Liberty's Blog

Radio Host Calls Rice 'Aunt Jemima'

I don't get it. She is smart, well brilliant really and this talk show host Calls Condoleezza Rice 'Aunt Jemima'

John Sylvester, the program director and morning personality on WTDY-AM in Madison, said in a phone interview Thursday that he used the term on Wednesday's show to describe Rice and other blacks as having only a subservient role in the Bush administration.


Rice has served as President Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser and was named this week to replace the departing Colin Powell (news - web sites) as secretary of state.


Sylvester, who is white, also referred to Powell as an "Uncle Tom" — a contemptuous term for a black whose behavior toward whites is regarded as fawning or servile.


He said Thursday night that he was referring to remarks by singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte that the price of admittance for blacks to the Bush White House was subservience.


As for Rice, "they're using her for an illusion of inclusion," he said, adding that he feels her history as national security adviser showed a lack of competence.

Meanwhile a Milwaukee had his talk show taken off the air all of last week after he used word "wetback" to refer to undocumented Mexican immigrants, instigating protest and objections all over the place.

On last Wednesday's show, Belling said:

"You watch the voter turnout on the near south side, heavily Hispanic, and compare it to the voter turnout in any other election, and you're going to see every wetback and every other non-citizen out there voting."

Refering to Illegal Mexican aliens as wet backs does not seem so offencive. Perhaps I'm insensitive, or just don't know what it feels to be an illegal alien. In the meantime the guy that called Rice 'Aunt Jemima' gets away with it. The guy that calls illegal aliens 'wetbacks' gets suspended. I don't understand.

posted by Liberty @ 4:12 PM