I Support Steve-O

I’ve been listening to the KDWB morning show since it was Steve Cochran and Lee Valsvik.  And to be honest, it’s taken me a few weeks to process how I feel about this whole controversy surrounding the Hmong Parody Song sung by the Dave Ryan in the Morning show producer, Steve-O.  A lot of people on both sides of the issue have taken a digital stand for their respective side, through the miracle of Facebook.  KDWB even posted a brief statement apologizing to anyone who may have been “inadvertently offended.”  Many of those defending Steve-O have taken the “get over it, it’s just a joke, it’s just entertainment,” defense, saying that Steve-O never intended to be racist.

And I, for one, agree with them.  I support you, Steve-O.

I’m sure Steve-O didn’t intend to be racist.  If you don’t consider yourself a racist, I’d have a hard time believing that you would wake up in the morning thinking, “I’m gonna be really racist today.”  But Steve-O on his facebook page, has taken to calling his critics “crybabies.”

And here’s where I think it’s time for you, Steve-O, to take a knee.

I understand if you’re afraid of being slapped with the “Racist” label.  I do.  The term has been feared by many a white person since it was first coined in the 1930s.  But before there was a label for it, do you think that slave owners in the 1800s and segregationists or Klan members in the 20th century believed that they were simply behaving in accordance with the status quo of race relations in their times?  I bet they had enough of their friends to back them up so they were just doing things that everybody knew to be normal, right?  But by our standards, a lot of that behavior would be called racist nowadays, wouldn’t it?  Labels aside, what you did was deemed offensive and demeaning to members of a specific ethnic group, to the tune of 2 major corporations withdrawing their ads from KDWB radio.  And I understand that your intention was not to be offensive.  But if I beat my child unconscious every time they disobey me, with the intent to teach them discipline, does that make it any less child abuse?

And I get that the Dave Ryan show is an entertainment show.  The statement from KDWB that was posted on Facebook reads:

KDWB-FM and the Dave Ryan in the Morning Show are very proud that members of the Hmong community are some of our most loyal listeners and fans.

Our listeners understand that The Dave Ryan in the Morning show is a comedy show meant to entertain, and that much of its content is parody.  While we’ve received positive feedback from many Hmong listeners who let us know that they found the song in question very humorous, we apologize to anyone we may have inadvertently offended, as this was never our intent.

We appreciate the support we continue to receive from all our listeners.

Sure, it was meant to be a joke.  And where would we be without humor that walks the tightrope between offensiveness and entertainment?  I think about Richard Pryor, early Eddie Murphy, Sam Kinison, George Carlin, and more recently, Dave Chappelle.  I’ve even discovered Stephen Lynch in just the last few weeks.  So I’m no squeaky clean humor guy, either.  The problem is, Steve-O, you’re not on their level.  You’re not anywhere near their level.

A friend of mine calls it the South Park rule:  “Things are offensive in proportion to how funny they are. In other words, a well-done bit of edgy comedy will have no problems if it’s actually well done. In many ways, whether it’s well done boils down to whether it’s smart, and a lot of that is in the eye and ear of the beholder.”  The problem is that what you did was neither smart nor well done.  See, the thing about those people I named above, Steve-O, is that they understood the power of humor, which is more than I can say for you and KDWB’s program director, Rob Morris, who allegedly authored the above non-apology apology.  Humor, at its best, can break down walls and point out flaws in our own thinking, without sounding preachy or making us feel belittled.  Humor can be a catalyst.  In medieval times, the only one who could openly criticize the monarchy was the court jester.  There is a long and storied tradition of humor paving the way for social change.  And there is also a long history of humor being used irresponsibly, the result of which is society taking steps backward from the progress that had been made.

I understand the bit: American Idiots.  Listeners text in titles for a song and you have one hour to come up with lyrics.  The biggest problem isn’t that the lyrics you came up with were offensive, it’s that they weren’t funny.  They weren’t clever.  You were going for the cheap laugh and you ended up getting the fuzzy end of that lollipop.  I get it.  The truly sad thing is that the prompt was “30 Hmongs in a House,” and what that title suggested to you, Steve-O, was Hmong people sleeping on the floor, getting pregnant as a teen, in a two-room house.  Rather than imagining Hmong people living on Lake Minnetonka in a huge mansion that could reasonably fit 30 people, staying away from references to real-life problems facing the Hmong community.  Which begs the question, what titles did you reject?  What were the titles supplied by your loyal listeners that you thought weren’t up to your considerable lyric-writing ability?  You know, Steve-O, every once in a while I’m flipping through the channels and I come across that show, “Who’s Line Is It, Anyway?” and I watch in amazement as these entertainers come up with really funny, really clever lines, song lyrics, and entire scenes, right off the top of their heads.  And very rarely do they venture into what Freud calls “Tendentious Humor.”  Maybe you should take an Improv class, Steve-O.  The Brave New Workshop has great classes.  Or ComedySportz.  Or maybe you should stick to your job title, Producer, and leave the entertainment to the ones who know what they’re doing.

