[WAsummit] Call for support on HuffPost

[Lucy Oppenheim]

This writer offers insight into issues of race and other oppressions in 
sports week after week--worth reading even for those of us who detest 
sports. Below is this week's column, with his request to supporters to 
weigh in.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [E of S] Response to Rush Limbaugh's Rage
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:04:56 -0400
From: Dave Zirin <edgeofsports at gmail.com>

Please comment on Huff Post to counter-balance the trolls:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/post_413_b_321290.html
<http://http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/post_413_b_321290.html>

Response to Rush Limbaugh's Rage

by Dave Zirin

Yesterday I was referred to on air as "scum
<http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_101309/content/01125108.guest.html>" 

by Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh called me out by name on his radio show
because, along with Bryan Burwell of the /St. Louis Post-Dispatch/
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/%20bryanburwell/story/E196145D80764B2F86257648000EF26B?OpenDocument> 

and Drew Sharp of the /Detroit Free Press/
<http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/sharp/2009-10-11-rush-limbaugh-rams_N.htm>, 

I challenged Limbaugh's efforts
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091026/zirin> to own a NFL team, saying
that his history of racial bombast should count against him.

Limbaugh said of us:

“They are the ones with prejudice and bigotry coursing through their
vanes [sic], through their hearts, and through their souls. They are
consumed with jealousy and rage. They are all liberals--and make no
mistake: That's what this is about. It is about ideology. It isn't about
race. It's about their being jealous and attempting to discredit me, and
they've now sunk to the low of repeating fabricated quotes that they
cannot source.... These people are scum.”

What we all did was carry a quote from Limbaugh that he absolutely
insists he did not say. The quote is:

“We didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it
was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not
saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For
one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

For all the dittoheads out there, here is how we came up with the quote:
it was in the /St. Louis Post-Dispatch/
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/%20bryanburwell/story/E196145D80764B2F86257648000EF26B?OpenDocument>, 

the Detroit Free Press
<http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/sharp/2009-10-11-rush-limbaugh-rams_N.htm>, 

the /Washington Post/
<http://views.washingtonpost.com/theleague/panelists/2009/10/rush-limbaugh-st-louis-rams-freeman.html>, 

and in the book /101 People Who Are Really Screwing America/
<http://www.nationbooks.org/book/13/101%20People%20Who%20Are%20Really%20Screwing%20America> 

by Jack Huberman. It has been out in the ether for years. Now that it is
endangering his chances to become an NFL owner, Limbaugh is serving up a
full heaping of indignation..

As Jason Whitlock, with whom I have had every manner of political
disagreement over the years, writes
<http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/20227>:

“Limbaugh claimed on his radio show Monday that his staff could not find
any proof that he ever joked about slavery. I'm sorry. Limbaugh doesn't
get the benefit of the doubt on racial matters.... You can argue the
comments are presented out of context and were meant as jokes. Then I'd
argue that Limbaugh needs to get on the comedy-club circuit and out of
the business of attempting to influence presidential politics. Limbaugh
wants to be taken seriously.”

But let's take Limbaugh at his word, for now, that he didn't say it. We
should also look at the myriad of quotes on record he makes no effort to
dispute. We can only assume that he is proud to have said
<http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200910120009>, "The NFL all too often
looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons."

Or these other gems <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2549>:

“The NAACP should have riot rehearsal
<http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jun/07/local/me-38153>. They should
get a liquor store and practice robberies.”

“Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals
resemble Jesse Jackson?”

To an African-American caller:

“Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”

Or upon hearing that Spike Lee said that black schoolchildren should
take off from school to see the movie /Malcolm X/ :

“Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education
experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater and
then blow it up on their way out.”

Or calling Barack Obama "Halfrican-American
<http://mediamatters.org/research/200910130049>" and saying:

“In Obama's America
<http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/limbaugh-in-obamas-america-black-students-cheer-beatings-of-white-classmates.php>, 

the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right
on, right on, right on, right on’.... We need segregated buses--it was
invading space and stuff. This is Obama's America.”

The real reason Rush is doing a slow-burn on his show and setting loose
his army of Internet flame throwers is that his dream of owning an NFL
franchise is going up in smoke. After seven players and the union went
public and stood up to Rush getting his mitts around the most powerful
cultural and athletic brand in America, commissioner Roger Goodell
finally spoke out. Goodell said on Tuesday that Limbaugh's "divisive
comments
<http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/10213142/Goodell:-%27Divisive%27-Limbaugh-comments-a-concern>" 

had no place in the NFL. "I have said many times before, we're all held
to a higher standard here," Goodell said to reporters. "I would not want
to see those kinds of comments coming from people who are in a
responsible position in the NFL. No. Absolutely not."

Goodell's statement was complemented by Colts owner Jim Irsay, who told
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4556315> ESPN, "I, myself,
couldn't even think of voting for him.... I'm very sensitive to know
there are scars out there. I think as a nation we need to stop it. Our
words do damage, and it's something that we don't need. We need to get
to a higher level of humanity, and we have." Other owners issued
decidedly lukewarm comments about the possibility of sharing space with
Rush.

Some are surprised that ownership isn't welcoming Limbaugh with a
passionate embrace because most owners are to the right of Attila the
Hun. They are billionaires who have feasted at the public trough of
corporate welfare while basking in tax breaks for the rich. In other
words, they constitute Limbaugh's base. But his membership in this
exclusive fraternity of billionaires would violate the first rule of
ownership: protect the bottom line.

The inconvenient truth is that no matter how much he rants and raves, no
matter how often he calls columnists like Burwell, Sharp and me
"state-run-media scum," it's the commissioner and the owners who believe
that his history of ugly vitriol would be just too harmful to the NFL
brand. You reap what you sow, and Rush Limbaugh has reaped a whirlwind.

[Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United
States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing
dave at edgeofsports.com <mailto:dave at edgeofsports.com>. Contact him at
edgeofsports at gmail.com <mailto:edgeofsports at gmail.com>

*Edge of Sports*