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Anthony of 'Opie and Anthony' Fired For Twitter Rant

Some of the so called "SJW" contingent are not satisfied with simply calling Anthony a racist jerk.

PZ Myers said:
If you want to do anything, cancel your Sirius XM account. Not conditionally, not if they don’t fire Cumia, but just plainly and simply cut them off. Punish the executives. Do you know anyone who listens to that Opie & Anthony crap? Repudiate them, publicly and unabashedly. Let them know that they are also terrible human beings for giving an audience to racists.

Lindy West said:
The fact that mainstream "progressive" comics appear on the show & allow their names to be associated with the O&A community is astonishing.

Lindy West said:
Opie & Anthony is a virulently right-wing, white supremacist show and should be branded as such. http://jezebel.com/opie-anthony-host-has-a-long-history-of-racism-1599685595


Apparently it's not just Anthony who's guilty, it's also Opie and Jim Norton, Sirius XM, all comics who've appeared on the O&A show and anyone who listens to the show.
 
Some of the so called "SJW" contingent are not satisfied with simply calling Anthony a racist jerk.

Apparently it's not just Anthony who's guilty, it's also Opie and Jim Norton, Sirius XM, all comics who've appeared on the O&A show and anyone who listens to the show.
While I don't think I'd endorse boycotts of anything but the show itself (and even that's not going to happen because in the grand scheme of things I don't care enough), don't you think there's some truth in those statements? For example, I'd look askance at any radio station playing Rush Limbaugh's nonsense, just as I considered Fox News much worse when it was host to the Glenn Beck parasite (it's still bad).

I'm certainly not happy knowing that Louis C.K. was/is apparently a frequent contributor to the O&A debacle. Again, I have no intention of calling him guilty by association or boycotting his products but I don't think as well of him now as I did a week ago.
 
I think they would probably just be confused about why he decided to call a white woman a ******

I presume you mean the "n" word. The linked article does not mention that, though it does mention more than a half dozen profanities, including **** and savage, both of which would seem to apply to someone who hit him five times.

It seems two ******** butted heads, and one used racist terms and a physical attack.

:popcorn1
 
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I presume you mean the "n" word. The linked article does not mention that, though it does mention more than a half dozen profanities, including **** and savage, both of which would seem to apply to someone who hit him five times.

It seems two ******** butted heads, and one used racist terms and a physical attack.

:popcorn1

Most of the MSM reporting on it seems to have been vague or gave an incomplete about what he wrote, probably because they considered much of it unprintable. While he's deleted the tweets, they are archived here. I'd recommend people commenting read all of it, rather than just the overviews, especially from MSM sites that won't post the most profane portions.
 
I presume you mean the "n" word. The linked article does not mention that, though it does mention more than a half dozen profanities, including **** and savage, both of which would seem to apply to someone who hit him five times.

It seems two ******** butted heads, and one used racist terms and a physical attack.

:popcorn1

The archive does have him mentioning dropping the N-bomb on her after ten punches. I think he has a typo in the line and says "a dropped" where he meant "I dropped", but it's pretty clear. It's also replete with crap like "Obama's America" and "they run the place, now".

He's a racist turd.
 
While I don't think I'd endorse boycotts of anything but the show itself (and even that's not going to happen because in the grand scheme of things I don't care enough), don't you think there's some truth in those statements? For example, I'd look askance at any radio station playing Rush Limbaugh's nonsense, just as I considered Fox News much worse when it was host to the Glenn Beck parasite (it's still bad).

That's just it. Sirius and other entertainment providers hire professional boors while counting on the fact that when the line is crossed, they can easily throw the personality under the bus by firing him and adamantly disassociating themselves from whatever the last straw was. The fact is, though, that he was doing what he was being paid by Sirius to do; that he would eventually commit the faux pas of no return is an inevitable result of his employer encouraging his boorishness and providing him with a podium. I see nothing wrong with the idea of refusing to let Sirius get away with courting and profiting from these types of individuals and conveniently parachuting away once things have gone too far.

I read at least some of his tweets. Between the incident and his firing, he seemed rather cavalier toward peoples' suggestions that they would complain to Sirius; it's obvious that he was confident Sirius would not be responding to peoples' complaints, and the most likely explanation is the fact that up until that point, they never had before.
 
