Anti-Hispanic slurs on a syndicated radio show spur local group to picket Citadel Communications.

By Frank Zoretich
Tribune reporter

     People angry about anti-Hispanic slurs uttered during a recent segment of a national talk show aired by KHTL-AM (920) plan to protest today -- and repeatedly play a tape of the 12-minute segment -- in front of the local offices of Citadel Communications, which owns KHTL, KKOB-AM and six other radio stations in Albuquerque.
     The protest is being organized by Bob Ingersoll, a vice chairman of the Bernalillo County Democratic Party, and two dozen other people who met Wednesday beneath a "Stop Hate Radio" sign nailed to a tree in Roosevelt Park.
     They met to discuss how best to respond to what Ingersoll described as the "hate and racism" expressed in the segment of the "Don and Mike Show" that was broadcast live by KHTL.
     The three-hour daily show, co-hosted by Don Geronimo and Mike O'Meara, originates at WJFK-AM in Baltimore and is syndicated nationwide to more than 60 radio stations.
     On the afternoon of Aug. 17, Geronimo and O'Meara placed a call to the City Hall in El Cenizo, a small Texas town with a population of 7,800 located on the U.S.-Mexico border about 10 miles from Laredo.
     The El Cenizo City Commission had passed an ordinance at the beginning of August that all official city meetings and functions would be held in Spanish, with English translation available if requested 48 hours in advance. Ordinances and resolutions still will be written in English.
     El Cenizo, according to an Associated Press report, is believed to be the only U.S. city with an all-Spanish policy for official meetings.
     On the tape-recording of the segment, the phone rings for a while at El Cenizo's City Hall.
     "It's siesta time!" exclaims Geronimo or O'Meara as the phone continues to ring. (It's hard to tell the co-hosts apart, most of the talking seems to be done by Geronimo, who insists on calling himself Señor Donnie.) "Right there you got your Mexican work ethic," they say.
     When a woman answers, the two don't ask for her name, but begin to pepper her with questions and insults.
     Some examples, from a transcript:
     "If your people cannot understand my language, they should get on their burros and go back to Mexico."
     "You are in America. You got to speak American. . . . You Mexicans have your own country."
     "You know why I don't have to learn to speak Spanish? Because this is goddamned America."
     "Go back to your country."
     The co-hosts suggest that Spanish-speaking parts of the United States ought to be annexed by Mexico.
     The woman, assumed by Geronimo and O'Meara to be a secretary, remains polite through most of the segment.
     "You have to understand," she says, "that just because you speak Spanish doesn't make you any less of an American."
     Finally, she complains, "You're talking real ugly." She threatens to put the sheriff on the line. Then she hangs up.
     Turns out that co-hosts of the "Don & Mike Show" were talking with Flora Barton, an El Cenizo city commissioner, who said Wednesday that she was "still very upset" about the call.
     "I couldn't believe they would really be live radio -- they were talking so terrible," she said.
     Barton, 34, said she didn't learn to speak Spanish until two years ago.
     Most of El Cenizo's people speak Spanish, she said, although many also speak English. Only about 10 percent don't speak Spanish.
     "Citadel Communications is guilty of racist broadcasting," Ingersoll told the group that had gathered at Roosevelt Park. "We have to stop the racism and hate radio we've been having here. It's not just an issue for Hispanics, but crosses all ethnic, color and race lines. We won't let this go unanswered. It's important to show Citadel that we are outraged."
     He said he would start playing the tape as loudly as he could at 4 p.m. today in front of the Citadel offices at 500 Fourth St. N.W. and play it repeatedly "until 7 p.m. or I get arrested, whichever comes first."
     State Rep. Ed Sandoval, a North Valley Democrat, told the group that he'd already talked about the "Don & Mike Show" broadcast to Federal Communications Commissioner Gloria Tristani, former chairwoman of the New Mexico State Corporation Commission, whom he encountered at an Albuquerque restaurant on the day after the broadcast.
     "Legally, there's nothing we can do about it," Sandoval said. "They (radio talk-show hosts) pretty much can attack anybody."
     Sandoval and Ingersoll suggested that the most effective protest would be an economic boycott of the station's advertisers. "We have to hit ¹em where it hurts," Sandoval said.
     "We're going to request that Citadel remove the 'Don & Mike Show' from their programming," said Juan Jose Peña, head of the Hispanic Round Table, who was unable to attend the meeting in the park. "We are also going to put in a protest with the FCC. Their comments were totally insensitive and were, in fact, racist and despicable."
     Gayle Shaw, general manager of all of Citadel's AM stations in Albuquerque, said she had not heard the broadcast or its tape recording, but expected to get a copy of the tape soon from Westwood One Radio, the show's syndicator.
     "Once I've heard the tape, I will be responsive," Shaw said.
     Pat Frisch, program director for KHTL and KKOB, said he hadn't listened to the broadcast or heard the tape. But after he's listened to the tape, he said, "we will take appropriate action, if we deem necessary.
     "The problem with a live, syndicated show," he added, "is that they don't tell you ahead of time what they're going to do. Then they go ahead and do it, and it's over with before you know it -- and you've been tagged. Obviously, we don't want to offend the Hispanic population."
     Two of KKOB radio's former local talk-show hosts vanished from Albuquerque airwaves after protests by Hispanics and others that they had made racist comments on their shows.
     Nevada-based Citadel Communications owns and operates radio stations in 18 states, including New Mexico. A call Wednesday to headquarters in Las Vegas seeking comment on the "Don & Mike Show" was not returned.
     Ken Stevens, general manager of WJFK, the CBS station in Baltimore that originates the show, said he hadn't heard the broadcast and hasn't yet obtained a tape.
     "It's not a shock-radio kind of show," Stevens said. "I've never, in all the time I've worked with them, heard them do anything racist. But I will check into it. I called the producer, who remembers the segment. He said it was just Don expressing his opinion, in his own inimitable way, that people should speak English."