Word - Shades of hate

Racially insensitive comments from other hosts

The Cox Enterprises-owned Atlanta Journal-Constitution has directed much outrage at nationally syndicated talk-show host Don Imus’ racially insensitive comments. But while AJC editorial writers were quick to condemn Imus’ statements (which, incidentally, were broadcast on radio and TV stations that compete with Cox’s), the newspaper has had no such criticism for similarly insensitive comments made by syndicated hosts on Cox’s own stations.

“That’s some rough girls from Rutgers, man. ... That’s some nappy-headed ho’s there. ... And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know.”

-- Don Imus, commenting April 4 on the previous night’s women’s basketball championship game between Rutgers University and the University of Tennessee

“She looks like a ghetto slut. ... It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. ... She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence. ... She looks like a shih tzu!”

-- Neal Boortz, syndicated talk-show host on Cox’s WSB-AM (750), commenting last year on Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney

“If you’re talking about a day like today, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, you’re gonna understand what civil rights has become, the con it’s become. ... It’s a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males’ birthright ... and give it to people who didn’t qualify for it.”

-- Michael Savage, another syndicated host on WSB-AM, speaking on his Jan. 15 show