If you listened to the shameless exploitation of Dr. King on WBAI today, you may have come across a familiar voice, that of Bernard White, who was again invited to spew his racism on the station's air.
If you are not familiar with White and the enormous damage he did to the station while working there as PD, some Google searches will probably fill you in, but all you really need to know about is the frivolous lawsuit he filed against Pacifica and then WBAI board member Steve Brown.
White, who made no bones about his intention to turn WBAI into an all-black station, was playing the race card to the hilt, but not too cleverly, so he lost his case. The bad news is that it cost Pacifica a considerable amount of money in court costs, not to mention that White's crude behavior, physical attacks on staff and volunteer members, and racist programming is seen as a catalyst in the mass exodus of listener-supporters. Broadcasting narrowly and on a lowered intellectual level to a segment of the area's black population turned out to be detrimental to the station's survival, and it still is, because no lessons are learned by the obsessed.
So, why has he been invited back? You will have to ask Mario Murillo, who now has lost whatever remained of respect I had for him. My faith in his intentions was already fading, but this is unacceptable, destructive action by yet another opportunist.
Please bear in mind that Sidney Smith was "banned for life" for an accusation that nobody can take beyond allegation, and that the management's call to the police that brought the police not only was for nought, but has apparently used up WBAI's welcome. Forced to vacate the CCNY location next month, amateurs are building a makeshift studio at Atlantic Avenue. It will not be soundproofed. Reimers Radio is sinking ever deeper into the morass of his ineptidude.
I will be posting more on this in the next few days, but I recommend that you skim through the attached court document. It is long, so you may wish to skim through it, but I think you will find enough there to give you a good idea of White's dishonorable legacy—and this is but one of several incidents that lowered the station's morale.
White vs Pacifica and Stephen Brown
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| The expressed opinions are Mr. Goldman's. (Click on image to enlarge) |
A while back I said Murillo was watching out for his generation of WBAItes. Notice not one of the imbeciles that were his milieu have been dispatched? Add scumbo White coming back to the mix and you know what Murillo is really about. I gave him the benefit of the doubt at the start. Now? "Fuck 'em!", as dad used to say.
ReplyDeleteA black station? They can't get black people to even listen to them. Know why? Because they are so condescending, and stereotype all black people as raving New Black Panther Party groupthink loons.
Maybe they can get a premium for Mumbles Jabu Jabal (or whatever his name is) to hawk via telephone from prison, like a bootleg compilation of 1960s "party albums," featuring Rudy Ray Moore, Red Foxx, etc.
SDL
I, too, thought Murillo might do some good, although I viewed his motives with skepticism. The fact that he didn't scrape the fungus off the walls sent up the first red flag... now it's all as red as bank account.
DeleteEven well educated people can be unintelligent, as we are seeing. None of my black friends listen to the station.... it embarrasses them.
I told you about Mario Murillo, but you refused to listen. Those of us who have been around for awhile and have known Murillo for decades are well familiar with him and his background. Welcome to the club. He is known as "Spineless Mario" - He will do ANYTHING to get ahead, including violating people.
ReplyDelete(JustAListener)
ReplyDeleteI recall Kathy Davis (among others) went to the PNB to complain about White's harassment.
Must be real comfortable for her to have White rumbling around the place again.
Good thing for the left that nobody pays attention anymore otherwise it could be embarrassing.
(Is anyone at Pacifica capable of feeling embarrassed? Nah, if they did they'd be out of there)
Kathy's no angel, but I don't think she resorts to physical threats, nor—as far as I know--does she pack a sledgehammer.
DeleteI new Bernard slightly over the years through mutual friends. I agreed with nothing he usually said but he and i had many discussions and I liked his programming because he explained his position slowly without the frenetic viciousness that Elombe and Samori and Mimi and Sally O'Brien could spit out. I liked him and I think he should be let back programming on air. And I'm a white-supremacist conservative Republican. He had something that the Black and White Panthers on WBAI lacked. Let bygones be bygones with Bernard only
ReplyDeleteKGT
You're making the same mistake Murillo is - being blinded by personal relationships. No, White has NO place at Pacifica, even as janitor. He physically intimidated people and filed a costly frivolous lawsuit, which, granted, Pacifica may have caused to be more costly than it should have been (eyeroll).
DeleteI would say the exact same "NO" to allowing Utrice Leid return. She was accused of physical aggression as well. Once someone does that, it should be a banning for life. You just can't allow it.
Oh, and I'm a radical moderate, misanthropic, non-theist.
