It's just a matter of perception right? Is this glass half full or glass half empty? With most situation it always is: Is that IPad really worth it's price considering that you already own a laptop, an iphone and a desktop! Some would argue that being technologically up to date is an easy substitute to any financial inconvenience that an $800 oversized iphone may cause to your wallet, and in the long run, the social and personal advantages will outweigh the initial cost.
Perspective, such an overused cliché, so overused that today in the CHATTER BOX we will be highlighting the not so "it just depends which angle you look at it from" incident of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. If you're not familiar with Dr. L, and there is no shame in not being familiar with her, she is a nationally syndicated radio host, who is lagging just behind the adorable Rush Limbaugh as the staple of American Conservatism on the airwaves. Recently Dr. L, has gotten in trouble for repeatedly using the "N WORD" live during a broadcast of her show which according to media reports brings in about 8 million listeners each week.
During an exchange with a caller who wanted advice from the good doctor on how to deal with the racial insensitivities of her husband's friends, the caller who identified herself as African American, outlined a series of inappropriate scenarios that made her feel uncomfortable. Dr. Laura interpreted the callers angst as nothing more than racial hypersensitivity questioning the usage of the N WORD by rappers and black comedians in TV and popular culture as she went on a long rant about the double standard of allowing African Americans to use the word out in the public, while castrating the use of the same word by non-blacks, i.e. her self during her own talk show.
Here are two clips of the exchange:
Dr. Laura, went on to accuse the caller, who was reaching out to her for advice and emotional closure of blowing the situation out of proportion, that questions about another person's culture are not signs of racism. Instead she argued that African Americans in the U.S. often depict non-blacks as racist with the smallest instance of what may be considered offensive.
Fine, the point is taken as valid only if Dr. Laura had not uttered such non-sense as "Some People are Just Hyper-Sensitive", "you listen to some Bl-ah-ck comics and all you hear is is N*&*^, if anyone without enough melanin says it its a horrible thing" and "If you're so hypersensitive about racism don't marry out of your race". Spicy right?
Since the incident she has gone on a public relations campaign to clear the issue, even though this is not the first time she has to do so: in the past she has accused homosexual men of being child predators. Not surprisingly so, her apology is not for being wrong but rather for ticking people off in the wrong way, kind her way of saying, it's just a matter of perspective kids!. Here's Slate commenting about it and NPR's take on the issue. She claims that people are on a crusade against her for speaking her mind and that she wants her First Amendment Rights back. Ah Dr. L you're so silly!
So here's my point, Dr. Laura, if you're so hypersensitive about you're First Amendment Rights Don't Go on Racist Rants on the airwaves, you knew as you uttered the N word a dozen times that your bosses and your sponsors were going to start calling you and you knew that the civil rights organization where going to call for a boycott of your show, what you didn't seem to know, because you are blinded by the veil of racism and ignorance, is that that particular word that you were so fond using during your show, is socially accepted to be used only by "blacks" because it belongs to their Moral Ammendments, because the instance of anyone else using it conjures historical memories of racism and slavery, which if you were not up to date, was abolished many many years ago. But furthermore, this is not an issue of your First Amendment Rights, no one is saying you cannot use the word, ask your cousins and uncles at those White Supremacist protests in D.C. during the summer, it is an issue of common sense, which you're not excused from because you have a Ph.D in Psysiology. You see Dr. L, unlike you, many people do care about other's sensitivities, thats why the holocaust is not an open topic of conversation with Jewish people, or Apartheid is not a colorful subject with South Africans, it's call empathy Doctor, and the First Ammendment is not an excuse for you not to have it.
NUTA
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