Opinion: When Debate Goes to the Dogs

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It’s never easy to match radio hosts John and Ken at KFI radio when it comes to matters of juvenile poor taste but, by golly, a group of Los Angeles community activists is going to try.

You’ll recall that Ken and John are the radio hosts who threw a hissy fit after the city council settled a racial harassment suit filed by a firefighter whose colleagues laced his dinner with dog food for $2.7 million.

Rushing to the defense of misunderstood good ole boys everywhere, they urged their listeners to send cans of dog food to the city council.

The thinking behind this, apparently, was that as the Los Angeles Fire Department and the city itself struggle with a sense of intensifying racial polarization, 3-D insults that city leaders could hold in their own hands would be a big help.

Now some black leaders are tossing out more historic methods of protest and resorting to a time-honored method of retaliation favored by 6 year olds: tit-for-tat.

They’re launching a campaign of their own—asking African Americans to return the insult by mailing cans of dog food to Ken and John.

“The dog food campaign is the community’s way of telling KFI that we will no longer tolerate racial abuse under the guise of free speech and to grab ratings,” said Lita Herron, President of the Youth Advocacy Coalition.

So there. Take that. And as the kids used to say:

“I’m rubber and you’re glue. Everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”