Tried several times to sufficiently convey my revulsion for these people in the headline and failed, sorry
Basically, these shitbag radio talk show hosts--what, redundant, you say? No, wait: really, here's a lower place:
Even by the flexible moral, ethical, and professional standards of American talk radio, the May 28th segment of KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento's Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning radio talk show makes for a sickening half-hour of ugliness and cruelty. For once, the focus was not LGBT adults, but minors. The hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, devoted the segment in question to a vicious diatribe against transgender children, some as young as five, focusing in particular on the case of one Omaha family raising a gender dysphoric child, and their decision to support her transition from male to female.
Williams and States took turns referring to gender dysphoric children as "idiots" and "freaks," who were just out "for attention" and had "a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them," either by verbal abuse on the part of the parents, or even shock therapy.
"Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals," they said.
For his part, States bragged that if his own son were to ever dare put on a pair of high heels, States would beat his son with one of his own shoes. He urged parents whose own little boys expressed a desire to wear a dress to verbally abuse and degrade them as a viable response. "Because you know what? Boys don't wear high heel shoes. And in my house, they definitely don't wear high heels.
"I'm going to go, 'You know what? You're a little idiot! You little dumbass!'" States sneered, adding later, "I look forward to when [the transgender children] go out into society and society beats them down. And they wind up in therapy."
Or dead.
In light of the well-publicized suicides this year of the two boys who took their own lives because of bullying and harassment for "acting gay" (which, in the argot of modern North American teenagers, often refers to acting in a way considered unmasculine by their peers) the stunning lack of moral sensibility on the part of States and Williams is breathtaking. But it also points to the increasingly degraded landscape of talk radio.
No fucking shit.
GLAAD put out an action alert (via Autumn at Pam's House Blend):
TAKE ACTION: Demand that KRXQ Radio Hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States Apologize for Encouraging Violence Against Transgender Children
Contact:
Cindi Creager
Director of National News
(646) 871-8019
creager@glaad.org
Richard Ferraro
Director of Public Relations
(646) 871-8011
ferraro@glaad.org
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.
John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com
Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com
Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com
Please forward this link to any of your friends and others who may also wish to take action. When contacting KRXQ, please ensure that your emails and phone calls are civil and respectful and do not engage in the kind of name-calling or abusive behavior.
Apparently, as of yesterday, the station offered an apology, and there was to be something by the hosts tonight, although not finding it online and not really interested in hearing what they have to say. Personally, I think hosts this fucking hateful shouldn't have a public platform to spew from, period. I'm sorry for States' own kid. Even sorrier and angrier that listeners soak up this shit and take it out quite fucking literally on the bodies and spirits of trans people. -Children.- Christ Jesus forbid someone by their very -existence- force it into these orcs' stunted consciousness that they don't run the fucking universe. And yeah, I'm beyond sick of all of these toxic throwbacks clogging up the airwaves and the public square.
Some people are starting to put together a boycott of the station's sponsors. From a commenter at Pam's:
The whole list of advertisers can be found here. [direct links to each advertiser including contact info therein]
Here's some of the big ones:
Hertz
Home Depot
Chrysler
Griffin & Reed Eyecare
Pro City Mortgage
sonic burger
Snapple
Tobacco Republic
Chipotle
State Farm Insurance
Albertson's
Carl's Jr.
Jared
Nissan
Wells Fargo Bank
Guitar Center
Mc Donalds
Mervyn's
Red Bull
Bank of America
The Sleep Train
Purina
at&t
Verizon Wireless
UC Davis Health Care System
Washington Mutual
Like I said, personally I think the fuckers should get gone from the airwaves. Obviously not the only one who thinks an "apology" and $3.50 will get you a nice latte at Starfucks, basically. It might or might not be worth continuing to contact the station owners/management themselves; your call. I can't imagine writing anything that would be remotely useful to the actual hosts.
Also, Monica of Transgriot notes:
And if that doesn't get their attention, for those of you in the Sacramento, CA metro area, you can lodge protests when their FCC broadcast license comes up for renewal.
Update: So far, Snapple, Sonic & Chipotle have pulled advertising from KRXQ.
10 comments:
Ugh. Big tough men picking on little kids. They're like the villains in a Disney movie, except not exactly hilarious.
OhmyGods, I don't know whether to cry or vomit. That waste of carbon has reproduced and is raising a child. Yet it's gay and bi parents who are supposed to be oh so bad for children. Thank you for bringing this to my (and others') attention.
Hey Belle,
I agree with you about protesting this kind of shit. It does trouble me that you seem to implicitly support government censorship of a sort ~ FCC renewal. I am an outlaw type, so I encourage pirate radio outside of FCC control ~ with MUCH better programming choices.
I understand there's such a thing as accomplice to a violent crime or "inciting to riot" under existing law. Nonetheless, it seems like government censoring of calls to employ shock therapy on young children establishes a principle that can be applied to a lot of people who make similar comments ~ Maoist sects talking about the need to kill the occupiers in Iraq or something too.
There's a bit of The Prince's dark realism in asking the state controlling all the airwaves to censor even speech as fucked up as this ~ as a means of culture war.
Anyhow, I'll pass this post along to people I know and blogs I frequent.
Nick: usually, with that kind of censorship the standard is whether the comments incite others to engage in illegal acts. It varies based on which country it's in, but merely apologizing for terrorism isn't enough, even in China. In almost no case is there prior restraint: that is, the government doesn't prevent publishing material that incites others to commit crime, but might prosecute people who publish it after the crime is committed, if it can be shown that the material contributed to the crime. (This, for what it's worth, is also the standard Dworkin and MacKinnon wanted to apply to porn and rape.)
The idea of prosecuting someone for raising children the wrong way is basically just Dawkins' belief that child-rearing he doesn't approve of is child abuse. In a country where social workers can barely protect children from alcoholics and wife-beaters, a sexist or homophobic father is way down the enforcement priority list.
Alon,
Ah ok. I wondered about what the law already said here.
Haha I guess since I reject the FCC framework of political patronage/subsidy for media corporations; I shouldn't really care whether they have permission to be douchebags or not.
I'd just note that the backlash seems likely to have an effect. The lesson of the Civil Rights movement was that economic interrelation makes non-violent protest an extremely effectual tool. The station needs people to advertise and listeners. to have any heard voice. It has an economic incentive to change this kind of behavior.
Usually, such backlashes are only effective if they're extremely well-organized. Since the civil rights era, the only movement that's been able to make business afraid is the religious right. Occasionally gay rights activists manage to fight back, but I don't think they've ever managed to get stations to apologize for their hosts' idiocy.
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