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Media Matters’ Dr. Laura Boycott: The Rand Paul Solution To Racism?

by Frances Martel | 12:28 pm, August 14th, 2010

» 24 comments

Yesterday, after Dr. Laura‘s strange, n-word laden rant took the blogosphere by storm, progressive watchdog group Media Matters demanded advertisers boycott her program. The boycott is a fairly typical move on their part, but in light of this summer’s unexpected Civil Rights Act debate, the fight against public racism raises another question: Is this what Rand Paul was talking about when he said the free market could single-handedly eradicate racism?

The statement from MMFA president Eric Burns is slightly more forceful than the kind of talk one would expect from the kind of libertarian that would feel queasy about the Civil Rights Act, but, nonetheless, there is some common ground:

“Dr. Laura’s offensive outburst provided listeners with a window into her true beliefs about race in America. By deliberately choosing to sponsor her program, Dr. Laura’s advertisers are not only funding her offensive radio show, but are implicitly endorsing its content. Companies must demonstrate that they won’t tolerate bigotry and immediately stop advertising on her show.”

Media Matters is the kind of place where calls for boycotts are almost expected– their mission is to find things in the media that they find offensive and direct attention to them, so it comes with the territory. And there are many boycotts that don’t go too far due to the inevitable “boy who cried wolf” reaction that comes with calling for them a little too often, or because advertisers just use loopholes to keep advertising on a network without doing so on the same program (think Glenn Beck– show loses advertising, but Fox News didn’t claim to lose too much money).

The underlying principle of this boycott, however, is different. It’s not a call for the FCC to take her off the air, or for viewers to abandon her, nor is it based solely on the sensitive opinion of any one writer or reporter. It is simply a statement that patronage of the program is patronage of the kind of behavior she displayed earlier in the week, telling a caller who had expressed concern with her neighbor’s racist statements about her interracial marriage that if she felt uncomfortable, she should not have “married outside her race”– which, in some ways, could be interpreted as Dr. Laura refusing to properly serve a black customer in her business (refusing to adequately answer her question).

Which brings us back to Rand Paul. Again, Paul fans aren’t going to be too happy with the “must demonstrate” part of Burns’ statement. Companies don’t really have to demonstrate anything by force, they’ll say, but there should be consequences for companies who sponsor her from consumers who feel uncomfortable with the goings-on on her program. In fact, time and again during the barrage against Paul, he reiterated the same principles: “I don’t want to be associated with those people, but I also don’t want to limit their speech in any way,” he told Rachel Maddow. He said the same to Neil Cavuto shortly after that. As Dave Weigel so succinctly put it at the time:

Paul believes, as many conservatives believe, that the government should ban bias in all of its institutions but cannot intervene in the policies of private businesses. Those businesses, as Paul argues, take a risk by maintaining, in this example, racist policies. Patrons can decide whether or not to give them their money, or whether or not to make a fuss about their policies.

So if Dr. Laura’s program is a business (and, if it’s making money, why wouldn’t it be), then Media Matters is adhering to this exact interpretation of freedom of speech in private businesses: it’s not that the government should ban bias, but, as a society that values tolerance, Americans should not patronize a business in conflict with their values.

Chances are that the people who supported Rand Paul during his first media battle will not jump on the Media Matters bandwagon, based on their reputation alone. It’s unfortunate, but that is often the way the political media complex functions. Should they opt to take a look at the principles behind this boycott, however, they’d find the progressive organization has taken a sharp turn for the libertarian.

civil rights act, Dr. Laura, Eric Burns, libertarians, Media Matters, Racism, Rand Paul

http://apostrophejones.com Apostrophe jones

Could not find a way to tie Snooki ,Steven Slater or cat marination into this story , eh ? I don’t think this lady is a doctor and I would rather kick bricks barefooted than listen to her . Don’t want to listen ? Don’t listen . No one is required to watch Fox , MSNBC or anything else . Do something else . Hey , take 27 hours off and go down to the Gulf .
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Adkins/1585417987 Bill Adkins

Oh, ok – I’ll just leave it at “Laura Schlessinger is Rand Paul in drag.”
oPad

If you want to end racism make some black friends. If you don’t, then DON’T!
Everything else is just “talk”.
Michael Triplett

If MMFA wants to pick a fight with Dr. Laura, they may want to talk to John Aravoisis of Americablog to get some history of waging a boycott. Aravosis cut his teeth on StopDrLaura and was quite successful . . . yet, Dr. Laura is still around. So why does MMFA that if Aravosis didn’t succeed in killing off Dr. Laura’s career, why do they think a sponsor boycott is going to achieve what even Aravosis’ well-executed plan couldn’t?
in my humble opinion

Dr. laura is not doing this for money or ratings. She is probably a racist. I stopped listening to her years ago. She is stupid. That is why I stopped listening to her. If she has an audience and sponsers, they are stupid too. She has nothing going. Beck, Limbaugh, etc. are not stupid. They have an agenda. It is called (MONEY).
murf

Michael Triplett

The majority of Dr. Laura ‘s listeners and most Americans would agree with her .

