Furious over recent on-air comments made by CITADEL Classic Rock KQRS/MINNEAPOLIS personality TOM BARNARD and his show's co-hosts, American Indian leaders plan to protest at KQRS at 10a TODAY, reports THE STAR TRIBUNE. Representatives of the American Indian Movement (AIM), the RED LAKE Indian Reservation and urban Indian leaders hope to meet with executives from the station.
AIM co-founder CLYDE BELLECORT said the remarks about the RED LAKE CHIPPEWA and SHAKOPEE MDEWAKANTON SIOUX tribes were "ignorant." He compared them to comments made this spring by DON IMUS.
The uproar stems from a broadcast last month in which BARNARD and co-host TERRI TRAEN talked about the RED LAKE and SHAKOPEE tribes while discussing a report by the state Health Department that BELTRAMI COUNTY has the state's highest rate of suicide among young people.
The jocks then mentioned BEMIDJI and the RED LAKE Indian Reservation, which are both located in BELTRAMI COUNTY.
"Maybe it's genetic; isn't there a lot of incest up there?" TRAEN said about the tribe.
"Not that I know of," BARNARD replied.
"I think there is," TRAEN continued. "Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure."
"Well, I'm glad you just threw it out there, then," BARNARD said to laughter in the background.
Minority groups have long criticized BARNARD and his crew for their on-air banter.
In the late 1990s, members of the SOMALI community picketed over BARNARD and Co.'s mocking of SOMALI dialects after a SOMALI cabdriver was slain. Before that, the Asian-American community was irate when BARNARD and his co-hosts made fun of a teenage HMONG girl who was charged with killing her newborn son.
They said of her potential $10,000 fine: "That's a lot of eggrolls."
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