I'm playing it for you, Dr. Laura.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, radio talk show host and reliably vile homophobe, slut-shamer and all-around hater, finally got her ass handed to her this week.
The scene: Dr. Laura takes a call from a listener—a black woman married to a white man—asking for advice about insensitive racial comments made by relatives. Dr. Laura gripes that since Obama is president she really doesn’t know why black people keep complaining, and that because black people use the n-word freely, it must be okay in some contexts. To make her point, she decides to use the n-word. A lot. She then cuts the caller off, saying “If you’re that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, don’t marry out of your race.”
To make a long story short, there was backlash—sustained, righteous backlash.
Dr. Laura backed down the next day, saying her behavior had been wrong. But on Monday she complained:”as the media have rebroadcast my error again and again and again and again, compounding the damage which I shouldn’t have done — and never intended to do in the first place — the effect has been that my words have offended many, many, many, many more people and there are many who are saying they will not accept my apology.”
Now Dr. Laura says she won’t renew her radio show. It’s unclear whether this was her choice, or an effort to save face when her host station and sponsors dropped their support. But Dr. Laura wants you to know it’s really a civil rights issue:
“I want my 1st Amendment rights back, which I can’t have on radio without the threat of attack on my advertisers and stations,” Schlessinger said.
Here’s the problem: no one denied Dr. Laura her First Amendment rights. What happened is capitalism, not censorship, and it’s a perfect example of how free speech is supposed to work. Dr. Laura exercised her First Amendment right to free speech, and people reacted by exercising theirs—they protested to her sponsors. The end.
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want with complete impunity. Sometimes your free speech will come back to bite you in the ass. And really, all this self-serving bullshit about censorship is rather ironic coming from someone whose latest book is titled Stop Whining, Start Living.
1st Amendment Rights: Somewhere I heard a little blurb that when she renewed a contract with CBS around 1999 she asked that CBS restrict Howard Stern’s comments about her, but CBS declined.
I don’t understand what’s so hard to get about the first amendment in the US Constitution, everyone has a right to freedom of speech – just because you don’t have the same platform to air your “freedom of speech”, doesn’t mean that you’ve been denied them.
And Becky, you’re right – it is capitalism, not censorship at work.
Can we open some champagne and say good riddance? She has spewing vile and filth at everyone from gays to working mothers for at least a decade. May she disappear from the earth leaving only her nude photos as a legacy.
I will now exercise my REAL 1st Amendment rights: “Dr” Laura, bite me. What does she even mean, she never intended to say that stuff in the first place? No one owes you employment, honeybunch. You can stand on the street corner and n-word yourself into oblivion. But no one has to pay you to do it.
This woman has been a pox on the face of public Judaism for way too long, and now she has something real to repent for come Yom Kippur. Let’s hope she takes advantage of the opportunity.
On a more related note – I hate that so many people seem to have trouble understanding that while you have the right to say whatever you want, there is nothing guaranteeing you the right to continue being paid for it. Nor is your freedom of speech meant to enslave the world as your audience.
@MM: She’s one of the first people I’d vote out of our ethnic group if I could. Somehow I doubt this Yom Kippur will be any different. She doesn’t seem to think she’s doing anything wrong.
I have no additional comments because this post is pure brilliance. Beautifully said.
her PhD in “physiology” made her about as competent as dr. phil with regard to giving advice. what the good dr. spent most of her time doing was passing out her biased, homophobic, racist viewpoints to callers who either felt the same way or challenged her thereby assisting her indirectly in biting the rest of her ass off!
good riddance!
Heh. The transcript just doesn’t quite capture the absolute incredulity in Dr. Laura’s voice during and after her spat with the black woman.
On the other hand, it was strange to me that the caller’s gripe with Dr. Laura is that she said “nigger” like seven or eight times over the air. All the other assumptions and insinuations about black people just wanting to acquire power over whites was much more offensive.
Glen Beck? Rush Limbaugh? We’re waiting.
Dr. Laura comes off as very obtuse in her conversation. Yes, it is offensive to black people when they hear someone like Dr. Laura saying the word “nigger” over and over with impunity. Hearing white people trying to somehow reclaim this word is ridiculous.
@Inek: Completely agree. Every single thing she said—and the way she said it—was offensive and/or racist. But had she not used The Forbidden Word, I suspect there would not have been the same outcry, and she would have gotten away with it, the way she’s gotten away with utterly horrible offensive rants in the past. But using saying “nigger” is like touching the third rail—and Dr. Laura learned that the hard way.
While the end of Dr. Laura’s show is wonderful news and definitely worth celebrating, I can’t help but feel a little slighted. How many gay people and women did the doctor bash and was still considered acceptable enough to go on? Her racism caught up with her because I feel like minority groups are so organized and vocal about their equality. Whereas feminist organizations are so torn, we can’t stage a boycott strong enough to knock someone like Dr. Laura off of her pedastol for the same issues of intolerance towards women or the LGBTQI community. I feel like we could all learn something from this event about working together and motivating other people to speak out against injustice in a public forum.
This is a sterling example of the way the right tortures the Constitution for its own purposes. The First Amendment, which applies only to government actions, does not give anyone the right to say anything to anyone else any time. No private entity can censor you-only a government agency can do that. You have the right (in most circumstances) to try to get your message out. You don’t have the right to force it on anyone or to get paid for doing it.
This is what antis do at clinics. They attempt to bully people into hearing what they have to say, even though the people may explicitly reject it, under the fuise of free speech. We recently had a suit filed by an anti who claimed that her First Amendment rights were being abridged by our buffer zone ordinance because patients refused to talk to her or take her literature. Sorry-no.
I just hope that when she gets off the air, she STAYS off, not like that weasel Don Imus who slimed his way back onto the air even after the whole ugly Rutgers incident.
[...] Dr. Laura Meets the First Amendment – Radio talk show personality Dr. Laura spewed out racist crap last week and now she’s off the radio… and ranting about how the first amendment means she shouldn’t have to be held accountable for her free speech, or something. Yeah you can say what you want but you can also be held accountable by other folks exercising their right to free speech too, you know. [...]
I couldn’t believe how whiny and self-righteous her resignation speech was.
“Freedom of speech” simply means that the government cannot arrest and/or persecute you for what you say. It doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t criticize you.
In summary: don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, Dr. Laura!