Some of the so called "SJW" contingent are not satisfied with simply calling Anthony a racist jerk.

Apparently it's not just Anthony who's guilty, it's also Opie and Jim Norton, Sirius XM, all comics who've appeared on the O&A show and anyone who listens to the show.

Bill Burr, one of my favorite comedians, regularly appears on the show. They provided a huge boost to his career, and they're his "go to" guys in radio. From what I recall of youtube clips, which I listened to awhile ago, guests would bring up Cumia's racism. (I would only listen to clips of Burr and Patrice O'Neal).
 
I will note that my mom canceled her Sirius XM subscription on Friday...but it had nothing to do with virulent racism and everything to do with the fact that she bought a new Camry Hybrid with a cool Bluetooth touchscreen; she decided to just stream music from her iPhone and iPad. :)
 
I just cancelled my subscription to Sirius twice today:

1) For hiring Cumia and giving a platform to his racist views

and

2) For firing Cumia and denying free speech to his racist views
 
While I don't think I'd endorse boycotts of anything but the show itself (and even that's not going to happen because in the grand scheme of things I don't care enough), don't you think there's some truth in those statements? For example, I'd look askance at any radio station playing Rush Limbaugh's nonsense, just as I considered Fox News much worse when it was host to the Glenn Beck parasite (it's still bad).

No I don't think there's truth in them. They aren't Rush. They're a comedy show. They occasionally talk politics, but they don't pretend to be experts in it an don't have a uniform view. Ant was a basically fiscal/secular conservative (pro gay rights, pro choice, anti taxes, pro gun, anti Obama to an irrational extent, "why is the black community so violent" style racist). His racism didn't really start to come out until 2009 from what I've heard---many years after being hired by satellite radio. Opie is generally close to being an a-political cynic ("politicians are all talking out of their asses" kind of thing) and Jim Norton is, I guess, sort of a centrist (preferred Obama to McCain, has some Ron Paul sympathies). I actually got into the show through their arguments with truthers such as Jessie Ventura, some Loose Change guy, and other randos. Now I usually tune out when they talk politics though. My point is just that they are nothing like a right wing talk radio show and there is a big difference between "Anthony is racist" and "The O&A show is racist".

I'm certainly not happy knowing that Louis C.K. was/is apparently a frequent contributor to the O&A debacle. Again, I have no intention of calling him guilty by association or boycotting his products but I don't think as well of him now as I did a week ago.

Much the opposite for me. I became a Louis fan through O&A. He argued against Anthony on at least a couple occasions when he brought up race.


Bill Burr, one of my favorite comedians, regularly appears on the show. They provided a huge boost to his career, and they're his "go to" guys in radio. From what I recall of youtube clips, which I listened to awhile ago, guests would bring up Cumia's racism. (I would only listen to clips of Burr and Patrice O'Neal).

Yeh, Bill Burr is another great comedian who I recall arguing about race with Anthony on the show.


I just cancelled my subscription to Sirius twice today:

1) For hiring Cumia and giving a platform to his racist views

and

2) For firing Cumia and denying free speech to his racist views

Well played!
 
That's just it. Sirius and other entertainment providers hire professional boors while counting on the fact that when the line is crossed, they can easily throw the personality under the bus by firing him and adamantly disassociating themselves from whatever the last straw was. The fact is, though, that he was doing what he was being paid by Sirius to do; that he would eventually commit the faux pas of no return is an inevitable result of his employer encouraging his boorishness and providing him with a podium.

There's no evidence of Sirius XM encouraging Anthony to be racist. The show was hired because it had a relatively large fan base and that is all. And they certainly didn't have a large fan base due to racist twitter rants.

I see nothing wrong with the idea of refusing to let Sirius get away with courting and profiting from these types of individuals and conveniently parachuting away once things have gone too far.

I don't understand the problem you have with Sirius XM hiring O&A and allowing fans such as myself to listen to a show we enjoy while non-fans such as yourself were under no obligation to listen.
 