Or maybe it’s me.  The listener; the beholder with the eyes and ears that I mentioned before.  The one that everybody is telling to relax and learn to take a joke.  Well, let’s all hop in our time machine and go back 50, 60, 100 years in this country.  I’m sure there were jokes about Filipinos then.  There were signs that read, “Absolutely No Filipinos,” or even, “No Dogs or Filipinos Allowed,” posted in the front of businesses.  I’m sure that some 4th-rate hack someplace came up with a Filipino joke.  And like I said before, I’m sure their intention wasn’t to be racist, but rather to follow the status quo of what’s going on around them.  It was people like Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. that stood up against the status quo.  And those people were constantly being told to learn to take a joke, relax, sit down, and shut up.  And often times the messenger made their point with bricks through windows or by lighting crosses on fire in their front lawns.  So maybe I should just relax, huh?  Before your supportive listeners take to the streets with clubs and pitchforks and a length of rope.

I’m sure that if you were to ask Gov. George Wallace, he probably would have called Martin Luther King, Jr. a crybaby.  So I’m just gonna cry on, I suppose I’m in good company.

And, sure, there are plenty of Hmong Uncle Toms who have come out in support of your song and your general attitude.  People from a community so marginalized and so underrepresented in the media that they’re willing to find pride in the table scraps you have thrown to them.  They say that the Dave Ryan show makes fun of everybody.  Ok.  Maybe they do.  So where’s the “Lazy, Watermelon-loving, Fried Chicken-eating,” Black community parody?  Or the “All Gay People Have AIDS,” parody?  Cuz we’re reinforcing ugly stereotypes, right?  You haven’t gone after the Filipino community, so no, I don’t think KDWB’s morning show goes after everybody.  And if the Blonde community, the Cougar community, or the redneck community, the “female, hot mess” community, or the residents of Fridley or Coon Rapids want to take a stand against some of your past bits, I’m sure they’d find support in the Hmong community, and the Asian American community at large.

So I, like many others, support you, Steve-O.  Keep doing what you’re doing.  Because, clearly, in this “post-race” America, we’ve forgotten what real bias and prejudice looks like.  Thank you, Steve-O, for reminding us.  And if you want to be the poster boy for millennial racism, well, better you than me.

UPDATE:

So KDWB has apologized 3 times now.  Perhaps this is because they’re entertainers and they understand the comedy rule of three.  Ok, I get it, but you guys have a perception problem.  Your first apology was the standard slap-in-the-face, non-apology.  It basically said, we are sorry that you’re really oversensitive and can’t take a joke.  Then, after I stopped listening, there was a second, possibly more heartfelt-sounding apology, maybe around the time that some high profile companies pulled their advertising.  And now, a third apology.  Unfortunately, the fundamentals of my degree in communication kick in and tell me that PR is perception.  And this apology can only be seen as a reaction to lost revenue, and ultimately, self-serving.  If you actually cared about not offending thousands or possibly millions of people (not just Hmong people, mind you), this mea culpa would have not taken a month to happen.  Now it just looks like, we tried to get away with it, tried blaming the offended people, but now that advertisers are pulling their money from our station, we’re REALLY sorry.  There’s really nothing you can do now, Steve-O and KDWB, but sit back and take your lumps.  You’re toxic.  Any attempt at “fixing” the situation will only look like tokenism, which is an extension of racism, which just lands you back where you put yourself a month ago.  So I say again, as many have said since this controversy started: “Keep doing what you’re doing, Steve-O.  You’re hilarious.  We love you.”  Seriously, just keep doing what you’re doing.  You can’t make it better at this point anyway.

Since I’ve been futzing with the dial in the recent mornings, checking out what 96.3NOW or KS95 is up to (wondering if their share is going up), or spending some more quality time with my Ipod, I’ve realized why the radio industry is hurting these days versus all the other options from Satellite, to Pandora, to Ipod music.  I mean, you really can get exactly what you want without all the crap that’s out there.  How can radio realistically compete against all those other options?  It’s the human factor.  You have to demonstrate that a human being can be more clever, intelligent, entertaining, compassionate, and understanding than some algorithm somewhere that spits out what you might like based on your past tastes.  Well, in this case, the Dave Ryan show has shown this long-time listener that at best, I’m getting older and it’s time to switch over to KS95, and at worst, the ugliest parts of humanity are what reign supreme when it comes to morning radio shows.  But hey, I’ve been a KDWB listener for 20 years, maybe it’s time for us to part ways.

UPDATE 2:

This pretty much sums it up.