An Open Letter to WSB 750 AM re: Neal Boortz

Over the last eight days, I’ve been following the repeated belittling of a disabled nine-year-old boy by Neal Boortz of WSB 750 AM in Atlanta. It defies logic and decency that one of the most storied broadcast stations in the South would follow such a course; surely financial gain doesn’t justify causing harm to any child, much less a disabled one.

Jordan W never asked to become the target of a bully like Neal Boortz. But last week, several large pieces of ice, probably from a passing airliner, crashed through the roof of his family’s tire ship. Reporters converged on the scene, and one, from WSB TV (both WSB 750 and WSB TV are owned by Cox Communication) recorded Jordan’s smart and plausible reaction to the incident:

Satellite things up in the sky, I thought one of them done fell down in the roof.

Jordan’s father, Gordon W, was also recorded.

On Friday, March 7, at approximately 10:30 am, Mr. Boortz replayed the audio of Gordon W and began mocking the tire shop owner’s speech patterns. In northeast Georgia, exurban Atlanta butts up abruptly with Appalachia; Mr. W speaks in the distinctive dialect of the region. This kind of mockery is the stock in trade of Mr. Boortz, who promotes his show as “America’s Rude Awakening” and ”Insensitivity Training.”

Then Mr. Boortz played the audio of Jordan W. The learning diabled boy shares his father’s distinct Appalachian dialect, and he also spoke very rapidly in his excitement and so was difficult to understand.

Boortz proceeded to mock and ridicule the boy’s speech, to demean his intelligence, and to question his future economic prospects. Jordan may or may not achieve the kind of succes Boortz has achieved—four million listeners, successful books, television appearances, speaking engagements—but there’s no reason to belittle his shot at the American Dream.

Boortz demeaned the child for over an hour, replaying the tape again and again and laughing that he couldn’t “translate” Jordan’s words. Boortz also said Jordan “sounds as dumb as a stump” and would probably wind up “changing tires” or “farming worms.” Boortz even accused Gordon W of child abuse based solely on his son’s speech patterns, an accusation echoed numerous times in his listener’s comments on this blog.

The line between good and bad taste was being pushed for a ratings bump, only this time, the schtick involved a young child. On his website, an unrepentant Boortz asked his listeners this question:

“Is Neal being too hard on that 10-year-old boy from North Georgia with the thick accent?” One of the statements respondents could choose from: “mah diddy sez neil’s bein ignert.”

On Tuesday, March 11, I heard Boortz again ridiculing Jordan, whom he had now dubbed “Little Buford” the “future worm farmer.” No child deserves such treatment, not on a playground or in a home, much less on national radio. I contacted Gordon W and asked him if Jordan was aware of what was being done to him. Mr. W said he was, and that

“…it’s really disturbing him…he’s really, really sad about it.” Mr. W also had a message for Boortz: “We just want him to leave us alone.”

With Boortz’s huge local following—Lula is less than an hour north of Atlanta—it was inevitable that Boortz’s abuse would come to the attention of Jordan and his family. In fact, according to Mr. W, people have been coming into the family business and talking about it, leaving Jordan traumatized and depressed. I posted both of the statements above on this blog and also emailed the Boortz show to inform them that Jordan has, among other problems, ADHD. Their response that evening:

Horseshit. There is no such thing as ADD or ADHD.

I replied, “And that justifies harming a nine-year-old child (not ten) named Jordan (not Buford)?” Based on subsequent comments made on air, and on search engine results, I believe that by this time, Boortz and/or his staff had been reading my posts. Their response to me that same evening:

Oh yeah! We’re sitting here just shaking in our boots! Bid bad Preston is going to really show us who’s boss here! Are we in trouble now! I guess we had better all get our affairs in order because soon we aren’t going to have jobs! Oh, the humanity!

The irony of these people invoking “humanity” appears to be lost on them.

On Thursday morning, March 13, I heard Boortz mention me on his program. He noted that I had been “blogging” about him and mocked the idea that he might be held accountable for his actions because of that. It’s hard to believe that by this time he was unaware of the fact that Jordan W suffers from something more than ADHD. (Out of respect for the boy and his family, I’ve agreed not to specify the boy’s disabilities, but to use general terms instead.)

Boortz repeated his attacks that Thursday and posted this on his web site beginning at around 8:30 am:

…looks like we’ve really twisted a few knickers out there with our panning of Lil’ Buford’s communications skills. You remember Lil’ Buford, don’t you? The 10-year-old kid who can’t speak the English language? Yeah .. that one, the future worm farmer.

