Dennis Prager

3-26-98

Dennis Prager opened his show discussing the following NY TIMES article.

Comments by the Packers' White Attract Criticism

Thursday, March 26, 1998

MADISON, Wis. -- Reggie White, the star defensive lineman of the Green Bay Packers, drew sharp criticism from some state legislators Wednesday after his remarks concerning a range of racial and ethnic groups in an off-the-cuff talk before the State Assembly.

White, a minister at a Knoxville, Tenn., church that was burned down by arsonists in 1996, was invited by Republican leaders to talk about his New Hope project. The project, which operates in Wisconsin and Tennessee, encourages urban redevelopment and promotes minority ownership of small businesses.

But his comments ranged from remarks on race relations to his interpretations of Scripture.

White said that homosexuality is "one of the biggest sins" in the Bible and said that he was "offended" by gay and lesbian groups that compare their struggle for civil rights to the struggles of African-Americans.

"In the process of history, homosexuals have never been castrated," as enslaved blacks were, he said. "Millions of them never died. Homosexuality is a decision. It's not a race."

[Dennis Prager essentially agreed with these comments and DP called White courageous.]

In his effort to promote racial harmony, the Packer player, who is black,

said that each racial and ethnic group has its own "gifts," that, when taken together, form "a complete image of God."

But in describing those gifts, White said that blacks "like to sing and dance," while whites "know how to tap into money." He said that Hispanic people "are gifted at family structure. You can see a Hispanic person and he can put 20 or 30 people in one home."

Asians, he said, know how to "turn a television into a watch." American Indians, he said, "have been very gifted" in "spirituality."

He also said that early Americans chose to enslave blacks, rather than Indians, "because Indians knew the territory, and knew how to sneak up on people."

[Dennis said that he did not think such comments were terrible. They were not things Prager would've said in public, and the comments may not be true or sensitive, but they did not deserve such an outcry. DP says different groups have made different contributions. For instance, the Jews gave the world a religious conscience. Germans produced most of the great classical music composers.]

His comments provoked an almost immediate outcry, particularly from Democrats in the Legislature.

Rep. Tim Carpenter, a Milwaukee Democrat, said he was "very saddened and hurt" by White's comments and called on him to disavow any racist intent.

Rep. Robert Turner, another Democrat from Milwaukee, who is black, said that in White's speech, "Every group seems to have been attacked."

Republicans were more forgiving. After White's comments, many stayed in the Assembly chambers to have their pictures taken with him.

Dennis Prager thinks people are overly sensitive, though DP did bend over backwards, as usual, to be sensitive. He had one caller, a Jew, who was very sensitive any time people said "Jews…." or "Blacks…" or "Americans are loud tourists…."

Dennis Prager, in his second hour, attacked the media for its coverage of the Arkansas shooting. He noted how widely reported it was that the boys knew how to shoot. But how little it was reported that the older boy yearned for his father in Minnesota. His parents had divorced.

"You will be told over and over by the media that the kids hunted, knew how to shoot guns…. But not that their father lived over a thousand miles away."

Prager discussed today's article in the New York Times.

Arkansas Boys Held as Prosecutors Weigh Options

By RICK BRAGG

JONESBORO, Ark. -- The two boys used to tease 12-year-old Erica Swindle about her glasses. She thought they were mean.

On Tuesday, those same boys, one 11 and one 13, were being held in juvenile detention at the Craighead County, Ark., jail, facing murder charges after bullets fired outside a middle school on Tuesday killed four girls and one teacher, wounded 10 other people and plunged this small city into despair.

For Erica, who stood unhurt as bullets flew around her and watched classmates fall in bloody heaps on a neat, white sidewalk, it unveiled a meanness that she, like others in this small city, had not even imagined.

Dennis Prager said that such statements as "I got a lot of killing to do," is not the typical talk of children. "If one of my kids said that, I would panic."

Prager was concerned about mothers or any parent, in a divorce, moving far away from the other parent. DP said this was wrong. He preferred joint custody of children after divorce.

Prager noted that the 13-year old boy drove to the shooting. He stole the guns and he stole the vehicle.

Callers keep saying that children are reflecting our society's decline in values.

One caller suggested schools' should spend an hour a day discussing feelings. Prager would prefer the time spent discussing values and decency.

Boys need fathers to show them how to control their wildness. Boys won't take orders from females. Prager wants us to stigmatize those who have children outside of marriage.

Absent fathers is not a politically correct issue to focus on. It offends too many powerful constituencies. Yet absent fathers is a powerful predictor of criminal behavior, much more so than guns.

Third hour.

Dennis felt bad for the cult leader in Dallas who predicted that God would appear on his TV show. From Taiwan, the man only speaks Chinese.

Prager laughed at a school in Pennsylvania that is now instituting a sniper drill. Prager said this type of drill, and all the hype about AIDS, robs children of innocence. DP derided the years of nuclear education. P said adults should not be in the business of scaring children, but rather protecting them.

Dennis was his typical jovial self today with his coworkers like traffic reporter David Courtney (the voice of the LA Kings hockey team and the California Angels baseball team) and the newsman.

A caller asked about Clinton calling the principal. Why didn't he call the families? Does it take a village to raise a child or a family? DP thought the caller read to much into that.

The WALL STREET Journal published this view 3-31:

The Minister of Defense Meant No Offense

By ANDREW PEYTON THOMAS

Reggie White has as great a gift for understatement as he has for putting the fear of God into opposing quarterbacks. "I am not politically correct," the Green Bay Packer great declared last week in response to the firestorm of criticism he drew for his Wednesday speech to the Wisconsin Assembly. State legislators had invited him to address the chamber, and the player known as the Minister of Defense--he is an ordained minister as well as a defensive end--took the opportunity to administer a strong dose of old-time religion.

Mr. White took on some sacred cows, homosexual rights prominent among them. Rejecting comparisons between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, Mr. White declared, "Homosexuality is a decision, it's not a race." Moreover, it is a sin--a temptation to which "people from all different ethnic backgrounds" succumb.