Next to WEEI sports radio, WTKK -FM 96.9 in Boston has some of the most racist talk hosts in the city. Michael Graham is out of Oral Roberts University where until a few years ago it was against that school’s policy to date a Black person if you were White and far worse is Jay Severin.
Sometime last year, the Egan and Braude talk show which precedes Severin’s invited Governor Deval Patrick to appear on a monthly basis to host an hour of their talk show and to take calls which he has done. The segment is called: “Ask The Governor.”
After those appearances Jay Severin’s show follows. Severin immediately makes a racial controvery out those appearances by referring to it as “AXE The Governor” as if Governor Patrick exhibited the speech distortion that mispronounces the word “ask” with a misplaced dipthong.
Of course, Governor Patrick’s diction is precise but because Severin abhors the Governor he attempts to demean him with this slur on Patrick’s speech pattern which does not exist.
One can only imagine that if Deval Patrick were a right wing Republicrat like Severin he would be gushing over Governor Patrick’s speaking abilities.
Nonetheless, someone – guess I just did – should call Severin and WTKK on his and their race baiting. And all to sell more Budweiser and Bufferin of course…. !
If the station keeps up this racist trend it should consider changing its call letters to –
WKKK
You are calling out someone for Racism when you spout this?
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p>That’s right Colin and Condi “House Servants” for the President. You and Harry Belafonte are peas in a pod. I’m surprised you didn’t call Condi, Aunt Thomasina.
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p>Every once in a while I like to call Bull Shit. “Bull Shit”!
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PJ's previous posts are unrelated to the genuine race-baiting that happens daily on TKK.
and so we agree? Both are racist comments.
I didn't click the link.
What exactly was his point?
May I kindly suggest that you enroll immediately in a remedial reading course.
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p>I said and I quote myself “ in all the worst sense of that despicable phrase …”.
I am accusing the the g bush administration of being racist in using individuals in a servitude plantation manner.
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p>And as to language, have you so little grasp of the richness of the English language that you must resort to vulgarisms to express yourself. Pick up a Roget’s Thesaurus of the English Language and expand your vocabulary.
Je dit merde de mâle!
Your vulgarisms don’t read any better in French than they do in English.
Henry Higgins, ” The French don’t care what they do actually as long as they pronounce it properly.”
You recognize the offensiveness of the phrase, yet use it anyway. This makes it better?
How else would I be able express the offensiveness without stating what it is. Both “AXE” and “house servant” express the offensiveness of the actions of Jay Severin and george bush et al. My stating them in no way is an acceptance of them and that is my point which you are trying to obscure.
Jay Severin has uttered the phrase “axe”
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p>George Bush has never called Condi his “house servant” you did.
g bush’s actions speak louder than his words. bush used Colin Powell as window dressing and nothing more and dick cheney dismissed Condolezza Rice the same way when it came to listening to her advice on foreign policy. Suggest you watch the PBS Frontline series that ran this week called “Bush’s War” which really should be called Cheney’s war and you will see and hear how he treated Rice.
not him.
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p>Also the radio station is WTKK not WTTK
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p>And what is very funny is you are the exact type the Jay Severin lampoons on his show. You use racism, but don’t want to be called a racist. If I remember Jay Severin while young in the 1960s joined civil rights marches. You are reading into his words things that he is not meaning me thinks.
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Nice to see that Jay [James] Severin, ne Severino, married with two children, reads these blogs. I’ll bet Jay was in the same civil rights marches that good ol’ Willard Mitt Romney was in…. Oh, sorry, that Willard’s father told him he was in he thinks…
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p>Jay is still a race baiter for profit and ratings.
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p>Jay, thanks for reading this.
Principle?
As a Dad one hopes you are teaching your children principle by example. Severin’s race baiting should no go on without comment.
As a Dad one hopes you are teaching your children principle by example. Severin’s race baiting should no go on without comment.
may we assume that you do not think his “axe” comment was racist or race-baiting? just want to be clear on where you stand on the point of the diary.
Where I grew up (NYC, outer borough), most people mispronounce “ask” in this way, to the point where I recall my 6th grade teacher actually had one of those “earn stars, win a prize” boards in a semi-futile attempt to encourage the correct pronunciation.
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p>”Can I ax you a question?” went right along with “Hiyadoin” and “FuhgedaBOWdit.”
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p>The African American population of that neighborhood–and certainly my elementary school– was approximately 0.00%. So I don’t think that this particular misuse is characteristically African American. Rather, the mispronunciation is characteristically New Yawkish.
