The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I would like to give my thoughts on the passing of the incendiary American radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who unfortunately died on February 17, due to complications from lung cancer. I find it providentially ironic that Limbaugh died during Black History Month. He was apparently a chronic cigar smoker. Host of the Rush Limbaugh Show, which aired on over 600 radio stations around the world on the Excellent In Broadcasting Network, Limbaugh had announced to millions of his listeners in early 2020 that he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Subsequent to his announcement, which shocked the GOP base, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Donald Trump. The five time winner of the Marconi Award, Limbaugh was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Apparently, Limbaugh's influence within the Republican Party was massive, as he is credited with helping that party to win both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1994 midterm election – something that hadn't happened in decades. But Limbaugh, notwithstanding his talent he claimed was a loan from God, was deeply polarizing – endearing millions of White conservatives while angering millions of liberals, owing to his many incendiary comments.

As a Black conservative and evangelical Christian who had listened to the Rush Limbaugh Show for years, I was naively unaware of the claims that he was a racist. I did a Google search and was shocked at what I found, regarding some of the comments Limbaugh had made while on air, which have caused me to reevaluate my fandom for the so-called 'King of Talk Radio.' Obviously as a card-carrying member of the GOP, Limbaugh opposed former President Barack Obama, who is a Democrat. It is on record that Limbaugh called Obama a 'halfrican American', alleging that the first Black president of the United States was an 'affirmative action candidate.' Commenting on Obama's presidency, Limbaugh stated that "we need segregated buses." Concerning the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Limbaugh condescendingly stated that the oldest civil rights organisation in the United States "should have riot rehearsal." In another inflammatory comment, Limbaugh said that James Earl Ray, the man who confessed to fatally shooting Dr Martin Luther king, Jr in 1968, deserves the posthumous Medal of Honour. Stating that African Americans made up only 12 percent of the American population, Limbaugh asked the racially charged question: "Who the hell cares?" In another inflammatory comment, Limbaugh claimed that slavery in the Deep South "had its merits," apparently either downplaying or outright ignoring the thousands of Blacks who were brutally murdered by White racist southerners. In another disturbing comment, Limbaugh told an African American female caller to take the bone out of her nose.

While I am opposed to Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as a basis for racial reconciliation, at times I am left to wonder if individuals like Limbaugh and certain elements within the Republican Party and the Southern Baptist Convention are pretending that chattel slavery in America wasn't a horrid system to people of African descent.

I am not going to dance on Limbaugh's grave. His rhetoric concerning African Americans gives one the impression that he was a Jim Crow sympathizer, who wanted to claw back all the massive gains made by the civil rights movement for African Americans and other ethnic groups in the United States. While I extend condolences to his grieving family, the above troubling quotations should give Black conservative Bahamians pause to continuing to support a man who lacked empathy for our Black counterparts in the United States.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama,

February 17, 2021.