Faith in Action

June 8, 2006

Mr. Victor Starr
Program Director
WERQ 92Q Jams
1705 Whitehead Road
Baltimore, MD 21207

Dear Mr. Starr,

I appreciate your timely and thoughtful response to my May 2 letter. In addition, I am glad that you agree with me that the “Big Phat Wire” segment was inappropriate.

As it pertains to the “give it up on the first date” question, I still believe that this question is an inappropriate one as well. I believe that asking adults if they would “give it up on the first date” might negatively influence a youth to think that it’s ok to do such. Then on the flip side your station brings people on the air like Debra Hickman from Sisters Together and Reaching (STAR) to talk about HIV/AIDS. I view this as potentially confusing to young impressionable minds.

Me turning off the radio won’t do anything to protect the young people from conflicting messages that add more confusion to the already complex society that they’re encountering.

I doubt if we’ll ever come to a point of agreement on this issue, but I have been encouraged to become a more aggressive media justice advocate. I know now what the FCC defines as obscene, profane, and indecent broadcasts. I am also becoming increasingly aware of how lack of non-White media ownership and payola is impacting what stations like WERQ is broadcasting.

While the music industry and radio broadcast companies are used to older people challenging artists’ lyrics and stereotypes, I believe there is an ever increasing percentage of younger listeners like me who are a part of the hip hop generation that are sick of how corporate influence is perverting our sacred genre of music.

I’ll be joining with other young advocates who refuse to continue to dance to the tunes of our own demise. No matter what Lil John, Busta Rhymes, Ying Yang Twins, Shawnna, major media conglomerates, or their corporate sponsors say – I know African people are better than this.

I’m sure at some point our paths will cross again. I appreciate the dialogue.

Respectfully,

Minister Heber Brown, III

May 2, 2006

Mr. Victor Starr
Program Director
WERQ 92Q Jams
1705 Whitehead Road
Baltimore, MD 21207

Dear Mr. Starr,

While riding to work this morning, I was flipping through the channels and landed on 92.3FM. At the time, an interview or prank phone call of some sort was playing. A woman and a man were arguing about a paternity test and describing explicit sexual acts. There was an onslaught of profanity covered by the traditional “beeps” that do little in masking what was said. The time was about 8:45AM.

It was appalling to me to hear such vulgar discussions first thing in the morning on the city’s most popular morning show. As I was driving, I was passing school aged children at bus stops with headphones in their ears and I kept thinking about what if these children are listening to these vivid descriptions of oral sex and profanity?

In a city that was ranked with the fifth highest annual AIDS rate of any major metropolitan area in the country, I know for a fact that our city is suffering from an HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Baltimore City Council commissioned a report of this problem and in 2002 they, along with the Mayor, issued a STATE OF EMERGENCY because of the “pervasive impact of the epidemic in the city.” Speaking of the “face” of HIV/AIDS in Baltimore, Dr. William Blattner, Chair of the Baltimore City Commission on HIV/AIDS, warned in a 2005 Interim Report that, “youth in high-risk African American neighborhoods have a sense of hopelessness that translates into behaviors that continue to fuel new infections.”

While I appreciate the community outreach activities that WERQ engages in on a fairly regular basis, I also believe that public relations events do not give the station a license to broadcast material that is detrimental to the health, safety, and wellbeing of listeners and particularly our youth.

I would advise WERQ 92.3FM to reevaluate its ethical standards as it relates to the irresponsible discussion and broadcast of sexually explicit information over its airwaves. Broadcasting profanity laced arguments about oral sex and asking if people will “give it up on the first date” during the Wednesday morning dating interviews is not acceptable. Perhaps that type of mature content would be better served during the middle of the day (after morning rush hour and before mid-afternoon) when most school children should be in school.

I appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Minister Heber Brown, III