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p>I couldn’t pick Jay Severin out of a crowd of two, and have never listened to his program. Five seconds of Google tells me that he is, in fact, also from NY. I do not know if he retains the local accent with which he grew up, or if he mispronounces this word in this way in other contexts. If he did not, and does not, then the original poster have have the beginning of a point. If not, then the original poster is blowing smoke.
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p>In another comment on this thread, the original poster acknowledges that “hose servant” is grossly offensive, and claims that s/he is merely trying to demonstrate that Bush is racist. Yet the only one to use the term is the original poster. And the President he thus “accuses” happens to be the guy who appointed these folks to some rather senior administration posts, something that no Democrat has ever done.
Context is everything. Anyone who’s been awake for the last couple of decades knows “ax” is used to make fun of certain black speech patterns, regardless of where else the usage appears. Severin doesn’t speak in that heavy a New York accent.
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p>If a conservative talk show host were to refer to “brothers” in a racial context, we’d all know what he meant, even if it’s also used by union guys and soldiers, among others.
All I hear is that I guy mispronounced the word in the same way that a large majority of the people–especially working class people– of a certain nearby city, from which he apparently hails, do.
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p>Absent further information, I strongly suspect that this is “racist” in the same way that Hillary Clinton is supposedly racist: the accused is a bigot because the accused does not agree with the accuser on some perceived crucial matter.
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p>If you guys hate this show so much, why on earth would you listen to it?
Since race baiting is a part of Severino's nightly routine, you can hear it now if you want.
Why listen? Why does Bellichick record the plays of opposing teams?
Listening to Severin is like recording the plays of the Dolphins.
🙂
Is that what he calls himself? I don’t understand that.
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p>Anyway, why on earth would I listen to these crappy shows? Yeesh, life is too short.
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p>I’m not denying that the guy mispronounced a word as a form of racial commentary. Some guy above says that this is a common stereotype of African Americans. Although this might be true, it is beyond stupid, as it sounds more Tony Danza/Howard Beach than blank english, and the Howard Beach demographic is truly not known for trying to sound black.
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p>My reaction here is strong because of the absurd double standard: Colin Powell? House n—r. Aks? RACIST!
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p>I guess the summary point is that accusations of racism or bigotry by so-called progressives have awfully little credibility, because they are made so often, and for so little.
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p>Not down with the latest position on SSM? Homphobic bigot. You are, well how about our new position on transgender rights? Gaybasher. Against affirmative action? Racist. Think an unborn child also has some value? Male chauvanist. In favor of welfare reform? Racist. In favor of less illegal immigration? John Bircher. In favor of locking up violent criminals? Racist. Etc.
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p>This particular poster, because of the Powell/Rice thing– apparently he or she believes that Powell and Rice are so servile as to be unable to express their own opinions or be responsible for their own actions– was so egregious that it warranted response.
It looks like (and PJ has stated) that the phrase was not used with derogatory intent toward them, (in fact, it is phrased in such a way as to make that clear) but toward the mindset of the unyielding Bush admin.
When the radio screamers use this language, they are intentionally trying to create an atmosphere of racial intolerance and divisiveness. It lies not in a single word or phrase, but the underlying message.
I believe Jay Severin will say what ever he needs to say to get ratings so WTKK time salesmen can sell its Budweiser and Bufferin commercial. If that involves making racist comments and it sell – so be it. That is the great American way, right?
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p>One can only judge Severin by the words and the tone in which he utters them on his show and it is a show. He knows full well that saying AXE instead of Ask has a desired effect with a number of his listeners. If you grew up in the Boston area in the 60 and 70’s one can think of one or many politicians who used words with the same effect.
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p>Louise Day Hicks, then a candidate for Mayah of the City of Boston, had a campaign slogan, “You know where I stand.” Yeah, bus the Black children out of the White neighborhoods. That was the start of the busing controversy when Black Children were put on buses to get them out of White neigborhoods. Earlier Kevin Hagen White, the now Alzheimic former Mayor of Boston, when he ran for Secretary of State against newcomer Ed Brooke had a bumper sticker that said “Vote White”.
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p>We haven’t progressed much in that area in 40 years if “AXE, The Governor” isn’t another form of coded message to the appropriate audience.
Bush: appoints Powell to be Secretary of State, and Rice to be Nattional Security Advisor, and then Secretary of State. Two of the most powerful positions in all of American government.
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p>PJ: Calls them house servants.
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p>And this shows the racism of the Bush administration? I guess it isOK so long as they are Republicans.
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p>This whole absurd series of threads demontsrates that the cry of “racism!” among political liberals is generally unadulterated bullshit. Ersatz outrage forthe base. Exactly the same thing as outrage on the right over the “War on Christmas” and used for the same effect.