MMFA is a joke of epic proportions .
timzank

Michael Triplett said:
If MMFA wants to pick a fight with Dr. Laura, they may want to talk to John Aravoisis of Americablog to get some history of waging a boycott. Aravosis cut his teeth on StopDrLaura and was quite successful . . . yet, Dr. Laura is still around. So why does MMFA that if Aravosis didn’t succeed in killing off Dr. Laura’s career, why do they think a sponsor boycott is going to achieve what even Aravosis’ well-executed plan couldn’t?

Michael, can you think of a boycott by the left on a company that ever put the company out of business? Not snark, I’m serious. I can’t think of one.
Michael Triplett

It’s hard to think of boycotts–from the left or right–that have been successful. Boycotts have influenced change in large companies–the gay boycott of Coors, the Caesar Chavez boycott of grapes that led to UFW contracts, the first Nestle boycott–but they don’t seem to be very effective even though I see nothing wrong with encouraging people to vote with their pocketbooks.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Adkins/1585417987 Bill Adkins

murf said:
Michael Triplett The majority of Dr. Laura ’s listeners and most Americans would agree with her . MMFA is a joke of epic proportions .

Yes, they would — and they’d be Republicans, too. Laura Schlessinger is a hypocrite of epic proportions.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Helen-Nordo/100000884291530 Helen Nordo

I don’t think she said anything “racial”, she was just attempting to solve someone’s problem since that is what she is getting paid for, she attempts to find a solution, whatever, to answer the caller’s question; however, the caller went on & on almost prodding Laura to express her racial views. Look, Gov. Christie said essentially the same thing to a teacher “If you don’t like the system, why did you become a teacher?” If a woman marries someone out of her race, she could expect a certain amount of criticism by those who oppose it. What is wrong with this country lately, do we have to watch every word we say? Sometimes these callers are “set ups” purposely to get her off the air, for whatever reason, I’ll leave that up to you since I do not want to express my opinion. I will use an analogy, “If you were a police officer & you witnessed a black man shoot someone, & you had to call in for back up. How would you describe the offender? ” Now remember this is an emergency, the offender could possibly be running away, are you going to be politically correct & explain “Hey, guys, quick I need back up there’s been a shooting, the guys running away he’s..er…about 6′ tall, dark hair, complexion?…err..welllll. look guys, just get here, I’ll explain later” People have to learn to deal with color, it’s been around for years, & it is not an insult to describe someone as “colored”, if there is a definite reason for it. This is 2010, isn’t it time we got off this “discrimination” bandwagon? Some Italians are dark skinned, I don’t see them raising a fuss about their skin color, lighten up (pardon the pun) will you?
murphy0071

Laura is a Christian bigot without the proper education, training, certification, licensure to be offering any opinion on behavioral issues and counseling. Why she has not been charged with counseling without a license. Here is her training:

A degree in physiology without any connection to human behavior from the Seventh Day Adventist university.

People unfortunately assume, she is trained as a counselor or therapist. She gives out folksy advice because she is no better than your grandmother, Betty the gossip.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Adkins/1585417987 Bill Adkins

Helen Nordo said:
This is 2010, isn’t it time we got off this “discrimination” bandwagon?

We’d made great strides in defeating discrimination — until 2008. Then all the closet nutcases came out of their closet and joined the Tea Party. The right wing, i.e. Freedomworks, exploits racism and xenophobia to divide that large group of individuals on the lower economic strata — and the Tealiban is intent upon proving PT Barnum correct about the birthrate of suckers.
writer

“Until 2008.”

Yes, when Obama was elected.
greg454

I laugh at boycotts, they didn’t work against Howard Stern, Disney, Married with Children, Fox News, and they will not work against Dr. Laura. Her followers aren’t going to listen to a bunch of PC pussies.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Lauffer/66303476 Daniel Lauffer

Honestly, does anyone who reads media matters listen to Dr. Laura?
dlauf87

“Chances are that the people who supported Rand Paul during his first media battle will not jump on the Media Matters bandwagon, based on their reputation alone. It’s unfortunate, but that is often the way the political media complex functions.Should they opt to take a look at the principles behind this boycott, however, they’d find the progressive organization has taken a sharp turn for the libertarian.”

