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Haven’t you
heard?
Controversial rock musician Ted Nugent is scheduled to
headline the 31st Annual Northwest Ohio Rib-Off,
presented by The Blade August 7-10 at the Lucas County Rec
Center.
Yes, this is the same Ted Nugent who, according to the Daily
Kos political blog, called President Barak a “subhuman
mongrel” and also said during a concert, “….hey Obama, you
might want to suck on one of these you punk: Obama, he’s a
piece of sh*t, and I told him to suck on my machine gun.”
Nugent has also, Kos points out, “threatened to kill” not
only President Obama, but also Hillary Clinton and U.S.
Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
Duke University professor and Sociology Department Chair
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, PhD responded quickly to news of The
Blade’s sponsorship of the Rib-Off and those who offer
flimsy justification of the decision to bring Nugent to
Toledo.
“How
can a community newspaper, which claims to have the best
interest of its readers in mind, sponsor an event in which
an old-fashioned racist is participating? The Toledo Blade
seems out of step with the times. While the Commissioner of
the NBA fined racist owner Don Sterling and is trying to
remove him from the league, this newspaper is providing
cover to one. Those who use the first amendment to defend
Mr. Nugent must understand that the issue here is not "free
speech," but inflammatory and divisive speech. He can say
and believe all the garbage he has said, but a newspaper
which claims to be "for the people" should not sponsor his
hate. Those who use the First Amendment in this case should
think long and hard and ask themselves, "would we have this
position if the person in question was an anti-Semite? If
Mr. Nugent comes to town, I hope people of goodwill in
Toledo protest vigorously his presence and consider
boycotting all the sponsors of this event.”
The level of insult is perhaps felt even more keenly by
outspoken former U.S. Representative (Ga.) Cynthia McKinney,
who stated "Well, I've never heard his music, but I would
presume that his music is as cacophonous and unpleasing to
the ear as is his hate rhetoric. This tells me more about
the ownership and the editors of the Toledo Blade, however,
who are willing to promote White Supremacy and disharmony at
all costs; for only a White male steeped in his own arrogant
supremacy could get away with insulting women, the LGBTQ
community, blacks, mixed-race individuals in one fell swoop
while singing a song of lust after a mere child. Well done,
Toledo Blade, for demonstrating an absolute and total lack
of judgment."
The real drama, however, is not Mr. Nugent’s group slurs,
but The Blade’s public backing of his appearance while
simultaneously portraying itself as racially tolerant by
sponsoring local forums on racism which it claims are
designed “to change minds and change lives.”
Where is the outcry from the NAACP or the Toledo Community
Coalition, a partner with The Blade on the issue of racial
reconciliation and a group originally founded upon a protest
around the equitable distribution of resources to the black
community? Crickets.
Better yet, where is the outcry from labor? While several
unions have been quite outspoken in calling for the
resignation of Councilman Larry Sykes for his claim of being
profiled for driving while black, not a peep has been heard
from them concerning The Blade’s contradictory preaching of
racial harmony while simultaneously sowing seeds of racial
discord.
Yark Automotive, to its credit, pulled out as a sponsor of
the Rib-Off as a result of Nugent’s scheduled appearance,
but was quickly replaced by Taylor Kia.
What does this say about how racism operates in a so-called
post-racial Toledo?
In reality, there are probably only a comparatively few
remaining “die-hard racists” that openly propagate white
supremacy. Frankenberg, (1993), defines racism as “a process
involving the continuous, often unconscious, exercise of
power predicated in taking for granted the privileging of
whiteness.” Still embedded in American society, then, are
processes that marginalize or discriminate against blacks
and other racial groups.
I
don’t know if The Blade feels that Toledo’s black community
is unintelligent or incompetent to make sound judgment about
social and economic issues, or whether it just assumes that
our feelings about Nugent and the Rib-Off do not matter. But
the take-for-granted assumption that the thinking of their
own group – the white privileged – is all that matters,
makes a biased claim that The Blade possesses a knowledge of
race issues that is superior to the knowledge of those who
have experienced it first hand. This “superior” judgment,
itself, perpetuates racism according to the accepted
definition.
Racism is a hidden and little understood phenomenon by those
who have not experienced it. If this deadly but often subtle
evil is to be countered, I believe that it is incumbent upon
the black community to speak out and expose ambiguous racial
meanings.
I
also believe that The Blade and many other well-intentioned
non-racists in Toledo are sincere.
But, I believe also that, like Yark Automotive, “they should
prove it.”
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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