Real Alaskans

Quoting from the 4/15/08 ADN newsreader:

Racist joke may mean radio boycott. The Alaska Federation of Natives is considering a boycott of KBFX-FM’s advertisers after radio DJs Woody and Wilcox made a racist joke during their morning show. Listener Michelle Davis told KTUU that the DJs said, “You are a real Alaskan if you have made love to the Yukon River and you have peed in a Native woman.” The DJs and the station have since apologized.

Any other state and I contend they’d be fired. I don’t really endorse that because it would only enflame people and not really engage them in a way that can bring about much change. I’m more for social change than I am for vengeance, but that’s easy for me to say as someone who hasn’t had to suffer because of my race. Some links from my personal website that pertain to sex crimes in Alaska:

2/24/07: Another grim but informative story on sexual crimes in the YK Delta (where we live), apparently reported at a rate 25 times that of the nation.

5/15/07: And a companion story to that one, found on NPR, about a Amnesty International study of rape among Alaska Native and American Indian women. Native women make up less than 10% of Anchorage’s population, yet they are the victims of over half of all rapes committed there. Click on the red “listen” icon.