By Joanna Cattanach – Editor, Chick Talk Dallas
First Baptist Church Dallas has indefinitely suspended one of its morning radio programs after Dr. Lamar Cooper, president of Criswell College, referred to illegal immigrants as “wetbacks” during a discussion of the Arizona’s controversial anti-illegal immigration law or what I like to call the reason I won’t be going to the Grand Canyon this summer.
I am married to a non-citizen who’s been racially profiled and refuse to give an Arizona officer any right to pull me or my husband over. (Even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Hispanics have the right to be “offended” by the new law.) And Ticket 1310 producer Mike Bacsik was fired this week for a series of drunken Tweets where he referenced “all the dirty Mexicans in San Antonio” after the Dallas Mavericks lost to the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday.
In a blog post, D Magazine’s Tim Rogers said while Bacsik’s statements weren’t appropriate, “he was suspended first. Then, when the story hit CNN, he got fired. Look, either you think it was a fireable offense or you don’t. From where I sit, it looks like the Ticket simply couldn’t take the heat.” Guys on the Ticket like Gordon Keith say raunchy politically incorrect comments all the time, “So that was Bacsik’s biggest mistake: not being Gordon Keith,” wrote Rogers.
In my book, inappropriate racial slurs are cause for suspension and firing at all levels. Tim, remember that guy Don Imus and those “nappy-headed hos” he joked about? MSNBC couldn’t take “the heat” (or what I call justifiable outage) either. Where is Imus now? That’s right. Gone. Both Bacsik and FBC Dallas have issued apologies but the damage is done. And I don’t believe they’re sorry for what was said. They’re sorry they were caught saying what they think about the brown people around them. And they stupidly aired their racist thoughts on the radio and online.
I guess I see what Rogers is saying, but since he’s probably never had a racial slur thrown at him (and as a white guy in this city likely never will) he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get what it feels like to be stared at by a white lady in a car who hears Shakira in your speakers and looks at you like you don’t belong. And he isn’t guilty of DWB–driving while black (and Hispanic). Frankly, I don’t expect that Cooper or Bacsik would describe themselves as racist–at least not the sheet wearing kind. But discrimination runs deep and sometimes, in the heat of the moment, that hate comes spilling out.
And you do deserve to be off the air!
Chick Talk Dallas is the hatchling of Joanna Cattanach, a former Dallas Morning Newsstaff writer/news assistant. A graduate of Baylor University, she currently works as a freelance writer and writing instructor in the Dallas area where she and her husband call home.
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