I’ve done it again. This time I didn’t say want anyone to fornicate with a plumber before he drops dead (my last on air err), no this time I recounted a story from my youth accurately and set the talk radio world ablaze!
During my syndicated radio show on December 9, 2009, I was asked if I was black. It’s a common question. Many who only hear me on the radio and never see me, once they meet or see me, simply announce I cannot BE me, because Karel is black. I always joke about being a black woman trapped in a white man’s body (because who hasn’t wanted to be Diana Ross every now and again) and we go on.
So yesterday, when asked, I responded that I grew up poor, and poor means Black and Brown in this country, for the most part; that the face of poverty in the inner city and many other places is often Black and Brown. And growing up poor meant going to poor schools, which meant schools where the predominant student body was Black, Hispanic, Samoan, non-White. I’ve lived in Texas and the South, was born in Florida as well. So, for lack of a better way to say it, it rubbed off. The culture. I grew up listening to Parliament and Confunktion, The Emotions, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Sugar Hill Gang. I was rapping with Sequence in the late 1970s and if you don’t know them, well, google Angie Stone.
My parent’s friends were mostly Black, and there was always an older black “grandma” in my life somewhere. And realize, then, or now, I never really realized they were anything but people. I simply didn’t see color, we were all, are all, in the same boat together. Besides, I knew early on I was different, before I knew it was gay, it was just different, and I often related more with those that had little and felt no one really wanted to help them because they were, in fact, different.
I went to Franklin Jr. High School in the middle of Long Beach, which, according to the most recent census is the most diverse city in America; in Long Beach you’re more apt to run in to a person of a different origin than any place else. My friends were all colors, including white (a few).
I then went to Long Beach Poly High School, one of the schools with the most NFL success stories around. In my senior year, we moved, and the school asked me to stay in the district with a special transfer because I was white with a 4.0 GPA. I stayed.
In high school, we were high school kids and spoke that way. And I supposed, inappropriately.
When I was recounting growing up on air, I told them of the time I realized I was, indeed, White and that I could not speak the way that I did in high school. It was in 1992 in Houston, TX. I was there working with R&B singer Vesta Williams. She and I were, and are, great friends. We were in the elevator at the host hotel, quite by accident, laughing about the R&B singer and the gay guy in the belly of the beast, so to speak.
We were joking about an event at the gig and V said something funny. I did my “Nigga Plaaaeez…” a phrase I had been saying since 1978, almost 15 years. Not often, but as kids in school, we always said it. White, Black, didn’t matter. Instead of “Ya Right” or “give me a break” it was that phrase. I had said it to V many times with no consequence. To thousands of others with no consequence. But that night, a woman in the elevator cut us a look. One of THOSE looks.
When she got out, V told me maybe I shouldn’t say the phrase any more. This was before OJ and Mark Furman and the “N” word moniker. She said that even though I didn’t mean to offend, and she knew without a doubt there wasn’t one racist bone in my body, that others didn’t. And, that some, particularly Blacks in Houston, may just not understand. So, right then and there, the letter N, I, G, G, and A would never be put together in my vocabulary ever again. Since I didn’t use any other derivations of the world, that was that.
I recounted that story on air. But as a journalists and an adult, I never thought I would have to sugar coat the phrase. I wasn’t calling anyone the name, not using it to describe anyone, I was simply recounting a story from my past, and the phrase that actually taught me 12 years after High School that I was, in fact, White. Ultimately. That there was a separate set of rules for me when it comes to language.
I moved on with the show. Discussing health care. Calling Fox News the station of sedition, calling George W. Bush a war criminal…no one angry at that speech or those names.
Thursday, December 10th, I wake up to a full email box, and the host on KRXA 540 AM, Hal Ginsberg, making me a topic. I’m heard on that station and he opened up the topic. Suddenly, I’m being called an evil racist on air, being told how inappropriate I am, people talking about throwing me off air, again.
Funny, I call myself a fag, often. On air, off air, I do. No one screams, yells, not one email. Double standard?
So, I’m a racist, a foul-mouthed self centered shock jock. For recounting a story from my past, a story in which I realized using even a derivation of that word could be troublesome and how it was that word that really made me come to realize no one can ever really truly, blend. I’ll always be white, no matter where I live, how I live, or who my friends and social group contains. And that’s perfectly fine, but when you don’t see color, it’s odd to have it pointed out.
Instead of pontificating, I’ll let you decide. Here’s the audio. It’s about seven minutes in. Excuse the singing at the beginning, Sylvester was playing during the break and I felt a need while pouring tea to sing.
So listen and then comment. Am I racist? Horribly inappropriate? It is never my wish to offend any innocent, regular person just living their lives. I did not start in talk radio to offend, to shock, to cause trouble. I got in it to entertain, and racial slurs are not entertaining, at least not to me. Did I miss my own mark? Leave your comments.
To hear the audio go six minutes in here: http://www.radiokrl.com/podcasts/12-9-09/hr1withoutawire.mp3
