We Might As Well Have Been Pelted By Tomatoes And Attacked By Lions In Our First Live Broadcast. Honestly.

As most of you know by now, Mock and I were live yesterday with our inaugural radio show, and we survived.  And SO MANY MANY THANKS to all of the well-wishers out there who sent loving words of support and encouragement along the way.  Seriously.  We love y'all so so much.  LOVE.

It's been a crazy week, and after yesterday's madness, we both decided that the day just BEGGED for a recap post.  So here we are. 🙂

I think that she was whisked away by her husband for a steak dinner and a barrel full of alcohol after the show, while I came home to the arms of my loving family and played princesses, immersed myself in toddler-genre reading and bedtime, then capped it off with a late-night family-room screening of Zero Dark Thirty.  Let's just say that we both learned first-hand that when you have a near-perfect dress rehearsal (as we did last week), you proooobably aren't going to have the smoothest run at showtime.  

Ah yes.  This was baptism by raging fire, to say the least. 

After meeting at a local CVS for some pre-show snackage and discussion about how we'd both been crawling out of our individual skin all day, we arrived about an hour early at the building to try to prep our respective computers.  We learned the day before that we wouldn't be allowed in the studio until 4 minutes before the broadcast, and we had never logged on to our brand-new company email logins.  So that was stress number one.  Once into the studio, the crazy-scramble began, we got situated with about two minutes to spare, collected ourselves, gave ourselves pep talks, and let the fun begin.

In the first hour, we did a segment on Melissa Harris Perry and her brand of collectivist racism that she's known for.  That MSNBC is known for.  Oh, who am I kidding – that LIBERALS are known for.  In our chat about her, we mentioned that she has a white mother, a black father, and refers to herself as black, as she finds the term "bi-racial" somehow offensive.  Well, we have an issue with this for several reasons, one of which is the fact that her mother is white.  And the term "bi-racial" shouldn't be offensive to folks in this day and age, especially.  I mean, one, we should be PAST that term being offensive to anyone in 2013.  Especially seeing as how the leader of the free world is bi-racial and all.  But – whoops – that's right.  Obama, too, refers to himself as black, discounting the fact that his mother, too, was also white (and that's always annoyed the hell out of me, too).  But I'd venture to say that Obama doesn't refer to himself as black for the whole offended-by-being-called-bi-racial hangup.  Nah.  He chose his race checkbox primarily for the vote factor.  HELLO.  And if you think otherwise, then you're freaking naive.  I mean, it just SOUNDS better to say that we elected the first black president rather than the first bi-racial president now, doesn't it?  And it got the man votes.  That's the truth.  In all of its spectacular glory, whether you want to hear it said out loud or not.

It's politics, baby.    

So we continued on for another 30 minutes or so on the show, and went to one of our breaks.  It was right around the time when our frazzled nerves and our first-day jitters were FINALLY starting to calm themselves when our first hater stormed into the studio.  

It was EPIC.

We met our new coworker in this most lovely and welcoming and WACK way.  There was no, "hi my name is so-and-so," but instead a charging-at-us-in-the-studio-like-a-raging-bull with a picture of her family in hand, looking like she was about to apply some sort of smackdown.  In that moment, I actually regretted not having time over the past year to learn and master Krav Maga.  Because damn.  

Our new coworker (and hater) is a black woman who, we soon learned, is married to a white man, and when she charged the studio and came at us, screaming and telling us that she'd been "shaking with anger for the last 35 minutes over our comments" and just couldn't hold it in any longer, I knew that our inaugural show would be one for the history books, for sure.  It seems that we had struck a bit of a nerve with her with that particular segment.  Her children are bi-racial, and she refers to her children as black.  Why?  Because that is how SOCIETY SEES THEM, she told us.  And our questions and subsequent banter about Melissa Harris Perry were therefore unacceptable to her personally.  Our questioning of why people would be offended by the moniker of "biracial" were offensive to her, so she took it upon herself to get up all in our grills about it.  You know, DURING THE SHOW. She asked us specifically, "how do YOU see this child? (pointing at her younger son in the picture she held in her hand)?"  I wasn't sure if this was a trick question, as the picture was clearly of her, her white husband, and her two beautiful boys.  So, I responded, "well, he looks bi-racial to me."  Because HE IS.  I think that response may have pissed her off even more, because she then informed us that we don't UNDERSTAND race, and that we'll never understand what it's like, because, well, we're just white chicks, and we HAVE NO SAY when it comes to race.  

