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WMNF cancels "Straight Talk"

WMNF says it wants to be more inclusive. The station says it wants more minority voices on the air. Talk is cheap.

Straight Talk, the hour-long talk show hosted by outspoken African-American activist Connie Burton, has been taken off the air by the management at WMNF-FM 88.5, who said it no longer met the mission of the public station.

Station manager Vicki Santa said the show, which aired from 9 to 10 a.m. on Sundays, had aligned itself with the singular viewpoint of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a St. Petersburg militant group that counts Burton as a member.

Burton, 48, the former president of the Robles Park Tenants' Association, championed the rights of public housing residents, but became a bitter critic of the Tampa Housing Authority after she was evicted when a son was arrested on drug charges.

Burton's run as Straight Talk host lasted nine years, ending at WMNF on Monday.

"Somewhere along the way, Connie became part of the Uhuru movement," said Santa, "and the show became a voice for that movement and no other voices were being heard."

WMNF's mission statement on its Web site says it "celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice."

Santa said the action to drop Burton's show also was taken because of a recent board decision barring organizations from controlling programs on WMNF.

"This was not a quick and arbitrary decision," said WMNF board member Jeanne Holton. "I think these discussions have been going on four or five years.

"The role her show plays for the African-American community is an important one. But I think it is true that our mission was no longer being met."

Burton said there was no justification for dropping the show. "They considered Straight Talk to be a thorn in their side. It's been a point of contention with them, based on their core listening group."

She said she believed her talk show dovetailed with WMNF's mission. "That's what our show is about - issues that concern poor, working class people."

The Uhurus denounced the dropping of Straight Talk as "unjust" and called it an attempt "to stifle the African-American voice" in a press release. The Uhurus will have a press conference at the station on Friday at 10 a.m. and intend to picket WMNF on Monday, the release said.

Burton has seven days to appeal the decision to remove her as volunteer host, Santa said, and in the meantime station officials are considering how best to fill the Straight Talk spot.

Burton has lived for most of two decades in public housing at Robles Park.

In 1996, she was accused of shoving a Tampa police officer and trying to incite a riot after she co-hosted a party with a convicted drug dealer. As a result of pretrial intervention, the criminal charges were dropped when Burton agreed to work to ease tensions between public housing residents and police.

In 1999, the Housing Authority used the so-called "one-strike law" to begin eviction proceedings against Burton after a son was arrested for marijuana possession. A jury upheld an eviction order, but a judge threw the decision out, and a new trial is pending.

In recent years, Burton used the WMNF airwaves to fire back at police and government officials. She accused former Tampa police Chief Bennie Holder, an African-American, of being insensitive to the needs of blacks. She called Housing Authority boss Jerome Ryans, another African-American, a "thin-skinned parasite."

On a recent Straight Talk program, one of Burton's guests criticized police, saying, "The Africa n community needs to understand that the pigs are not their friends." Burton issued a denunciation of those who "lick the boots of white power."

That kind of talk brought mail to WMNF news director Rob Lorie, saying Burton's show was dragging the station "down into the mud."

But Santa said dropping Burton's show doesn't mean WMNF will no longer air the views of Burton or the Uhurus.

"It's not about silencing," she said. "It's about finding a different way to bring together as many voices as possible."

Yeah - it’s about finding some token Uncle Tom types who don’t make waves. It’s about staying within the comfort zone of the white folks who run the station, because despite all their lip service about being progressive and inclusive, all programming is filtered by two aging white males.

Connie has seven days to file an appeal. The appeal goes to Vicki and then the board - the very people who just fired her. She’ll be lucky if Vicki even bothers to answer. I’m still waiting for an answer to the written grievance which I filed in November. Management at WMNF is encouraged, but not required to answer such filings, which essentially makes the whole process worthless.

The aging white hippies who consider themselves the station base and who claim to have an open mind are hypocritical punks. They can’t stand uppity niggers and they get upset when rap or hip hop goes out over “their” airwaves.

The show that got me into trouble included lots of “urban” music (much of the show was a tribute to Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who had just died), and whenever I played a little rap, complaints from the conservative old farts would start rolling in.

Of course, Vicki will say that Connie’s situation has absolutely nothing to do with mine. Bullshit. Lets do a little compare and contrast.

Both Connie and I were long time station volunteers fired with no warning whatsoever for supposedly violating station policy. Neither of us was reprimanded or counseled ahead of time, nor were we given any but the very vaguest of guidelines for planning and producing a show. For some time, both of us had been producing, with no repercussions, the same kinds of shows that got us into trouble and then we were suddenly let go.

