Earl Douglas’ Thoughts About Anthony Cumia Debacle
Earl Douglas is a writer and photographer from New York City, a frequent contributor to The Interrobang, and excecutive director of the Black Rock Coalition. He has worked in radio and for XM Satellite radio, and has worked with the Opie & Anthony Show at WNEW and XM. These are some of his thoughts about this week’s events.
In the last few days, social media has been lit up by the comments made by Anthony Cumia, co-host of ‘The Opie & Anthony Show’. Comments that have deemed to be, by some, offensive at best, racist at worst. I won’t recall the comments and the event that sparked them, because frankly, everyone knows about it (and we’ve written about it) and I don’t want to beat a dead horse. Even more to the point, I wasn’t there.
Based on my dealings with him, we were, and as far as I’m concerned, still are, cool.
Blurred lines.
As someone who has been mugged, jumped, beat up, racially profiled, discriminated against on face value, and disrespected by people of EVERY color, I have thought – and Lord knows I have said – things that were, let’s just say, not pleasant or ‘politically correct’. Would I vent my feelings on social media? I wouldn’t, but that’s my choice.
We all have a legal and moral right to express ourselves. Anthony chose Twitter to express his outrage and anger about being attacked by a woman of color in Times Square. Some agreed with them, some did not. Sirius choose to cut ties with an employee who was making personal comments on his own social media page, on his own time without incorporating or associating himself with his place of employment. Who’s wrong?
Blurred lines.
We all have a legal and moral right to express ourselves
Blurred lines.
If processing all of this wasn’t enough, I wake up this morning to the news that Sirius fired Anthony. Honestly, I thought they would suspend him, at worst. After all, Sirius is a subscription based service and the bulk of those who were upset at his comments, didn’t subscribe to Sirius, much less listen to O&A. Plus, the fans – based on what I saw and read on the various social media sites, were overwhelmingly behind Anthony. Timing also played a key role. The 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act, a slow news cycle and a long holiday weekend (which is probably why Sirius couldn’t go into damage control mode – no one was in the building), all made for one explosive media Molotov cocktail. Just do a Google search – the narrative on it is all the same. If I learned anything in my 19 years in radio is that when it comes down to sticking with the guys who got you there or looking at your long term bottom line ($$$$), bottom line wins every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Blurred lines.
Is the O&A ride over? I never count those guys out.
Blurred lines.
Sometimes we just need to listen in order to learn.
Earl Douglas is a writer and photographer from New York City, a frequent contributor to The Interrobang, and president of the Black Rock Coalition. Follow Earl on Twitter @earldouglas528 and follow his blog at edouglas528.tumblr.com. Earl Douglas launched his new photo journal PRAXIS on Blurb.com today, July 4th, because it represents a new forum for creative expression.
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