Alas, radio and television programming that does not, one program at a time, promote the life and cohesive development of the entire human family, destroys it. Irving Elmer Bell.
The mind boggles when faced with the stark reality of what radio station program directors will allow to be sent out over the airways. In an article in the August 12, 1996 Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Ted Migchelbrink wrote of the shameless, and sometimes sordid, competition found in morning radio programming. His anger was in response to an exchange between program hosts and a mother and daughter call-in team. The daughter had the audacity to ask the mother when did she last have sex.
However, there are many far more important criticisms to be made about the radio industry.
The comments I am going to present have been made before, but I doubt from a prisoner's perspective. I hope that some of you will, in the end, realize that my perspective is also your perspective, in that we agree that violence is born as a consequence of hate-filled rhetoric.
In a less-than-subtle manner, Migchelbrink distinguished black programming (he mentioned hearing the term "homegirl" used repeatedly) from white programming (wherein terms like "Yeah baby!" and "Dang burn!" were used). I can only speculate that he was attempting to be even-handed in his criticisms.
Here at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison where I am held, I am subjected to what can only honestly be referred to as racist talk radio. You see, several radio stations are broadcast twenty-four hours a day and prisoners have the option of listening to them through headphones plugged into a jack in the cell wall. Two of these stations are clearly racist. That the majority of white prisoners listen primarily to one or both of those racist stations ought to not surprise anyone.
One of those stations airs a program called The John Boy and Billy Show. The racist remarks and commentary issuing from that program are such that you could not find more hate-filled rhetoric at a Ku Klux Klan meeting!
This kind of racist radio programming have been referred to as "dangerous, powerful, pernicious and homogeneous" in a recent study conducted by Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation. I agree.
With prisoners being exposed to this overt racism over the airways there is little wonder that America's prisons are such fertile recruiting grounds for hate-mongers and the groups they represent. There are a large number of white Hitler-types, not only in this prison's cells and dormitories but in many of its administrative offices, as well. Like little robots, they go about their daily business parroting and acting out to the extent they can in a prison setting wherein 65% of the population is made up of African-American men the racist rhetoric that they listen to religiously.
There is only one radio station broadcast at this prison that is directed to the black experience and black prisoners. To its credit, I have never heard it promote racist attitudes in its programming. In fact, it often calls for an all-inclusive unification of the human family.
If I could have spoken to Migchelbrink regarding his anger directed at morning radio programming, I would have to told him that he was worrying about the wrong thing.
BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email <brandonastorjones@hotmail.com>. Jones is seeking a publisher for his collected prison writings. Please notify him of any possible leads. Visit Jones' web page at <http://www.brandonastorjones.com>.]