Howard Stern

I always pictured myself as a guy with an open mind and willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. I would say around 1991 or 1992, one of my white co-workers told me about this guy Howard Stern. He raved about how funny this guy was in the morning. I had never heard of Stern before so, I gave him a listen. This was long before he went to satellite radio.

Upon listening to Howard Stern's show, I immediately found it to be very sophomoric. I'm a silly guy by nature and I love a good joke like the next man, but this show and the humor on it seemed to remind me of guys I went to high school with. Mind you, I was 29 or 30 years old by the time I heard Howard Stern for the first time and the show was too silly for me. Not that I'm so sophisticated... I'm not. But, by then, I was beyond fart jokes and toilet humor.

The thing that really turned me off to his show was the subtle brand of racism that was just below the surface of all of his humor. There were his endless stories of how he was beaten up and bullied by black kids when he was in high school in Long Island and how he'd begged his parents to move out of Roosevelt, which was becoming all Black by then. He even told a story about how he came to school and the black kids took his pants from him and he had to walk around all day with no pants on. (Now, I did find that story funny!)

If he barely tried to hide his racism... his listeners didn't hide theirs at all. They called up and said some outrageous things and were barely ever checked by him. To make matters worse, His sidekick, Robin Quivers (who is Black or at least, that's the rumor), sat there and giggled at everything that was said. I couldn't believe her. I found myself being irritated more by her than him... and believe me that was hard.

He had a member of the Ku Klux Klan on his show once that came close to calling her a nigger and she sat there and laughed it off. Of course, Howard was making fun of the man, but he still didn't check the guy once. This guy is disrespecting your co-host and you don't stand up for her? That was all I could take. After that show, I never listened to him again.

My white co-workers used to laugh and howl at everything he said. They never understood why I couldn't listen to Howard Stern anymore. He had a television show for awhile and these guys used to come to work and quote everything he said verbatim. I would usually walk away when the subject of Stern came up. They thought I was being over sensitive. The same way an old man referred to me one time as "Shine" and his nephew, while very apologetic said... ''Look, he's an old man. He's from that time, man." I said... "Well, I'm from this time and I might just say somethin' out my mouth that will make him wish he were back in his time." They just didn't get it.

Stern's many lawsuits and his feuds with the FCC didn't interest me in the least bit. In many cases, I felt as though he deserved the fines he got. When popular Latin singer Selena was murdered, He discussed her murder while machine guns and a recording of Speedy Gonzales running from Sylvester the cat played in the background. Of course, Robin Quivers thought this was hilarious. Well, the Mexicans didn't. They threatened to boycott several of the radio stations that broadcasted his newly syndicated show in Texas and New Mexico. The Company that was syndicating his show demanded that he apologize for the bit and in a rare moment, he actually did apologize.

African-Americans jumped all over Don Imus a few years ago when he made an ignorant remark he made about some Black female basketball players, yet we have never threatened to shut down Howard Stern's radio show. He has said way more ignorant things about Black people than Imus ever has. Stern has long since left "free" radio. He's on satellite radio now, which means you have to pay to hear him. I'll be damned! I wouldn't listen to his ignorance for free, I definitely will not pay to hear him.

The latest Stern controversy is what he said today about Oscar Nominee, Gabourey Sidibe... “There’s the most enormous, fat, black chick I’ve ever seen. She is enormous. Everyone’s pretending she’s a part of show business and she’s never going to be in another movie.” And, on Oprah Winfrey, he said… “Oprah’s another liar, a filthy liar. She’s telling an enormous woman the size of a planet that she’s going to have a career.”

People always defend Howard Stern by saying that he says "what everybody else is thinking but won't say." Who is this "everybody else"? The mean-spirited, stupid ignoramuses that listen to this guy and actually think he's funny? Yeah, that's who he speaks for... the tea party set. And, I'm finding out much to my dismay that there are a whole lot of them out there.