According to Boortz, a substantial number of emails, some of which mentioned the boy’s disabilities, had been sent to WSB over the week ending Friday, March 14. I sent numerous emails to both Boortz and WSB General Manager Dan Kearney myself. WSB management had to be aware of the situation.

As of the writing of this post (Friday, March 14, 9:00 pm,) the Boortz quote above is no longer available on Boortz’s web site, www.boortz.com. This may be on orders from above at Cox; I certainly hope so.

I hope the W family will file a civil lawsuit against this hateful coward, Neal Boortz, and that WSB will demand at the least an on-air apology and at most a suspension. WSB should also seriously consider making a good-faith offer of compensation to the family to avoid the added trauma of a very public and ugly lawsuit.

I know that James Cox, the founder of WSB’s parent company, Cox Communications, would be scandalized by what’s been done to Jordan and Gordon W. People with disabilities should never be subjected to the kind of abuse heaped on Jordon W, nor should their parents be made to suffer needlessly like Gordon W was.

Sincerely,

Dr. Preston Coleman

Newsprism

Attack Ad Depicts Obama Singing “Zippity Doo Dah”

No, no one has stooped that low. Yet.

But “someone” is heading in that direction. Bill Clinton’s invoking of Jesse Jackson after Obama won the South Carolina primary was a brazen and blatant attempt to drag race into the Democratic nomination process. The release of a photo of Senator Obama wearing African garb, which Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams failed to deny involvement in, was transparent. Unsubstantiated allegations that photos of Obama have been “darkened” in order to “highlight” his race mirror the infamous Time cover in which the same was done with a photo of OJ Simpson.

Now, video clips of Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor at Obama’s place of worship, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, have surfaced on YouTube. Reverand Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama, baptized their children, and is a confidante to the Senator and an advisor to the Obama campaign.

Before Wright retired from the Church in February, he gave a lifetime achievement award to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, blamed the US government for the AIDS virus, and said the US “deserved” the 9/11 attacks based on a history of racism, colonialism, and oppression.

The Obama campaign has distanced itself somewhat from Wright and his statements. In an interview this morning, the Senator said, “This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.“

Demands are increasing for an explanation of the close ties between the Senator and the Reverand; many are also demanding an outright denunciation, putting Obama in the untenable situation of choosing between political expediency and loyalty to a long-time friend.

Setting such demands aside—and it seems clear that the demands are justified by the extreme nature of Wright’s statements—the question remains, exactly who is responsible for the sudden ”surfacing” of these tapes? The fact that every news organization in the country is discussing them now isn’t coincidence.

The two primary suspects, of course, are Obama rivals Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Muddying the waters considerably is the possibility that either Democratic or Republican operatives may have released the tapes with or without the knowledge or permission of the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

A simple calculation might settle the issue. Bringing the tapes into the spotlight at this time favors Senator Clinton; to help Senator McCain, the tapes would have been held for many months. In addition, the Clintons are well known for such tactics, have no compunction about using them, and are increasingly desperate. McCain, on the other hand, isn’t closely associated with dirty politics; in fact, he suffered from similar tactics in 2000, when Bush operatives started a smear campaign claiming that the Arizona Senator had a mixed-race child, and he refused to respond in kind.

Whoever is responsible for these tapes, the news industry is awash in a tacit understanding: don’t allow journalistic standards to interfere with the exploitation of any story. That’s the mentality that gave us Jon Benet and Nathalee, and Paris and Anna; Swaggart and Spitzer, and Haggard and Craig; Power and Ferraro, Bill and Michelle; Reverend Hagee and Reverend Wright.

It’s certainly possible, and I think quite likely, that two things are in play here: first, the Clinton campaign is circulating stories intended to undermine Obama’s candidacy, and second, the media is acting as a willing accomplice, not out of loyalty to Clinton but rather out of the desire to maximize ratings and circulation.

This election should be about policies and the philosophies they reflect, about character and judgment, not about the minutae and innuendo that transfix our easily manipulated media.

Each time a race-baiting photo or tape or rumor or leak surfaces, somebody is operating under cover of darkness to exploit Barack Obama’s skin color, and somebody else is cynically exploiting the subterfuge. I’ll leave it to you to decide who those somebodies are.

Newsprism

Update: Here’s Obama’s response to this controversy at Huffington Post. And now, Rev. Wright is no longer associated with the Obama campaign, though it hasn’t been made clear whether he resigned or was forced out. It should also be noted that while Disney’s “Song of the South” (which featured Uncle Remus singing “Zippity Doo Dah”) has been roundly criticized as racist, many see it as a valuable piece of Southern folklore.