WHFS, We Hardly Knew You

99.1 WHFS is a radio station that plays "alternative rock" here in the Washington DC area. Or, rather, it is a station that played alternative rock. At 12:00 pm EST Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" faded out and was followed by "WHFS transmitiendo desde la ciudad capital de America: Esta es tu nuevo radio!" It is now a Spanish-language station targeted at a Central-American and Caribbean audience.

The change was a capitalist move, pure and simple, a way to make money off the growing Hispanic population of the area. It's all about money, a fact that any rational human being above the age of twelve should know, especially an American.

The sad part is that he doesn't. A lot of them don't. There is a petition to sign on the web to bring back the old format of WHFS. I signed it. I reviewed the other signatures. I wish I hadn't signed it. An alarming lot of the petition was bigoted libel aimed mostly at Mexicans as if Mexico is the only country in the Central American and Caribbean region. In my opinion, it's another glaring example that racism is alive and well in America. It merely hibernates until it has a reason, even a poor one, to rear its hideous head.

I hardly ever listened to 99.1. It's on my car's preset because there are only two rock stations here, but I always listen to CD's and when I do listen to the radio, it's mostly to public radio. The reason I signed the petition was a story I read about a girl who was introduced to Lloyd Cole's Rattlesnakes album by WHFS. I figured that a station that points a girl in the right direction like that can't be bad at all. Of course a lot has changed since 1984 and now the typical WHFS audience consists of people who will walk out on a Cure performance, which is just what happened when said legends were headlining the annual HFStival.

It is often pointed out that American society is one of immigrants, including the whites. The "Spics" that WHFS listeners so charmingly told to "go back to Mexico" have just as much right to their own radio station as the whites. And I'd rather it went to the Mexicans.