On Monday, January 24th, Tampa radio station WMNF cancelled the “Straight Talk” weekly program hosted by African community activist Connie Burton. Community activists charge that Burton has been retaliated against for challenging the station to grant African, Latino, Arab, Asian and Indigenous voices equal standing in accordance with its Mission Statement which reads that WMNF, “celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice”. WMNF is a listener-sponsored community radio station affiliated with the Pacifica Radio network.

Located in Tampa, Florida, whose population is approximately one half white, one quarter black and one quarter Latino, WMNF’s management is all white as are 14 out of 16 paid staff members. Both music and public affairs programming is predominately white. (See program schedule at www.wmnf.org. “Straight Talk” archives can be heard by going to the Daily Schedule/Sunday section.)

According to banned host Connie Burton, “The African, Latino, Arab and Indigenous peoples in the Tampa Bay area face ongoing violence against our communities, including hate crimes, police violence, unjust imprisonment, economic exploitation, hostility towards our children in the schools and the destruction of our neighborhoods through gentrification. WMNF should be a voice for these communities.” Burton and others have pressed the station to open up its airwaves and programming process to the powerless and oppressed communities needing a voice in today’s corporate dominated media world. Instead, Burton’s popular talk show was cancelled.

WMNF station manager Vicki Santa maintains that “Straight Talk” was cancelled because it violated a new station rule that organizations can’t have shows and that Burton’s style is offensive to the station’s largely white liberal audience. Santa says that “Straight Talk” is controlled by the Uhuru Movement, of which Burton is a member. Burton insists that she, as host, defines the content of her show. She charges that the new rule was created especially for her, just as “designer laws” like “3 Strikes” and mandatory sentencing rules have been created to target the black community.

Evidence of discriminatory enforcement of station policies may be found in the fact that many of WMNF’s programs are hosted by volunteers who are active in organizations related to the content of their shows, such as a blues show hosted by the president of the Suncoast Blues Society and an environmental show hosted by Sierra Club activists, among others. These hosts regularly promote events and express views related to their personal involvement in the community.

Some observers suspect that WMNF station management has bowed to pressure from municipal authorities, HUD officials and local real estate developers who have long sought to remove the outspoken Burton from the airwaves.

As the popularly elected president of the Robles Park Resident Council for over 10 years, Connie Burton has fought for the rights of public housing residents and is pushing for a development plan that utilizes HUD provisions to turn public housing over to the collective ownership and management of the residents themselves. In response to her organizing efforts, HUD officials have tried unsuccessfully to evict her, at one point offering to drop their eviction proceedings if she would give up her radio show.

Burton organized public housing residents to defeat the Civitas Project in Tampa. Developer Ed Turanchek would have used public tax dollars to destroy a low income African neighborhood and replace it with a gentrified upscale white community. She has also been a vocal opponent to police occupation of black communities and negative treatment of black children in the schools and generated controversy by organizing demonstrations to protest the recent hit and run killing of 2 black children by a white school teacher.

According to Burton, “The white liberals controlling WMNF won’t allow an independent voice of African working class people. They want black people to talk about how bad things are, while the white people provide the analysis and strategy and define the limits within which we are allowed to struggle. They are no different than the corporate commercial stations where money determines the programming. Now they are moving into their new 2 million dollar grandiose facility located right in the midst of a desperately impoverished black community. Straight Talk listeners have donated tens of thousands of dollars to the station and now my community is denied access. Black people have a right to free speech too!”

Jetie B. Wilds Jr. hosts a talk show on WTMP, a black-owned radio station in Tampa. In an interview he conducted with Omali Yeshitela, leader of the Uhuru Movement and sometimes guest host of Straight Talk, Wilds stated that "To the degree that you are stifled and unable to speak, our own survival is diminished. We have to have someone saying the things that need to be said. For those persons who are of good will… I’m hoping that we will stay aware of what WMNF is doing and that we will make sure that if they are going to be a community station that they have to give community views."

Contact: Committee to Promote Racial and Social Justice at WMNF and Defend Connie Burton and Straight Talk, 727-698-3092 or 727-821-6620. Contact WMNF to express your views on this story at 813-238-8001 or 1210 E. Martin Luther King Blvd. Tampa, FL 33603.