This is a total fallacy. In the libertarian view, each individual would decide if he wants to boycott Dr. Laura based on whether he actually thinks she is worth boycotting and whether what she said was actually racist (and it wasn’t). You can’t honestly compare what she said to a restaurant that doesn’t serve blacks. This piece is framed as if you have to join the boycott, otherwise you are a hypocrite if you support Rand Paul. Not at all. In fact someone with libertarian leanings is much more likely to boycott MMFA than Dr. Laura’s show based on MMFA’s progressive/big government leanings.
fanofamerica

murphy0071 said:
Laura is a Christian bigot without the proper education, training, certification, licensure to be offering any opinion on behavioral issues and counseling. Why she has not been charged with counseling without a license. Here is her training:

A degree in physiology without any connection to human behavior from the Seventh Day Adventist university.

People unfortunately assume, she is trained as a counselor or therapist. She gives out folksy advice because she is no better than your grandmother, Betty the gossip.

You’re so well-informed murphy. Not. It’s quite well known that Dr. Laura is Jewish, not Christian. And here is the real scoop on her training:

Dr. Laura holds a Ph.D. in physiology from Columbia
University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and
received her post-doctoral certification in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling from the University of Southern California. She was in private practice for 12 years. She’s also been on the faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Southern California, and the Graduate
Psychology Department at Pepperdine University.
Jelperman

Michael Triplett said:
If MMFA wants to pick a fight with Dr. Laura, they may want to talk to John Aravoisis of Americablog to get some history of waging a boycott. Aravosis cut his teeth on StopDrLaura and was quite successful . . . yet, Dr. Laura is still around. So why does MMFA that if Aravosis didn’t succeed in killing off Dr. Laura’s career, why do they think a sponsor boycott is going to achieve what even Aravosis’ well-executed plan couldn’t?

Because (a) the boycott revolved around “Dr” Whore-ah’s TV show (b) getting someone off the radio is almost impossible (even Michael Savage still has a show) and (c) because “Dr” Whore-ah was only bashing gays back when it was still acceptable for public figures to do so; not -as she did this time- flinging the word “nigger” around like a Frisbee and telling someone not to marry outside their race.
NORBIT

Why didn’t they boycott Tawana Sharpton’s Nat’l Action Network show as well?

SHARPTON CALLED DINKINS A “house-n” ON-AIR!

CAN YOU SPELL HYPOCRISY????????

btw, the writer here once again mis-characterized the facts.
Dr. Laura was not “rant”ing in the least; she was using the term as an illustrative point (listen to the actual transcript, not the propaganda of the Race-Obsessed Professional Left!).

Media Matters is a Goerge Soros sponsored SMEAR MACHINE, and their RACE-BAITING is old & ineffective!
Phocus2

The verbal antics of the left are obvious to thinking people and dismissed. That leaves short sighted reactionary people to absorb the drivel and lies. Unfortunately, it is the later that is being pumped out by our union run public schools and elitist run higher education mills. Thinking people, even on the left, know what the exchange on the Dr. Laura show was all about and how it was meant. However, thinking people on the left also know what will appeal to the fools…and so they proceed. Karma will visit them for that…smile.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Larry-King/100000689413015 Larry King

murf said:
Michael Triplett

The majority of Dr. Laura ’s listeners and most Americans would agree with her .

MMFA is a joke of epic proportions .

Also most racist
Sean68

Dr. Laura is never nice to her callers. She’s always judgmental and impatient with them. This time the caller happened to be black and subject happened to be race. Dr. Laura was her usual self.

Having said that, she was right about the double-standard blacks expect whites to abide by. I have no interest in insulting anyone for their race, but black people don’t live in a vacuum and they shouldn’t get so freaked out if a white person uses the word. Dr. Laura wasn’t even calling anyone “nigger,” she was referring to the word and stepped out of line and didn’t say “the n-word,” a stupid construction which makes children out of blacks and hypocrites out of whites.
Pablo

murphy0071 said:
Laura is a Christian bigot without the proper education, training, certification, licensure to be offering any opinion on behavioral issues and counseling.

Laura Schlessinger is a Jew, ya bigoted moron.
More Liberty

murphy0071 said:
Laura is a Christian bigot without the proper education, training, certification, licensure to be offering any opinion on behavioral issues and counseling.

She’s Jewish. So many uninformed people out there.