At WMNF, the rules are enforced arbitrarily. One need look no further than program director Randy Wynne’s own morning show (yes, Randy, the one man who decides who gets to host music shows, decided that he was the only programmer capable of doing the Wednesday morning show, despite a backlog of competent volunteer folkies who are just chomping at the bit to get on the air - but that conflict of interest is for another conversation.).

Anyway, Randy has been airing banned FCC words quite often lately. According to his own newly revised (after they fired me) policy, he should no longer be on the air, since his sloppy programming is quite obviously putting the station’s license at risk. Yet he remains, while other programmers are punished, or not, according to his whim.

The paid staff who manage the station are entrenched and powerful. They run roughshod over the volunteers who supposedly make up the heart of community radio. People like Connie and myself do not have the financial resources to hire a labor lawyer, and I don’t have the time or the energy to engage in a fight to regain a volunteer position.

But Connie’s a fighter, and she has Uhuru on her side, so she probably has a better chance of being reinstated than myself, but that will only happen if the station is shamed into doing the right thing. I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime, talk has started anew about forming a union for volunteers. Not surprisingly, the hypocrites who are paid to run the station and who claim to be pro union and pro labor are adamantly opposed to a change that would result in volunteers being treated fairly.

A member of the WMNF community sent this via email yesterday:

To elaborate, from what I read and heard, Straight Talk was cancelled because it violated the mission statement of WMNF and violated a recently created policy that says something like "WMNF gives shows to individuals not organizations or groups."

We've held at least one meeting recently on the mission statement. I
was at that meeting from beginning to end. The message I took away from
that meeting is that it was to begin a conversation about whether we
needed to look at what the mission means and how we evaluate whether a
particular show meets that mission. Another message that came from the
meeting was whether we should change our mission to meet changing
community needs. WMNF management stated very clearly that this was the
beginning of a conversation and no conclusions would be reached. So,
when was the conclusion reached? What happened to community dialogue
and the creation of a process that we all feel that we can live with?

There is no clear evidence that I have seen or heard that Straight Talk
violated the mission of the station as I understand the mission. How
will I know as a programmer whether I might be in violation of the
mission statement unless I clearly understand what the standards of
evaluation are and the process by which it is evaluated?

Recently we had program changes. Based on whatever standards
established by the News and Public Affairs Director, Straight Talk was
re-issued its same one hour time slot to produce the show weekly by the
same producer. Did the application for Straight Talk say it was an
application for a group? Since this is a new standard, were they told
about this and given an opportunity to adjust their approach to the show
and re-issue an application?

Is this policy going to be strictly applied to all shows? Larry Lisk
and the Suncoast Blues Society, Greenwaves and the Sierra Club, Sunday
Forum and the Democratic Party, Mike Eisenstadt and his focus one
section of the Tampa Jewish community, Radio Nation and their alignment
with a narrow political wing of the Democratic Party, etc. Under this
new policy are collectives of any kind exempt from applying for shows
like one permutation of the women's show used to be?

I am most concerned about procedures and policies being followed
randomly and disciplinary actions not being issued even handedly. If
over time, a programmer has been given due process about any violations,
given guidance on how to correct that problem, given an opportunity to
make changes, and they still don't change, then they should lose their
show. However, haven't we seen recently, over the word "fuck," that
some programmers are given suspension, other infractions are ignored
unless reported by someone outside the community, and other programmers
are fired?

And, please let's deal with the difficult topics of racism, sexism, and
classism at the station. It is easy to understand while looking forward
in preparation for a process that we are all well meaning people who see
things for their inherent value rather than what is on the surface.
But, let's look backwards a minute to evaluate where we are today.
Where are the radical, let alone radical black voices that used to be on
the WMNF airwaves? Why must people of color continue to fight for the
same time slots late at night and on weekends? Isn't the statement, "we
want more people like us" another way to institutionalize those isms?

WMNF has become a mainstream, wishy washy, non-controversial outlet for a narrow bunch of aging, financially secure and increasingly conservative types who like to consider themselves revolutionary, but whose philosophy and lifestyle is straight establishment.

For all their talk about community, they really don’t want to share “their” station with anyone who has the temerity to think and act for themselves, and by arbitrarily purging controversial programmers from the station, they further erode the eclectic spirit and energy that WMNF was founded with and claims to identify with even today.

It’s time for a change.