Re “When KABC Suddenly Divorced Larry Elder, Not a Single Curious Tongue Clucked,’ Dec. 19
Larry Elder is the “Disgrace from South Central,” and I'm glad he's off the air.
Just because he says negative things about blacks that you can't because you're too afraid, doesn't make Larry's demise exceptional.
What happened to Michael Jackson?
Where's your article about him?
Mr. Moore may be contacted at gmoore40@mindspring.com
Ari Noonan responds: Sir, if I were as culturally paranoid as you, I might say that Mr. Jackson is off the air because he is a Jew or because he is a native of South Africa, the politically incorrect portion of the African continent.
Being neither paranoid nor liberal, I will tell you that Mr. Jackson lost his latest incarnation of a talk show for two reasons, low ratings and a low-rated station owner who never has been able to convince himself about a profitable format for his struggling station.
Mr. Jackson is a charming raconteur. He should be back on the air. But liberal talk radio has been a consistent failure in nearly every major American market, probably, I add without malice, because radio is too cerebral for most liberals. You can’t see it. Liberals are more instinctively inclined to be physically active than reflective. I can think of only one liberal radio talker who is arguably thoughtful. The rest heavily deal in mockery and vulgarity, a dead-end philosophy. Most liberal talk shows have flopped. “Too thin on content” is the enduring criticism. Failure commonly can be traced to unsubtle, one-note hosts who are neither rounded nor well informed.
Hostility to Elder
As you know, Larry Elder left KABC radio 3 months ago after 14 years. My understanding: A salary-dump by corner-cutting ownership. As a drive-time star who was making too much money for his bosses, the scholarly and courageous Mr. Elder was a rarity. Communicating with a clarity that was underpinned by deep research and accessible rationality, he became an instant target because he was a brave critic of the lockstep American black community.
Ninety-five percent of blacks are blank-faced stooges for their liberal Democratic minders. At election time, they conduct themselves as intellectual paraplegics.
Widely uninformed, hardly any blacks are serious voters.
Anyone who challenges the party line hears from his neighborhood thug who either intimidates him back into “yes, sir” mode or forces the darned traitor to leave town.
Democrats have not worried about courting the black vote since the1930s. Lockstep blacks have responded by dutifully supporting only left-wing Dems.
Beginning in 1994, the “yes, sir” corner of the Los Angeles black community quickly learned to loathe Mr. Elder. Self-introspection offends black and white liberals.
The drumbeat of intensely personal denigration by his raw-spoken critics was as coarse and irrational as it was voluble.
Critics never found a technique for rationally debating, much less persuading, a thoroughly read student of history.
Obsessive about his homework preparation, critical callers usually were lockstep “yes, sir” liberal blacks. Unable to refute Mr. Elder’s carefully packaged arguments, they looked foolish, repeatedly, by stooping to name-calling, invariably accusing him of disloyalty to “our” race.
Secretly, even coarse critics seemed to envy Mr. Elder’s erudition, his sterling manner and his unwavering strength in the face of withering race-based attacks from fellow blacks.
A few years ago, a thuggish group of low-brow black activists used traditional union-style intimidation tactics to attempt to drive Mr. Elder off the air.
Mr. Elder and his supporters eventually managed to repel them. Crude attacks from the scattered intimidators never abated, though, down to an unfortunate day last December.
