Friday, October 10, 2008

Is it just me, or are these guys antisemites?

I was driving along in the car this morning, listening to 92.3 K-Rock.  It was just around rush hour, a time this station usually devotes more to talk and less to actual music.  The program - the Opie and Anthony Show - generally consists of frat-guy-like banter about topics ranging from sports to women to, occasionally music.  It's light talk, meant to entertain.

All of a sudden, they announced some kind of special segment.  I don't remember what it was called, but it was Jewish something.  Naturally they had klezmer music playing in the background.  They started talking about "David", their Jewish intern.  They brought him on the air and started bullying him about something that happened in the office.  At this point, it wasn't so different from other frat-guy-like talk shows, which often feature some person who gets bullied a lot for laughs.

But then they started teasing him about being Jewish.  They asked about why he was out yesterday, and he told them about Yom Kippur and fasting and all that.  They responded by saying things like "how come you Jews are always suffering?" and ridiculing what they understood Yom Kippur to be.  "David" was clearly not cut out to respond in an intelligent way, and his answers often made him look silly, encouraging the hosts to egg him on even more.

Then they started talking about Chanuka and accused Jews of "stealing" it because we were "jealous" of Christmas.  It was revealed that at least one of the hosts was Catholic, and he told David that having a holiday about oil was silly and that at least Christmas was "about baby Jesus".  At that point I turned it off.

Now I know, I know - these guys shouldn't be taken too seriously.  They are the kind of people who get paid to talk off the cuff.  Often, it seems like "inflammatory" is something they aim for. 

Still, though, it ticked me off.  The guy was in no position to argue back - he was clearly low down on the totem pole, and they were goading him for laughs, not genuine responses.  It was frustrating, because religion always looks stupid when you know very little about it (don't get me started on Bill Maher and the trailers for his new movie "Religulous").  Plus these guys had the gall to suggest that Judaism was crazy - as opposed to Catholicism, which makes tons of sense.  

I don't know, something about the meek stammering Jew being the blunt of everyone's humor, getting verbally abused over public airwaves by his non-Jewish bosses... wasn't so much fun to hear.


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