No I don't think there's truth in them. They aren't Rush. They're a comedy show. They occasionally talk politics, but they don't pretend to be experts in it an don't have a uniform view. Ant was a basically fiscal/secular conservative (pro gay rights, pro choice, anti taxes, pro gun, anti Obama to an irrational extent, "why is the black community so violent" style racist). His racism didn't really start to come out until 2009 from what I've heard---many years after being hired by satellite radio.
So, Sirius XM was content to have a racist prominently featured on their air for 4-5 years? In that case, it seems like the quote recommending canceling subscriptions in protest (regardless of their response to this particular bit of vileness) would be a fairly decent point. After all, they spent years paying him and giving him a forum until it became a splashy PR crisis.
 
There's no evidence of Sirius XM encouraging Anthony to be racist.

I didn't say that. I said he was hired to be boorish. Yes, I understand he was already like that before he was hired - but Sirius hired him to make them money by continuing to be what he was. His latent racism just managed to slip out in the midst of his boorishness...which is something that's just prone to happen eventually to boors who are latently racist.



I don't understand the problem you have with Sirius XM hiring O&A and allowing fans such as myself to listen to a show we enjoy while non-fans such as yourself were under no obligation to listen.

I wouldn't suggest that they not be allowed to do business in just such a way if they wish. Merely that they should expect the possibility that market fallout may ensue as a result.
 
The archive does have him mentioning dropping the N-bomb on her after ten punches. I think he has a typo in the line and says "a dropped" where he meant "I dropped", but it's pretty clear. It's also replete with crap like "Obama's America" and "they run the place, now".

He's a racist turd.

That's not quite true.

He actually stated that he called the woman a "&$;;-:" after she punched him once. And then she hit him another five times, and "five blacks" started yelling at him. And then this just became her hitting him ten times, magically.

However, he felt free to call her a bitch, an animal, a dog, and a "see-you-next-tuesday", in addition to calling her and other black people savages, dogs, "not humans", and so on.

Gee, what word could he have possibly felt the need to censor, given all of that - particularly one with six characters, using the same character for the third and fourth letter, than led to him getting punched by a black person? I can only think of two *possible* words that fit here, and one of them...well, he did not know her sexual orientation.

I think we're on the same page, though. Looks like the guy was taking creep-shots of a woman, got called out, started spewing racial slurs, and *maybe* got punched for his efforts - although he also released pictures of himself a day or two later, showing no sign of injury, and he failed to file a police report, and no cop noticed this commotion, in Times Square, during a prime tourist season, post 9/11.
 
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I didn't think this was justified based on the OP, which only showed one tweet. A horrible tweet, but it didn't seem racist. I was about to post that I didn't see what was racist about this, but felt I must be missing something, so I finally found the whole series of tweets.

All I can say is holy crap! That is one racist rant!
 
You know. There is a bit there that may be a bit over the top. But I have no problem with referring to her as an animal, if she is acting like one.

The other thing is... people should get a bit of a pass right after they have been assaulted.
 
Some of the so called "SJW" contingent are not satisfied with simply calling Anthony a racist jerk.

Apparently it's not just Anthony who's guilty, it's also Opie and Jim Norton, Sirius XM, all comics who've appeared on the O&A show and anyone who listens to the show.


I listened to them for about an hour once, about 17 years ago, while waiting in traffic on the NJ Turnpike. Boy do I feel terrible! It's time to don the hairshirt.
 
The other thing is... people should get a bit of a pass right after they have been assaulted.

I don't think so. I think there are few times when people are more honest and forthright about their true feelings than when they are feeling righteously angry and cutting loose rather than censoring themselves. I find it unlikely that someone who isn't really racist is going to resort to racist language when angry. There's no dearth of non-racist invective to choose from.
 
Can you post the tweets you believe are specifically racist?

This one:
-"They aren't people."

These two together:
-"Then she punched me 5 more times. She's lucky I was a white legal gun owner or she'd be dead. Then 5 blacks started giving me ******"
-"It's a jungle out in our cities after midnight. Violent savages own the streets. They all came 2 defend this pig. I had to yell like at dogs"

This one:
-"Savage violent animal ***** prey on white people. Easy targets. This **** has no clue how lucky she was. She belted me 10 times. I had a gun"

These two remind me of racists complaining about Jewish conspiracies, but now it is black people:
-"RT @DNchef: @AnthonyCumia ...welcome to obama's America. -No ******"
-"RT @DrMorbid: Hey @AnthonyCumia what's your course of action regarding this woman now? -nothing! They run things now. We're done."
 

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