongers.

It’s time to say enough is enough and demand that these people be taken off the air and replaced by people who don’t spew racist, sexist, hate filled rhetoric. Words hurt. We, the American public deserve better. The airwaves are ours and we need to take them back. The airwaves need to represent America not just racist white men but minorities, women, homosexuals and white men who are open minded and free thinking. All of America. That’s free speech.