Anthony Cumia of "Opie and Anthony" fired for "racist tweets"

All of the reports are saying that he was fired for a “racist Twitter rant”, etc. I didn’t read anything racist, but he was certainly pissed and called her everything except the n-word. I’m not sure whether to put this here in Cafe Society, or in GD or the Pit, so I’ll start here.

Here are some links:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/04/radio-host-anthony-cumia-from-opie-and-anthony-says-hes-been-fired-for-a-twitter-rant/

What astounds me is all of the commenters claiming that he is a racist asshole because he called her a “savage” and an “animal” for attacking him. Apparently the word “racist” has been diluted to the point that saying something bad about anybody with a different ethnic background makes you a racist.

The weird thing is that he didn’t call the police or make a report. He just claims that it happened. Therefore, people are doubting his version of the story. (IDK that there is another version of the story).

Another angle is that O&A have admitted that years ago they wanted to get fired from their Boston job (for a prank on Mayor Menino*) so that they could take a better job in New York. They complain a lot about stuff at SiriusXM and have implied that their next destination is podcasting, which they have already started.

I like their show and listen to them when I can, so I tend to believe his version. However, something is very fishy about the whole thing.

Thoughts?

That’s literally the most racist rant I’ve heard a public figure make in many years. Considerably worse then Clive Bundy or that Basketball owner.

If that’s not racist, there’s no such thing. Is that the argument you’re trying to make?

Those tweets were completely racist.

No. But when you say that black people are savages who gang up to attack white people and should be treated like animals, then that’s racism.

Anything that gets those fuckwits off the radio makes me happy.

These are “morning zoo” type DJ’s, right? Maybe that kind of rhetoric needs wacky sound effects to work.

This guy gets beat up by 5 or 6 people, of course he’s gonna be mad. I don’t know the whole story but if he got beat up for taking a picture then I think he was a victim of hate crime. I can’t imagine what everyone would be saying if a black guy got beat up by 5 white guys for taking pictures of a white girl.

I think even you would be pissed if you got beat up under the same circumstances. I seriously doubt you would cast this off as just a random beating too.

Then why the living fuck wouldn’t you, you know, call the cops or make a report?

Even by his own version of the story, he wasn’t beaten up by five people. The other people involved “gave him shit”. The girl was the only one that (allegedly) hit him.

If he had said that all black people were savages who gang up to attack white people…, then that would be racist. But that’s not what he said. (Unless you think that the “community” that was was referring to includes all black people, which I don’t.)

Yes, I believe that racism is believing that other ethnic groups are inferior to yours. A google search of “racism definition” seems to back me up on this.

As I said before, the word “racist” has been used so loosely to include anyone who says anything bad about anyone of a different race/ethnicity.

If I said that I hated the 9/11 hijackers would that make me racist against Middle Easterners?

Read it again. Its extremely clear that that “those people” are blacks. He references her race and his race half a dozen times, says “those people” and “that community” (and in the last post “the black community”) without referencing anything other then the peoples invovled race, and says “they” blame slavery. Not to mention “jungles, savages, slaves, animals and home-boys” aren’t exactly race-neutral references.

You have to be seriously driven to find a non-racist read on that rant.

Yeah, as I said, the story is kinda fishy. For those that don’t follow the show, he has several cop friends, including “Club Soda Kenny” who is a retired NY police officer that drives either him or Opie to and/or from work every day, as well as “Kieth the cop” who, at least for a while, lived in Anthony’s mansion*. Also, he implied that he was carrying a weapon on him at the time, but he is often complaining about how even his CCW license doesn’t allow him to bring a weapon into NY City. So was he legally able to have a weapon on him where he was? Could that have been why he didn’t call the cops (having a retired NYC cop as a chauffeur isn’t going to get you out of a weapons charge, I wouldn’t think.)
Given the current climate, it seems that nobody is going to dissect the particulars of his story because everybody reporting on it is too busy pointing out how non-racist they themselves are. I was hoping that we could avoid that here.

  • This is information that I have gathered by listening to the show when I am in my car, which is now only for a few minutes at a time.

Of course I’d be pissed. But I’d be pissed at the five or six people who beat me up. I wouldn’t be pissed at everyone who happened to have the same color skin as the five or six people who beat me up.

If you’re the victim of a black criminal and you decide that all black people are criminals, you’re a racist.

Yes, I am quite aware that the people that he had a run in were black.

I thought it was clear that his use of words like “savages” and “animals” were based on their behavior, not their skin color. I didn’t see where he called anybody a slave.

Again, I don’t think that he meant “black community” to refer to all Africans. (Otherwise, he would have said something actually racist like “black race” or “black species”, etc.)

I wasn’t discussing his story, I was discussing your and whitesox’s story. You both said there was some sort of group beating. That wasn’t even in the DJ’s story. He said the other people “gave him shit”, but the woman was the only one he claimed to hit him.

I’m not sure it really matters if his story is true or not. His rant is still over-the-top racist. Sirius was correct to fire him.

I don’t think anyone cares about the “he-said/she-said” story. There are probably a dozen “he shoved me first” physical confrentations in Time Square every night, no one cares. The guy printed a rant attacking black people as animals, savages, etc. That’s the scandelous bit, and what people will be interested in discussing.

So you figure when he said “the black community” he wasn’t talking about the black community?

Assuming this situation happened as reported, it looks to me like a white racist got beat up by a black racist.

That was extremely and blatantly racist, what the hell are you reading?