On-air shock jocks are finding new and deplorable lows in order to gain media attention from which to spew their vicious venom at their real and imagined enemies. This is what Rush Limbaugh said just hours after legendary New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner died:
“That cracker made a lot of African American millionaires.”
Why on earth would a white man refer to another white man as a “cracker”? Is it because Limbaugh is prejudiced against Jews? And why would you defame the man after he had just passed on to the other side? Don’t you have any respect? And for the handful of black millionaires, there were hundreds of white millionaires who were employed by Steinbrenner that Limbaugh conspicuously and conveniently omitted from his groveling tirade.
More than this, shouldn’t there be some national outrage that Limbaugh crossed the line of decency and good taste, yet again? What would be the fate of a black disk jockey who used the word “cracker”? Should Limbaugh face the same fate as Don Imus, the man who was fired for referring to the University of Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed h-s.”
Rev. Al Sharpton probably does, though he doesn’t directly address Limbaugh’s employment status. He does, however, perform invasive surgery on Limbaugh:
“The statements made by Rush Limbaugh about George Steinbrenner were repugnant and offensive whether they were intended to be facetious or tongue-in-cheek. The fact that he could make these comments less than 24-hours after Mr. Steinbrenner’s death makes it even more offensive. For the last 20-years I have known George Steinbrenner and we have quarrelled over diversity and community programs but I always found him fair, direct, and genuinely prone to do what he felt was right. He generated a lot of money for a lot of players as well as for baseball as a whole, and should not be disparaged in any manner. In later years, in a twist of irony, his granddaughter and my daughter became close, which only brought me closer to knowing him and we developed a mutual respect. Mr. Limbaugh and his broadcasters owe [Steinbrenner’s] family an apology that [on] the first day of their mourning [they were] subjected to this type of rhetoric. To think that just a year ago Mr. Limbaugh sought to be an owner of an NFL team and has now said this about a legendary baseball team owner. This says more about Mr. Limbaugh than it does Mr. Steinbrenner.”
–terry shropshire
