No more radio for Schlessinger
Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced that she is ending her radio show, after being under fire for using the N-word 11 times an on-air conversation with a caller last week.
Schlessinger declared on “Larry King Live” that she will not renew her contract with the radio after being in the business for more than 30 years because she wants to regain her First Amendment rights so she can say the things she wants to say. She told King that she does not intend to renew her contract, which expires at the end of the year. Schlessinger started a firestorm of criticism after using the N-word 11 times in a five minutes call on the 10th of August with an African-American listener who was asking for advice on how to deal with racist comments from her white husband’s friends and relatives. The discussion evolved in a polemic regarding the fact that the N word can be used without an offensive connotation by HBO and by black comedians, but the minute a white person tells it everybody starts talking about racism. She also referred to the fact that it is hilarious that there are more racism complaints than ever now, when the United states have an African American president.
The story spread very quickly on the Internet and a lot of comments, blogs and Facebook status updates did not fail to appear. Schlessinger apologized the following day on the air and on her website saying that she was attempting to make a philosophical point and she repeated the N-word too many times while having that conversation. She said that also she talked every day for 30 years about doing the right thing, she did the wrong thing in this occasion, but she was not intending to hurt anyone. This is the second time Schlessinger has offended masses of people, after a similar incident in 2000 when she referred to homosexuality as a “biological error” and criticized gays for “deviant” behavior. Schlessinger told King that she deeply regretted the incident, but feels that her freedom of speech rights have been denied by groups of people that do not want to make a debate over this subject, but only want to eliminate what they do not consider favorable for them. Schlessinger says that she plans to expand her internet presence with her website because she feels that there she is free to say the things that she really means and she will not live anymore in fear that she might have offended someone.
