Racist comments at KQRS

Here’s an email from Martha Fast Horse who has a Sunday morning radio show on KQRS radio in the Twin Cities, concerning continuing problems with the famous Shock Jock Tom Barnard who calls KQRS his home.

KQRS  apologized and said they would makes changes, but that was a lie…

Tom Barnard and his crew have been harassing me on-air since I began recording my radio show at KQRS 2 1/2 years ago. Two weeks ago I sent Tom a letter and cc’d the president and program manager asking him to stop the racist, highly inappropriate, vulgar, and offensive remarks effective immediately. There was communication, I gave it a chance, and nothing has changed. Tom is a bully of the airwaves! And even if I lose my radio show, I can no longer remain silent while they continue to perpetrate their hate mongering, racist practices against people of color and myself.

Two weeks ago what prompted me to bring this issue forward was Tom saying, “I am tired of these indigenous people claiming to have rights to the land, There was a war and you got your ass handed to you, so shut the hell up!” Waziyatawin and I talked about it on the radio show that will air on Sunday morning 6/6/10.

I called the studio and informed them that I would be coming to there on Monday to address the issue with Marc Kalman the president. His assistant said she is shocked and surprised that I would even say and do such a thing, and she would get back to me about a time on Monday. I will keep you posted… With the racist history at KQRS, I am surprised why anyone at KQ would be shocked and surprised. It is completely beyond me.


Comments

Racist comments at KQRS — 10 Comments

  1. Don’t whine and run to mommy, come back with a challenging objective viewpoint on what was said! If I recall history correctly I do believe that the european white man DID defeat the Native American.

  2. Your recollection of history must be the cartoon version. There were white men who did defeat Native Americans in battle and in massacres committed by Europeans against Indians (such as Wounded Knee). But there were other white men who signed treaties and made other agreements, all of which are still the law of the land. Some of those treaties are still being litigated today. Consider the 1999 Mille Lacs case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Mille Lacs. You won’t believe it but there are still white people whining about that to this day. I suppose if I were Tom Barnard I would say that same thing that he said against the those people who are still complaining about the Mille Lacs case. But then I’m not Tom Barnard, so I would just suggest that people learn a little more history so that they don’t just get the cartoon version.

    By the way, where does that “run to mommy” part come from? Who’s this “mommy” you are talking about? And how is a person supposed to have a conversation, presenting “a challenging objective viewpoint,” when the guy making the original statement says “shut the hell up”?

  3. I didn’t know Tom Barnard had dittoheads too. What happened to all that talk about a “challenging objective viewpoint”? So much for a discussion right? Thank you for proving my point.

  4. Hau Bruce, this is Nick Anderson from the Mendota People. You better watch out, it seems Randy’s fine debating skills may just give you a run for your money 😉 And when is most of white America going to realize that we weren’t defeated; we were colonized and we had most of our land taken away, but we weren’t defeated. Our reservations are still sovereign territory. We’re not “whining because we lost,” we’re trying to get the U.S. government to honor the promises it make to us. You know, those promises that some call TREATIES, which according to the U.S. constitution are the supreme law of the land. Apparently all these conservatives who treat the Constitution like it’s the Bible somehow managed to skip over article 6. Actually, I’d bet most of those flag wavers have never even read the Constitution.

  5. I’m an old white man who realizes that, after reading many of the comments here today, we have a long way to go to start treating our brothers and sisters with respect. To make comments that are so culturally insensitive as the one about drinking a bottle of hooch and passing out shows the greatest amount of ignorance possible from the writer. Alcoholism is a disease that does not discriminate in regards to race, sex, age, socio-economic status, etc. Hopefully you will not be plagued by this in your lifetime Randy as I have seen the devastation from this illness in the white community as well as Native people. It isn’t pretty and destroys the good in society for all. What is sad is that the internet has led to this kind of trash talk from people who probably would not say this to your face. Some would however no matter who they insult along the way. Many cowardly people hide behind keyboards and blast others in a mean spirited and hateful way rather than to try to understand each other and work for mutual peace and tolerance. The comments here from fellow white people are shameful. Some day you’ll get old too and may grow up along the way or continue to be a bigot and further your hatred and violence against others.

  6. I have long pondered why Americans are still stuck in the deep muck of racism over all these years. After more than 200 years of this country making and breaking treaties whose primary aim was to remove Native Americans, most Americans can’t understand why they can’t just grab the rest of their land, or why they can do some things forbidden to whites. Nearly 60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, the Twin Cities has the most segregated school systems in the country. This in this allegedly “liberal” state?
    Most whites have no idea of what a privileged life they lead. The admonition to “Walk a mile in my moccasins” is perhaps not ironically from the Native Americans.

