Broadcast blackout

National Review, Sept 29, 1997 by Harold E. Johnson

LOS ANGELES IT IS a sunny afternoon in Southern California, and the asphalt isn't the only thing giving off heat. Larry Elder, the black libertarian who hosts the ''drive time'' (3 to 7 P.M.) talk show on KABC radio, is offering homeward-bound motorists his patented intellectual sizzle -- today training fire on a favorite target: racial preferences.

Steve from Los Angeles, himself an African-American, is steamed. ''I'm not one to defend affirmative action,'' this caller says, ''but Larry, there's nothing better on the books right now.'' Elder doesn't miss a beat: Of course there is. It's called merit, Steve. ''Nobody is denying that thirty years ago it was difficult for a black to get in and move up in a corporation. The question is, in 1997, if I became a sales trainee at Texaco, do I have the same shot as my compadre who happens to be white? ''I happen to think so. Because I believe in Larry Elder. I don't know if you believe in Steve, but I believe in Larry Elder.'' The host warms to the theme, switching on a recording of a bawling baby -- Elder's representation for anyone, of any color, who subscribes to the psychology of entitlement. He then deploys a more potent weapon, hard data. ''You compare like versus like -- a black person who graduated from a particular school versus a white person who graduated with the same degree from the same kind of school. If they're both working for the same kind of company for the same number of years, you see no difference in incomes.'' Elder concludes with a blast at the high priests of racial recrimination. ''The civil-rights establishment won't tell you any of this,'' he says. ''They love to talk about the fact that the average black person makes 52 cents on the dollar compared to the average white person. What a dumb, shallow, and lazy thing to say. A lot of blacks do not have the same quality of education as do whites. A lot of blacks have not gone into science, engineering, high-tech fields that are much higher paying. But when you compare like to like, there is no difference in income; indeed blacks earn slightly more. But nobody wants to hear about that.'' Actually, a growing audience is hearing about it, as Larry Elder's four-hour teach-in with soul has grown to be one of the top-rated talk shows in Southern California. Besides his nonconformist views on race, listeners are hearing his free-marketeer's take on taxation (''Pass a 15 per cent flat tax --no deductions''), public-sector spending (''Cut it by 80 per cent --what does the Commerce Department or the Small Business Administration do, anyway?''), crime gangs (''Legalize drugs -- that would free up 50 per cent of prison spaces, where we could lock up violent criminals''), education (''Get government out of it''), and employment (''Abolish the minimum wage and drop the Davis - Bacon Act''). Oh yes, he also has some thoughts about a certain local murder case: ''O. J. Simpson is guilty as charged.'' Elder, 45, is armed with more than a quick wit and ready grasp of facts. His personal story gives his message authenticity, a school-of-the-streets edge. The ''Sage from South Central,'' as he's known on the air, was raised in L.A.'s Crenshaw district, recently infamous as the site of the 1992 riots. His father held down two jobs, as a cook and a janitor. While his mother was a liberal Democrat, his dad was a Republican who preached hard work and self-discipline. Those qualities carried Elder to Brown and the University of Michigan Law School. After stints as an attorney and a TV talk-show host in Cleveland, Elder got a break at KABC three years ago, in part thanks to lobbying by another host at the station, Dennis Prager. A self-described ''passionist centrist,'' Prager was impressed with Elder's verve in delivering his central theme: racism has no effect on whether a person will succeed or fail. It's a theme that makes Elder dangerous in some people's eyes. ''To liberals, black conservatives or libertarians are like kryptonite,'' says entertainment-industry publicist Michael Levine. ''They challenge stereotypes and conventional wisdom in which many people have an emotional and political investment.'' Indeed, an angry group of black leftists based in South Central has initiated a campaign to get Elder off the air. One of the most urgent questions in Los Angeles, and everywhere where open dialogue is valued, is whether they'll be able to force a mainstream media outlet to pull a successful host off the air because he doesn't toe the official black party line. Members of the shadowy ''Talking Drum Community Forum,'' as the anti-Elder brigade is called, have made the group's position venomously clear: Elder is a purveyor of ''hate speech,'' ''an adversary of the black community.'' Elder recounts how, after one Talking Drum flier ''accused me of all sorts of horrific and sordid things, I took it and read part of it on the air to show how ridiculous it was. Well, lo and behold, the group recorded me reading it, and now you can call a number and hear me saying blacks are dumb, blacks are stupid, and so forth.'' Although KABC officials won't discuss advertising matters publicly, independent sources report that Elder's show has been abandoned by a number of large advertisers since the boycott began, including airlines, banks, and major supermarket chains. ''The station has lost millions over this,'' Ray Richmond of Daily Variety told me. ''If Disney (which bought KABC, along with the rest of the Capitol Cities - ABC empire, a year after Elder came on the air) has an inclination to pull the show, the results of this campaign certainly will provide a financial incentive and a bottom-line excuse.'' The Talking Drum crowd doesn't speak for everyone in the black community. A few prominent civic leaders in South Los Angeles, including Joe Hicks of the Multicultural Collaborative and John Mack of the Urban League, have insisted on the importance of allowing Elder's perspective to be aired. ''A lot of blacks are sneaking to hear Larry,'' Hicks told an interviewer. Nevertheless, L.A.'s usually loquacious black politicians have not raised their voices in defense of Elder's embattled program. Scowling Rep. Maxine Waters, for instance, has been promiscuously hurling the epithet ''racist'' at white politicians for over a decade, since the days when she was a freshman member of the California Legislature, and there is no evidence that she wants to be deprived of the rhetoric of resentment now. ''Many blacks believe that the power of being victims has brought them programs they believe they must have, such as welfare without work,'' author Shelby Steele, a noted black critic of affirmative action, told the independent tabloid, Los Angeles New Times. ''When Larry Elder says, 'We blacks are not going to get much further than we take ourselves, and white racism does not explain most of our problems,' he threatens the entire source of power that the black civil-rights establishment is based upon.'' ''You've just heard the word'' is how Larry Elder jauntily closes his commentaries. A lot is riding on whether listeners in one of the nation's most important media markets will be allowed to continue hearing it.