Dan Tetzlaff
November 16, 2004

 

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Response to Attacks on Mark Belling

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Mark Belling—love him or hate him, that is not the issue—is an icon in Milwaukee Radio, and has been for many years. He is an opinionated political talk show host with strong conservative views. On Wednesday, October 27th, he was discussing the upcoming presidential election and his fear of voter fraud. Due to the intensity of this year’s race, coupled with Wisconsin’s lax voter-registration laws, Mark was afraid that many illegal aliens were planning to vote, which is against the law. This is when things turned ugly. Unfortunately, in one of his weaker moments, Mark used a racial slur when talking about the illegal aliens:

 

You watch the voter turnout on the near south side, heavily Hispanic, and compare it to the voter turnout in any other election, and you’re going to see every wetback and every other non-citizen out there voting.¹

 

            I was shocked that Mark decided to use the term that he did. I have been listening to his show for several years, and it is not in his character to use derogatory terms. On a later show, Mark apologized for his words. Tim Cuprisin of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that his apology was “couched in sarcasm and bluster.”² This opinion poisoned the well for Belling, and Tim Cuprisin’s viewpoint was shared by many people over the following weeks. I am of the opinion, having heard the apology and knowing Mark’s style, that his apology in fact was sincere.

            For example, when Belling was asked if he would ever say anything derogatory again, he replied that he didn’t know, because he cannot guarantee that he won’t make another mistake. He went on to say that he will obviously try his best to avoid making further derogatory remarks. This was an honest answer, as nobody can completely guarantee their future actions. Belling’s failure to blindly respond “no,” as most people would have done—and has such become the expected response—was taken by Cuprisin to mean that his whole apology was filled with sarcasm. The fact that Belling said he would like to “sincerely apologize” several times during the interview was not taken into consideration.

I must confess that because I am a fan of Mark Belling, I am personally biased in his favor, and therefore I may have been guilty of special pleading in my original analysis. However, my introduction to informal logic at MSOE has taught me to keep an open-mind and to avoid all obstacles to sound reasoning. With this in mind, I tried to be as fair and unbiased as possible when formulating my opinions regarding the incident.

Mark was not referring to Mexican-Americans in his remarks; he was specifically referring to illegal aliens who planned on breaking the law by voting, and in doing so, disenfranchising those who cast legitimate ballots. However, I fully understand how all Mexican-Americans would be offended by his remarks. What I do not agree with, however, are other people who are exploiting this incident for political gain. In the November 13th edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Patrick McIlheran writes:

 

Along with [the] many people honestly enraged by Belling’s October slur there are critics who, it can be said fairly, may have an ideological ax to grind.

 

For instance, the man holding the “BELLING MUST GO!” sign [in the supplied photo of a Mark Belling protest] is Robert Miranda. A Green Party activist, he used a column in the Spanish Journal to blast the man he referred to as “Reich Fuhrer Belling,” saying “The right-winger, in his usual all-knowing way, was delivering another boring rant to the conservative zombies…”³

 

            In the article written for the Spanish Journal⁴ after the incident, Robert Miranda made several more Nazi- and Hitler-like references to Mark Belling. There was also another comparison made between Hitler and Mark Belling in the “Morning Mail” section of the November 9th edition of the Journal-Sentinel.⁵ These are obvious (and intentional) false analogies, and they should not be considered acceptable.

It is simply not consistent for Miranda to ridicule Belling’s accidental use of the term “wetback” when Miranda himself deliberately refers to Belling as Hitler and as a Nazi. So far, there has been no legitimate media coverage of Miranda’s remarks. It appears that there is a double standard that makes ethnic slurs unacceptable when spoken by white conservatives and somehow acceptable when spoken by others.

While there are many people legitimately offended by Belling’s comments, Robert Miranda’s response is just one of many unwarranted ad-hominem attacks on Belling, aimed at getting him permanently removed from the air-waves. It is amazing how many of the same people who continually advocate free speech will jump on the first opportunity to silence someone with dissenting views. The relentless attack on Belling’s character—even after many apologies—is just another example of how a person can get in more trouble for the words that he says than for the things he does.

Even Eugene Kane, an African-American opinion writer at the Journal Sentinel, who often gets in indirect disagreements with Mark Belling (with each person talking about the other via their own medium), thinks that Belling should not be fired for his remarks. Kane, who could hardly be considered to share political philosophies with Mark, stated in his November 6th article that “forcing him off the air because of an offensive statement just doesn’t seem justified.”⁶

In today’s era of political correctness, I was impressed with Kane’s closing line, which stated, “Sometimes words don’t matter as much as the principles behind them.” I agree with this statement completely. While words that a person chooses can be significant, it is often more important to understand what the speaker really meant, and what the speaker really believes. It is my opinion, after listening to Mark Belling for several years, that he is not a racist or a bigot. Unfortunately, however, it takes much more courage to look beyond a person’s words and into his or her principles before drawing conclusions. If more people would drop the assumption that because Belling is a conservative then he must be a bigot, a more effective discussion of his remarks could take place.

 

End Notes

1 – http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/nov04/272105.asp

2 – http://www.jsonline.com/enter/tvradio/nov04/271596.asp

3 – http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/nov04/274672.asp

4 – http://www.spanishjournal.com

5 – http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/nov04/273623.asp

6 – http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/nov04/273057.asp