Durham Minister Seeks DJ's Ouster for ’Idol’ Comments

AP, USA Today, Jun. 1

A Durham minister in North Carolina has started an online petition drive to oust a local morning radio personality for “racially incendiary” comments insulting “American Idol” winner Fantasia Barrino.Bob Dumas, host of WDCG’s top-rated “Showgram,” on Thursday used the terms “ghetto” and “low class” to describe Barrino, who is African American and had a child out of wedlock.

Dumas, who is white, said his use of the term “ghetto” was not race-specific. “It can be black; it can be white; it can be Hispanic. It can be anybody,” Dumas said.

The Rev. Paul Scott, a Baptist minister and founder of the Messianic Afrikan Nation ministry in Durham, said the term was a “code word” of white supremacists to describe the actions of those in the black community.

He called the term “racially incendiary” and is circulating a petition on the Internet calling for an apology and Dumas’ dismissal.

The radio station’s assistant program director and music director Chase, who uses only one name, declined to repeat Dumas’ remarks but acknowledged that Dumas used the words “ghetto” and “low class.” He, too, said there was nothing racist in the remarks.

’The station has received some calls and e-mails about Thursday’s show, Chase said.

Dumas and then-co-host Madison Lane were taken off the air in the fall after Dumas encouraged listeners to run bicyclists off the road. Dumas laughed at listeners’ stories of abusing cyclists and even said he sometimes throws Yoo-hoo bottles at them. In 1998, the station suspended the pair for offering concert tickets to listeners who took off their clothes in downtown Raleigh. Dumas also was suspended in 1994 for remarks containing sexual and racial overtones during the radio show’s regular “True Confessions” segment. (AP)