The Best Part of Wakin' Up... Racist Radio Announcers?

You may or may not know that I am an avid reader, of many many things, book, blogs etc, but also of the online Magazine XOJane.  Since I have been doing so I have become aware of many things that may have gone unnoticed before.  for example language that has been a part of my regular vocabulary that many people find offensive, some I have decided to change, and others I keep because I just like the word regardless of its offensive potential.  It has also made me more and more aware of things that others say and do as well.  (Thanks mostly to the amazeballs author Lesley Kinzel)

Enter the racial profiling I heard on the morning radio today.

At my job we have to park very far from our actual workplace, my job has provided a shuttle to those of us to lazy, or sleep deprived, still not awake.  it gets me a good bit more than halfway to my destination then I trudge my way on to punch the proverbial clock.  the bus drivers are a friendly bunch (mostly) and we get to hear the radio and get the weather etc.  The station this morning was no different, except that the guys hosting the show just kind of laughed and joked about everything, this is fine, i have no issue with it, in fact that is my preferred method of receiving my news.

And then they got to this story.  Kinda horrible, kinda funny (I know I'm awful).  one of the announcers was saying that couples going to the shooting range is therapeutic  it relieves stress and anger, plus if your lady doesn't know how to shoot you get to snuggle up to her to teach her.  He also claimed it's a double edged sword, because now she knows how to shoot a gun.  Funny right?  but then things took a turn for the worse.

The next words out of his mouth were "It's great for when Julio, comes through the bedroom window..."  Say what?  So many different words would have sufficed to describe a trespasser, trespasser in fact being one of them, burglar, intruder, invader, offender, assailant are all words that would sufficiently describe someone entering a premises without permission.  Instead this radio announcer chose to use a clearly Hispanic/Latino name.  Because of course people of other ethnic persuasions don't break and enter.  I tried to look up if we could sort perpetrators by race to see what race most commonly commits B&E's but the numbers are so skewed and so much conflicting information out there that there is no way for us to really know.

I like to think that any name of any ethnicity would have provoked the same ire in me, unless is was a general pseudonymous like "Johnny Break-In" or something equally silly.  But the fact of the matter is they chose and ethnic name.  

In fact it is my husbands name.  So yeah, there's that, I might be perhaps a bit more irritated than had they chosen another name, but irked and irritated and quite frankly angry.  I have no idea what radio station it was because once that little gem was heard I pretty much stopped paying attention, thoughts like "Did I really just hear that?"  were taking up all the space in my minimally functioning early morning brain.  

I wish I knew what radio station it was so I could copy this blog to them and send a formal complaint, because this is unacceptable in any media, and quite frankly in modern America and the world as a whole.  This is what so many generations of minorities and women and transgender people and more have fought against.  I wish that we lived in a world where these things didn't happen, but they do.  Maybe if we don't accept things as they are and we all fight back against these injustices someday our children's children can live in world without racial profiling.  I would love to say in  a world without hate, but I don't think that is what this is, I think that what I heard this morning was ignorance and ignorant people can be educated.