SDL
I'm an Jewish atheist. Is that an oxymoron?
DeleteKGT
No. An "oxymoron" is a dumb teenager cleaning his/her acne.
DeleteSDL
On a video clip on YouTube, Bernard tells Basir Mchawi that Robert Knight was fired by Don Rojas for stealing a confidential folder from the Station Manager's office. Can anyone confirm this?
ReplyDeleteKGT
Yes, that is true. Robert Knight also intentionally knocked over a electronic console in the old Studio B @ 120 Wall Street. Jose Santiago also banned Knight from the newsroom because of his erratic behavior - all of this happened around the same time.
ReplyDeleteAll that ego was probably pressing on his little brain. Didn't he also eat a slim volume of Roget's Thesaurus?
Deletecorrection: The discussion was with Paul DiRienzo- not Basir Mchawi.
DeleteKGT
It is truly appropriate that Bernard White is co-hosting programs with Dred Scott Keyes, aka The Thief. Both are blatant and willful thieves, bullies and bums. Both should have thrown out of WBAI years ago, but Murillo is wise to use them as his moral bodyguards. One is so busy complaining about them that they can't get to the real POS, Mario Murillo!!
ReplyDeleteNot having been tuned in to 99.5 during the White period (as it were), I cannot authoritatively share your conclusions, but I know that others do, and some of them were within a hair's breadth.
DeleteYou know things are bad when Kathy Davis looks like an angel, as it were.
ReplyDeleteAt least, she's harmless. Not too long ago, I would have said she was harmful to the WBAI's credibility, but, since the station doesn't have that anymore, it doesn't hurt to have her around.
As for Bernard White and Dred Scott Keyes: I stopped listening for a time when they were on the station. I really wanted to hear programs about black history and culture, but I knew that neither of them had the intellectual chops to make such programming worth listening to. And, although I knew nothing about the lawsuits and physical intimidation, I just had the sense that Bernard was a mental as well as physical thug. I could hear it in his voice: There has always been an underlying (and, sometimes, overt) belligerence to his every utterance. As for "Dred Scott", I think of him as Katherine without the angels.
Now, I think Samori had the qualities lacking in the others I've just mentioned. But it seems that he was, as Mario seems to be now, blinded by personal loyalties and, perhaps, his agenda, however honorable it was.
Their halos are no longer rechargeable.
DeleteSamori was an pseudo-intellectual ideologue, but, to my knowledge, never was physically aggressive or abusive to people. His idea of ideological purity and wanting WBAI to lead the revolution brought about the situation we have today. Those that came after him were primates in comparison to him, and like primates, more base and brutal.
DeleteSDL
No wonder that his name is spoken sotto voce by some of the dumbest producer/hosts who are still clinging to the wreck.
DeleteI have NO love for Samori, but he still had a slight idea that WBAI was a radio station and not a lynch mob. Like I said, he was a pseudo intellectual ideologue commie pushing a political agenda via a radio station. The people today are jackals out to feed themselves but have no idea about about what doing radio is. These jackals think radio is a soapbox that's all about their spewing whatever self-serving crap suits them at the moment on "their" show. Samori had enough brains to realize that radio needed to be conducted with some decorum.
DeleteTo sum up. I think if Samori were alive today, he would agree with the current sentiments expressed ad nauseum on WBAI, but not the gutter style delivery. I believe that he would realize today's musings drive people away rather than getting them to listen to your message.
I still dislike what Samori did to WBAI, but things have gotten much much worse.
SDL
Am I correct in assuming that Samori was more interested in making WBAI black-radical centered thatnin turning it into a black station, per se? From what I have heard, he would not have tolerated the low level to which it has sunk, intellectually and professionally. Yes? No?
ReplyDeleteI would say Samori wanted a "Third World" revolutionary station, rather than only black, per se. Remember the early 1980s and the revolutionary fervor of the time - Sandanistas, Iran, etc. Samori was a microcosm of that vibe and thought.
DeleteNo, he would not have tolerated the idiots and their behavior now. I believe he would have expected a better behaved bunch of ideologues speaking more intelligently and having a greater idea of world liberation than just bitchin'.
SDL
Samori Marksman - I remember Samori being dressed down by one of NYPD's finest during a Carribean Day parade. Samori had embarassed an officer in front of his superior - later that same officer tore Samori a new anus and Samori was forced to apologize. Samori was an arrogant West Indian who contributed to the destruction of the station by tolerating thieves and bullies.
ReplyDelete