Vikings Announcer Regrets Comments About Minneapolis Protesters - Now What?
On his Twin Cities morning radio show, KFAN's Paul Allen remarks riled up his own community under siege and in turmoil.
I’ve stayed out of all this, all this horrible business in my home city and birthplace. To make sense of any of it, of the federal government sending troops into local municipalities uninvited, of those troops and ICE tossing due process and long-standing individual constitutional protections in the gutter and doing it under the direction of the President of the United States, of the President calling an entire group of American’s “garbage”, and it just so happens to be in the city of George Floyd, and the city of Tim Walz, of people getting killed indiscriminately, of my birthplace again looking like a war zone.
Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’m quite consistent on this, even if not so many know much. Just read comments on social media - ugh - it’s why I’m no longer on social media. My experience with my own circle offers almost daily reminders that nobody really studies any of this beyond what the news or social media, or some pundit they like gives em.
When was the last time you took a civics class? Read a history book? Read the US Constitution? Do you know who your congressman is? What district you live in? You’ll say yes - but can you pass a basic citizenship test? You’ll probably have to know how many members in the house, or how many States needed to ratify the nation’s second governing document (you know the first for sure, right?), and what a bicameral legislature means - but those are easy ones we all know…
Do you know that the second amendment has as much (or more) to do with citizen militias, and our rights to be armed when federal troops march into our cities so that we can fight back and defend ourselves - and not stand with ICE or other federal troops? That’s one reason why the NRA isn’t all in on all this ICE business. We are a nation built on restraining government overreach. That’s why the second amendment says what it says - “A well regulated militia, necessary to the security of a free State, the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
We’re supposed to be fighting back, and not patting them on the back.
The Twin Cities are a national and global flashpoint, essays and editorials are everywhere, relative camps are fighting all over social media, Bruce Springsteen just amended “Streets of Philadelphia” for Minneapolis, and in America now, there’s always and only two versions of the same facts dueling with no end in sight.
And last Friday on his morning show, in the middle of all this, an NFL football announcer and local sports radio host stepped in it, saying - "In conditions like this, do paid protesters get hazard pay? Those are the things that I’ve been thinking about this morning," Then, he doubled-down later in the show, cashing another reference to the statement, with a reference to those protesters “catching strays”... which is a Paul Allen phrase he’s said before, making this not as bad - or worse - depending on where you sit.
I know Paul - PA - a little anyway. And I know what it’s like to be on the air and look for funny. And while I’ve never had this type of on-air moment, I understand how it happens.
And I wonder, what might happen to him here. Because I don’t care for what he said - but - so what? I don’t have to. We don’t have to agree and share the same opinion. It’s not illegal to be insensitive. Everyone gets a voice. I do. You do. Actors do. Athletes do. Teachers do. Paul Allen does.
And we all get to decide what weight, if any, to give these opinions. Turn the channel. Don’t engage. But don’t muzzle. That’s a fast track to nowhere. The next group in power might not like what you say - then what?
But Paul Allen works for someone else, the airwaves aren’t his. On SubStack, I can say what I want. You buy it or you don’t. You can subscribe or block.
Paul Allen doesn’t have that luxury and isn’t afforded the same protections because he works for someone else. Someone beholden to advertisers, listeners and viewers, and other people working in the building. Corporate fear rules the day. And these days it doesn’t take much… does it?
What’s gonna happen here? What should happen here?
