Rush Limbaugh, NFL Team Owner: Get Serious!
We learned this week that Rush Limbaugh is part of an ownership group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams. But a couple of NFL players are making clear that they are having none of it. Saying they would never play for a team owned by Limbaugh.
Let’s deal with facts. Limbaugh is a race-baiter. His history for fostering racial division is long and distressing. But he is also an extremely well-paid, highly-skilled, professional broadcaster. Which means Limbaugh knows exactly what he is saying on his number-one rated radio show. That makes him especially dangerous.
While I’m not a conservative, I do not for one minute believe that most conservatives are racists. But where are the decent conservatives to straighten out the Limbaugh’s of the world when their discourse turns ugly? Does their silence make them complicit in Limbaugh’s and others’ demeaning rants? I believe it does.
Rush Limbaugh is famous for criticizing what he calls “the drive-by media” or as they are also known – “the mainstream” media.
But the irony is that some of those very same mainstream media companies own many of the radio stations that carry Limbaugh’s show. And not one of them has repudiated the hateful things that Limbaugh has often said, and why should they? Limbaugh is making millions for them.
So why might it fall on the NFL to decide if Rush is acceptable or not. Sadly, millions of Americans think he’s just fine – the ratings certainly say so – and so too do the broadcast companies that profit from him.
This is a deeply polarized time in this country.
It’s a time when President Obama who is bi-racial can be called a racist with very little in the way of protest from anyone. Glenn Beck, the TV host who stupidly called the president a racist, is still allowed to spew his ignorance on the air. And Beck’s network, Fox News Channel, has done nothing so far to reign Beck in. Fox officials simply point to his ratings, which continue to go up.
So while I applaud the players for speaking out against Limbaugh, I am appalled that too many other Americans and corporations for way, way too long have been willing to sit in silence and do virtually nothing about racial hatred broadcast over the air.
I don’t think this is really about the NFL or Rush Limbaugh at all.
It’s really about us and what we are willing to put up with.
