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It seriously took all the energy I had yesterday to do my radio show, but Iˆ‚m glad I managed to get on the air. Bobo and I had planned an entire two hour kickoff to Hispanic Heritage Month (which starts today, btw) complete with guests from some of the different Latino orgs around campus to fill us in on what allˆ‚s going on this month.
Totally a great show. The guests werenˆ‚t scheduled to show up until the beginning of hour two so we spent the time playing some great Latin music and talking about all sorts of questions Bobo had for me, like ˆ¨Where is Aztlan?ˆÆ or ˆ¨Whatˆ‚s the difference between Hispanic, Latino and Chicano?ˆÆ And sometimes, Iˆ‚d feed Bobo a question that I really wanted to answer. It was pretty cool.
When the guests arrived, we had a good time talking about all of the different services KU has for Latin students as well as why these services even exist, a great night of talk radio centered around educating the community at large. And for the most part, the community seemed to really like it. We had more than twice the normal volume of calls telling us how great the show was and how much they liked the music we were playing. . .then there was this one guy.
He kept calling up trying to get us into a discussion on illegal immigration and the destructive nature of Latin culture on ˆ¨AmericanˆÆ culture. Yeah, that was fantastic. We ignored him as best we could, even when he called and asked us to talk about ˆ¨The price people have to pay for living in THIS culture. Iˆ‚m tired of hearing about Latin culture, what about THIS culture.ˆÆ I felt like saying, sorry buddy, if you want to talk about that, call ANY of the other shows on this station and bug them.
I didnˆ‚t though, if for no other reason than many of the other shows on KJ do talk about some issues of Latin culture. OK, Latin Lab plays Latin dance music. . .and Iˆ‚m sure one of the hip-hop shows plays stuff my Latin MCs and DJs from time to time. . .and Ozo was in heavy rotation this summer. But still, the guy was driving Bobo and I crazy. We value his point, but why was it so hard for him to see OUR point? Oh well, I guess weˆ‚re lucky that the only real negative reaction we got to last nightˆ‚s show was that guy, the one person who was scandalized to hear that Kansas was once part of Mexico, ˆ¨Like ALL of it? All the way to LAWRENCE?ˆÆ
ˆ¨No,ˆÆ we told them, ˆ¨like western and southwestern Kansas, out by Salina and Liberal.ˆÆ
ˆ¨Oh,ˆÆ they said, somehow relieved.
And then there was the guy that was hopping mad because Bobo called John Brown a terrorist.
ˆ¨Are you pro-slavery or something?ˆÆ He asked.
ˆ¨No,ˆÆ Bobo replied, ˆ¨I just have a problem with killing innocent women and children no matter what youˆ‚re for or against.ˆÆ
Yup, an interesting night up in the shack. Though, damn, that one guy totally got on my nerves.
Sounds like that one guy has been reading too much Huntington (see Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity). There are actual a large number of theoretical arguments that one can get into, some of which are pretty legitimate. I'd have loved to have had a chance to smack that guy around. (This is also why I opted not to take Religion and Politics this term, Huntington is teaching it and I might have not-so-accidentally killed the man).
Wow, that caller is a total tool. "American" culture wouldn't exist if it didn't borrow from every single culture that immigrated here. In fact, *the country* wouldn't even exist were it not for immigration.
Don't know why, but it seems to fit.
Vidalita arisca, vidalitay,
que vivˆås a monte
por quˆà hay tanto campo,
vidalitay, tanta gente pobre.
-Alfredo Zitarrosa
Yeah, as it turns out this guy's been bothering some other DJs at the station. . .yeah, interesting character.
It's interesting how people focus in on John Brown for moral critique, and ignore the 800 pound gorrilla in the corner, the Civil War itself. Brown's self-articulated strategy was to bring about a revolution with minimal and discriminate killing (i.e., slaveowners,) while the Union establishment embarked on total war. If John Brown killed women and children (and that's news to me,) it would pretty well pale in comparision to the contemporary conduct of the U.S. government.
Word, yo. All I'm sayin' is that I did a radio show in Kansas with a guy from South Carolina. He mentioned John Brown in a way consistant with his subject positioning and stuff ensued.
Word.
I was always amused whenever I would drive throgh "Liberal", KS on our way to New Mexico.
In fact, I'm going to try and find an image of a "Welcome to Liberal Kansas" highway sign, right now.
"Word, yo." Oh, I know. I wasn't saying, I was just saying.