Jersey Guys: Sen. Lesniak a 'gay Polack politician'

So, 101.5's bad boys have been at it again.

Yesterday, Union County's Sen. Ray Lesniak struck back at Carton & Rossi in a blistering OpEd piece in the Star-Ledger. (See his OpEd at the end of this post.)

This is not the first time the bad boys have embarrassed the station. In April 2005, the deadly duo conducted an on-air assault on Asian-Americans during the primary campaign of Jun Choi for mayor of Edison.

The outrage reached such a fever pitch that national attention was drawn to Choi's candidacy. Major advertisers, including Cingular and Bank of America, cancelled their advertising on the station, which is owned by Millenium Broadcasting.

After weeks of controversy, Carton & Rossi made a formal apology on air and Millenium agreed to put in place guidelines to enhance staffers' cultural understanding and prevent such outrages in the future. Word has it that there was also a financial settlement in the form of a contribution to an Asian-American charity, though PT cannot find confirming details.

You'd think Carton & Rossi would have learned their lesson, but apparently not.

It is not exactly clear from Sen. Lesniak's letter whether he was actually ON the program or
CALLED IN to respond to their gay-bashing. In any event, the deadly duo was way off base to suggest Lesniak is gay without any evidence, and to denigrate all Poles and accuse them of complicity in the Holocaust.

This photo, evidently taken at Sen. Lesniak's party
honoring a Polish rock group, is posted on 101.5's website.
It evidently forms the basis of Carton & Rossi's outrageous comments.

Sen. Lesniak is right on to challenge them. PT only hopes that the public reaction will equal that of the Choi incident, that Carton & Rossi will again have to make a public, on-air apology, and that a financial settlement by way of a contribution to a charity of the Senator's choice would certainly be in order.

---

Star-Ledger OpEd
An eruption of bigotry and hate on the radio

Thursday, February 15, 2007

BY RAYMOND J. LESNIAK

Call it an evolution of bigotry that went from gay stereotyping to Polish bashing to religious hatred. All played out re cently on New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio.

What started out as "harmless" banter morphed into the "Jersey Guys," the afternoon jock shocks, calling me a "gay Polack" politician and quickly turned into vicious religious hatred. The on-air incident demonstrated that starting down the road of bigotry only leads to the depths of hell.

Some may have thought it was funny when the 101.5 talkers known as Carton & Rossi "outed" me as gay because of a picture of me with what they said was a "flamboyant" male with red hair and a tight leopard-skin suit. Turns out this man, while certainly flamboyant, was a Polish rock star, and as a Polish-American state senator, I was hosting a party for the band after a concert in my hometown of Elizabeth.

At some point, my explanation resulted in the name-calling on air. I complained to station manager Eric Johnson that the word "Polack" was derogatory, an ethnic slur.

This set off a wave of Polack references from the shock jocks that were picked up and repeated by callers to the station.

The Polack bashing then took a particularly ugly turn when one of the 101.5 jocks said half the Polacks became Nazis to kill Jews, a senti ment that kindles hatred and opens old wounds that the Jewish and Catholic communities have worked so hard to heal, Poland being a predominantly Catholic nation.

As a recipient of the Man of the Year award from the Jewish National Fund, I'm well aware of the united efforts by religious and lay leaders of the Jewish and Catholic communities to combat anti-Semitism and promote respect among all religions.

I'm also a veteran and a member of the Polish Legion of American Veterans, most of whom fought the Nazis (I was not born yet). Hundreds of thousands of Poles were killed during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Members of the 101.5 team ob viously never visited Normandy where they would have seen the American, British, Canadian and Polish flags flying side by side honoring the brave soldiers from those countries who participated in the D-Day invasion.

Or if they had visited Israel, they might have learned of the Hall of Righteous Gentiles, an integral part of the Holocaust Memorial in Israel that is populated by Polish citizens who risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbors.

From the Revolutionary War (Gens. Casmir Pulaski and Thad deus Kosciusko) to the war in Iraq, the Polish people have aided America's cause. No mention of that by 101.5 FM Radio.

My father, a brilliant man, had to quit school when he was 12 to do manual work to help support his family. There were no opportunities for recent immigrant families from Poland. And he had to endure the Polack putdowns so common in those days to keep his job.

I learned early, as a young child, what people meant when they called me or my dad a Polack. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't pleasant. To hear it repeated over public airwaves to an audience of thou sands, and to be associated with killing Jews, is unimaginably cruel and hateful.

New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio has combined ignorance with hate, an extremely dangerous potion.

Raymond J. Lesniak, a former chairman of the state Democratic Party, has represented Union County in the state Senate since 1983. He previously served in the state Assembly.

---

FURTHER READING

Asian Media Watch: "Coalition and NJ 101.5 FM/Millennium Reach Mutual Understanding"
Wikipedia: "The Jersey Guys"
Jersey 101.5 - "The Carton & Rossi page"

View today's CLIPS here. Not getting your own CLIPS email daily? Click here to subscribe.

ARCHIVED POSTS OF PLAINFIELD TODAY FROM 11/03/2005 THROUGH 12/31/2006 ARE AT
http://plainfieldtoday.blogspot.com/