If you have a problem with PJ, take it up with PJ.
MY point is that PJ told the truth about how these radio hosts are intentionally race baiting. Not only is it intentional, it is a part of a political strategy to generate animosity and widen cultural divides. In your struggle to change the subject, you seem to be in “tacit agreement” with the racially charged sentiments presented on TKK.
The problem with Jay Severin is that he thinks he can use Deval Patrick’s race to marginalize him. Therefore, he uses the word “AXE” instead of Ask.
The problem with Jay Severin is that he thinks he can use Deval Patrick’s race to marginalize him. Therefore, he uses the word “AXE” instead of Ask.
is that Bush wasn’t planning on ever actually listening to anything his SoS or NSA said to him, he saw them more as pawns to put in front of the media and make them say what he told them to say. Cheney and Rumsfeld and Perle and Wolfowitz et al were the only people he was going to listen to, and the SoS and NSA were just for show. So, since he wasn’t going to listen to them and they were for show, he chose black people to deflect criticism and score points for having blacks in his administration. If they had been outspoken critics or seemed to be their own people (as Powell started to be, and note he isn’t there any more) then I doubt PJ would be calling them those names. It’s true though that if they had been white, like Tony Snow or other mouthpieces, there wouldn’t be the cynicism that they were just pawns, but I bet Bush wouldn’t have put white people in those roles just to do that. He might accidentally listen to them if he did that. Tony Snow IS a mouthpiece, he was the spokesperson.
a) he wasn’t a race baiter himself
b) wasn’t so self-indulgent with hyperbole
c) he didn’t routinely engage in twisted leaps of logic that wind up maiming his points instead of making them.
d) wasn’t the pot calling the kettle “black.”
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He is planning on Iceland for his emmigration spot.
Does taking off for a book deal violate the Logan Act?
Far as Axe the governor, well I tend to agree.
Casinos, limos, curtains, selling Boston’s biotech to the Chinese and stealth auto insurance “reform”.
Top that off with 400 million to fund the retarded health insurance mandate.
Yes there are lot’s of fine black people, then again there is a percentage of niggas too.
are you calling Patrick a “nigga”?
We can agree the Ku Klux Klan is an ugly chapter in the history of man but the left enforces the very same totalitarianisms in the stoning of people who use words in a certain way. What really bothers me is fascists of either extreme who think it’s their God given right to reshape society in their own delusional images.
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p>It is way past time for restoration of what this country once was. Time to stock up for the Apocalypse as other things may be simply a waste of time.
you think you should be able to say anything free of responsibility?
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p>i actually don’t think that you believe an apocalypse is coming. otherwise, you wouldn’t waste your time on a forward-looking blog. i think you’re just making up excuses to spew.
Are you one of those America-haters?
You say it's the left that enforces totalitarianisms in the manner of speech that is allowed in public discourse?
You must be a communist.
😉
YOUR COMMENTS ARE BEYOND OFFENSIVE.
REPORTING THEM TO THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THIS SITE.
BE GONE !
Better dead in a free world than be constrained to the faggots of the far left. I am talking about the failure to impeach, end the bogus war on liberty or even put up some semblance of resistance to the blatantly obvious deliberate destruction of America.
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p>You know me not and just as those faggots of Faux News daily hail the banner of Islamofascism you Sir carry the very same banner of PC fascism. No more than a Pavlovian dog parroting back years upon years of media manipulation an TV “news”.
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p>I work with a Russian, a Serb, a German, an Asian, a very diverse group with whom I can actually bring up the topic that the Bilderburg Group actually runs the world. We can have intelligent conversations about it. It is a thing I have learned I can only discuss with people not so galactically screwed up by living in America’s media cesspool for so long as to have been completely and irrevocably lobotomized!
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p>How is that for OFFENSIVE!
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p>Lasthorseman, over and out!
you forgot to mention the cunts and the kikes. ah well, we can’t have everything.
Perhaps it still works even. Yes I do think the girls got screwed in the deal being forcing into the workplace and all. Being a gentleman I still reserve the c word to only the nastiest and most profane abuse of the female intended purpose. The Jews, well they have generations of dogma to overcome unlike the Americans who can’t remember the talking points of last month.
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p>My use or perceived abuse of prohibited sequence of words may be deemed “offensive” on this a most mainstream of political places. Yes I did perhaps “loose it” in this venue. I do not subscribe to blind party ideology and opt instead to judge on the merits of ideas and character behind the person, Deval, in my book has certainly not “cut it”. He has proven to be the galactic let down a la Nancy Pelosi and 2006.