Commentary -- It Is Time To Turn Off Insensitive Radio Talk

I accepted an invitation recently to appear on a morning radio talk show with reluctance. I'm paid to report for the newspaper, not for the radio.

However, the subject - the serious side of humor - was important to me, so I agreed to go on with KJR (950 AM) hosts Michael Knight and "New York Vinnie" Richichi.

The topic that morning was what is and what isn't funny to me and other African Americans.

From my vantage, on top of the list of totally inappropriate and completely tasteless humor was the morning show's repeated use of the phrase "Ching-Ching-Slap-Your-Mammy" as a punchline.

The offending phrase comes from a Washington Egg Commission commercial produced by the Evans Group advertising agency. The spot promoted the freshness of local eggs, which travel a short distance to market, by lampooning the distances imported beers must cover to reach customers. In the commercial, "Ching-Ching-Slap-Your-Mammy" is the brand of a fictional beer.

"That might have been funny in 1950s Alabama, but not here in Seattle in the 1990s," I told them. "How funny would it be if I went around saying Ching-Ching-Slap-Your-Old-White-Lady?"

Turning the tables

To give him a dose of his own medicine, I attempted to make a joke at Richichi's expense when I interrupted a statement he was making about being well-read.

I asked, "You can read, Vinnie?"

"That's a personal attack," he said, his voice rising. "How dare you make this a personal attack . . . I challenge you to a reading marathon anywhere, anyplace, pal. I'll match you book for book. . . ."

"See how easy it is to offend someone with a joke?" I asked.

Richichi said that if I knew him better, I would feel differently about his on-air act. I said I didn't need to know him. All any listener can go by is what they hear on the air.

There have been other instances of what I consider racially insensitive and/or sexist remarks made by Richichi and by Kevin Wall, another KJR personality.

Like the time Richichi pondered on the air what sex with a gymnast would be like. Or like the day before Orlando's Shaquille O'Neal played in Seattle, when Wall clumsily compared him to the proverbial "300-pound gorilla" while interviewing the Sonics' Sam Perkins.

Perkins felt uncomfortable with the comparison, and said so on the air.

"I was not trying to say Shaq is a gorilla, I was trying to show that he is a very big and powerful man who is hard to stop," Wall said. "I didn't mean to offend anyone. I was trying to make a point. I would never say someone is being too sensitive. I can't tell them what to feel, but I don't think what I said was racist."

A lily-white environment

As a sports-talk station dependent on African-American athletes for a large part of its content, KJR is vulnerable to charges of racial insensitivity because all its sports talk hosts are white.

The only African American filling an on-air role at the station is Mychal Thompson, who lives in Portland and works part time as an analyst on Sonic broadcasts.

Since our on-air discussion, Tom Lee, KJR's programming director, said the morning show no longer uses the offensive phrase. KJR's sales department also dropped the egg commission ad.

The woman who answered the phone at the Washington Egg Commission in Olympia was reluctant to speak about the ad. She said the ad is due to be switched next month.

Dee Munson, who oversees food commercials for the Evans Group, said the agency wanted the ad to be lighthearted.

"I was the food editor at (African American-owned) Ebony magazine for about 10 years," said Munson, who is white. "Because of that, I think my sensitivities are as great as anyone's. I wouldn't let anything (offensive) go by intentionally. I apologize if we offended anyone.

"We never intended for KJR to use an excerpt from the commercial, it was meant to be heard in its entirety."

John Dresel, KJR's general manager, and Lee say talk radio is part of the highly competitive entertainment business and the station's hosts need to be irreverent, flippant and, at times, juvenilely disrespectful and tasteless because they are trying to build an audience. They also said their employees are not racists because they intend to offend everyone.

That may be true, but it would be easier for me to take if there were people of color in similar positions at KJR. Let everyone have a good time poking fun at everybody else.

It should be noted that there are only two African Americans with on-air jobs covering sports at Seattle's leading television and radio stations - Thompson and Matt Sampsell, a sports anchor at KSTW television.

So while other stations weren't discussed on the show, the minority communities of Seattle are aware of the racial composition of their staffs.

And for the record: In The Seattle Times' sports department, five of our 15 reporters and columnists are minorities.

I was surprised by the intensity of the feedback my appearance generated. Callers - evenly distributed on both sides of the issue - were stacked up for the show's final hour.

It was a discussion that needed airing, and continues to.