And there you have it, folks. 

Keep in mind that this entire exchange occured between segments of OUR FIRST SHOW.  We had about two minutes to go back on the air.  We were already frazzled to begin with, and now we were frazzled, rattled, and shocked, frankly.  I wanted to DISCUSS, because that's how I roll.  And when I attempted to do so – when Mock attempted to do so – the reaction?  It was simply, "I don't care what you have to say, because whatever you say, I won't hear it."

And then she stormed out as quickly as she stormed in.  

I thought it spoke volumes that she approached us during a minute-long break in between segments when we had no chance to defend ourselves.  I thought it spoke volumes that she flat-out said she wouldn't even be interested in hearing anything else we had to say.

I thought it spoke volumes that she said that I know nothing about race – simply because I'm white.  She knew NOTHING about Mock and me.  She didn't know if I had a black husband or if Mock was married to a Chinese dude.  She didn't know how many Romanian or Guatemalan children we do or do not have.  Moreover, that's none of her damn business.  I'm WHITE, you see, so I have no say in race.  If there's one thing we're all very well-versed on in this country these days, it's that if you're white – you are powerless, voiceless, and DEFENSELESS in any discussion about race.  And if you say anything about race?  If you pose a question about it?  Engage in a discussion about it?  Say something that may be perceived as politically incorrect (which is pretty much anything and everything, if you're not a person of color, FYI) – then you're obviously RACIST.

Welcome to the New America, folks.  Yay FREE SPEECH!

That is first and foremost what pisses me off about what happened yesterday.  As  white women, it's taboo for Mock and me to discuss race at all.  Yet, over the past four years, I've been called a racist at least once a week – WRONGLY, mind you – because I don't agree with the political policies of an administration run by a bi-racial dude (who identifies himself as black, mind you).  But we don't know a THING about being judged by the color of our skin.  Uh huh.  

See yesterday's judgement.  

Here's what else pisses me off.  That WE got yelled at because this chick's kids somehow feel alienated for being bi-racial.  How exactly is that OUR fault, when we're the ones calling out the fact that the freaking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES and yahoos like Melissa Harris Perry could embrace the fact that they're bi-racial instead of saying that they're black?  When, in fact, they're actually bi-racial?  Maybe if Obama spent less time saying, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon!" and more time saying, "If I had a son, he'd look like YOUR son, Ms. Radio-Lady-Who's-Yelling-At-The-Chicks," then your sons wouldn't feel so insecure about calling themselves bi-racial now, would they?  Maybe if some of these bi-racial folks who are in positions of success and notoriety would freaking STRAP ON A SET and represent for bi-racial folks and say, "yeah, I'm bi-racial, and I'm totally proud of the fact that I'm from a mixed race family – YAY FOR ME," then Radio Chick wouldn't have such a damn chip on her shoulder and wouldn't be YELLING AT ME AND MOCK ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON.  Because we wouldn't have had to bring it up.  You know, two stupid white chicks who know nothing about race and all.

Nah – it's just easier to yell at the white chicks.  The new ones who are already nervous as hell.  You know, because they're white.  And therefore offensive.  And obviously racist.

Or something.

So yeah – Mock and I didn't make any new friends yesterday.  But we got through the entire broadcast without puking or having any bouts of explosive diarrhea, so BONUS.

Thanks again for all who tuned in!

And I can't wait to see who we piss off next week.  

WOOT!