    It’s a good idea and I recommend it, seriously. I think every white person–and most especially anyone in any legislative body or any institution who makes decisions on behalf of Americans made up of any diverse community should take a week-long course in “Walk a Mile.” There are some courses on “white privilege,” but I think it should get down on the ground and real. Why not make anyone responsible for making decisions live in a Native American community in Minneapolis, for example, or on a reservation? Why not make all legislators of whatever level or rank spend a week in our public schools, maybe teaching or working as an assistant (no delinquencies accepted). Or as a counselor. Or as a homeless person. Or an unemployed person whose benefits have run out.

    I think we should make the people who supposedly represent us spend a week each on welfare, unemployment, and as a disabled person. Some could continue to hold their jobs for the most part, just change their abode or their living conditions. It’s “outside the box” as they say, but…..

  7. We Oglala’s call you “wasciun”, which means “white” and “the taker of the best meat”…..the greedy ones. The best meat has now been taken from you by your own people that you call “Wall Street”, and we all know which side of the “wall” and side of the “street” you are on. You are the ones who have been handed their ass on a plate by your greed. What you did to us, is now done to you. You did not listen to our lessons about how to invest in things that money cannot buy, and now you live on the biggest reservation of all. You have now lost your homes and your people wander with no place to live. You and your children go hungry and beg for food. The manner in which you provided for your families has been taken from you, and by your own people! I would never leave my country for yours, and stop coming to us for our culture and spiritual guidance. It was your people who who made the laws, and now you cry to your momma “the government” so “shut the hell up” and take it up with your own people. We have grown tired of your whining about your country’s financial decisions. Even now, it is your people that claim thier little percentages of Indian blood to get your benefits. None of us claim to be white. You should have listened to the elders when they kept telling you for hundreds of years that only when everything is gone will you realize that money isn’t real. Now you have nothing, so stop whining, and “shut the hell up”.
    Take your sorry ass off my land.

  8. The comments made by Tacanteksapa, Alan Blackburn, Ginny and Angela Young are absolutely excellent. In so far as history is concerned, and history is one of my main areas of research, I would like to point out that the Indigenous People of Turtle Island, what some refer to as the United States (which are not united at all) were never defeated in war, perhaps a few battles here and there. If there was a defeat it came by way of butchering innocent people, babies, children, women, pregnant women, elders and the slaughter of the animals, land and waters. There was genocide, a genocide that continues to this day…what do you read in your newspapers or hear on your TV news networks…nothing. Why? Because most of the non-native society has been assimilated into this form of propaganda of cultural genocide. What about the small pox that was deliberately put in trade goods to the Natives people…was this not germ and chemical warfare? There was never any honor gained by any of the invaders military when engaging the Native people…it was all free gratis murder and everyone turned and looked the other way. Who were the real savages? Who were the truly uncivilized? Tom Barnard is so far off base with his comments I wonder what other false information he believes is history that he lives his life by. What is that saying? “It is better to know a little about something than a whole lot about nothing.” By the way, the Native Americans, the Indigenous People of this ‘The United Nations and Tribes of Turtle Island’ were never defeated, We are still here. I think Angela summed it all up very well. By the way, for those of you who know your history so well, did you know that your Declaration of Independence was written by Native Americans, long before any of your ancestors, the invaders, came to this land? In addition to all of this history…we should not forget, you dragged all of your country’s history over here with you and spread it across these lands. Your entire history is based in war, slaughter, butchery, thievery, slavery, the plague, religious wars, the murder of your God’s son and his followers…to save your souls…that didn’t work either… so how dare you say such things anywhere in this country, Native Country. How can this United States stand so bold in the face of the world with such false honor and pride when its history is derived from lies and deceit? Your American Dream is a nightmare…and you’re living it now. Someday, just maybe, someday you will wake up.

  9. The conquest of Native lands by the European colonial powers (England, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and even the Netherlands) were horrific. The first world war, from 1756-1763 was the first to pit American Native peoples against one another in Canada and parts of the US. Ojibwe and Dakota became bitter enemies.

    Prior to this the Spanish invasion of the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America and the killing of virtually millions of innocent Native people from 1492 on was a ghastly genocide of proportions the world had never and to this day has never seen. Culture, language, literature and the very life blood of peoples were extinguished.

    In what was to become the United States, the Europeans who sought liberty and a democratic state, framed a Constitution that would be the blueprint for such a society.

    For that reason alone, despite breaking the law, committing genocide on North American tribes, and interpreting laws that refused to allow an American Native person status in court as a “person,” we have today surviving sovereign nations, treaties, and peoples.

    Democracy came with a price tag. Either all came under its umbrella or it was a sham. We are still learning that lesson today as the states agonize over the status of LGBT marriage. We in the Indian community should easily remember our own struggle to be considered equals where it matters: in the courts and under the laws of this land.

    The on air remarks of Bernard and his crew are meant to entertain the lonely crowd out there who fear their own Constitution. They would rather have it like other nations that slice society up into the privileged and the downtrodden.

    The lessons of democracy are sometimes hard to swallow, especially when individuals take their free speech privileges to extremes.

    But the Constitution and democracy stand as irrefutable courageous pledges in trust to the reality of living treaties among the 560 surviving tribes in the US.

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