Redding Talk Host Accused of On-Air Racist Remarks

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News/Talk KQMS-AM/Redding, CA, talk personality Ray Roberts is in hot water over comments that the local NAACP calls "in-your-face racist." "Ronald Reagan wouldn't go into the Oval Office without wearing a coat and tie," he said during his morning show. "Now we have people going in there and eating fried chicken and throwing the bones over their shoulder."

Roberts denied that his comments were racist, and he said Thursday (3-25) that he was not speaking about President Barack Obama when he complained on air about what he perceived as a degradation of respect for the Oval Office, but rather former President Jimmy Carter.

"He (Carter) made a big joke about it" eating chicken in the Oval Office, said Roberts. "Nobody said anything about Obama."

But Patricia Sansom, head of the local NAACP chapter, said, "He didn't say Jimmy Carter," she said. "He said what we have now." "It's flat-out racist," Sansom said. But she said that she has not lodged a complaint with the radio station.

Tony Clark, a spokesman for the Jimmy Carter Library & Museum in Atlanta, said "That's wrong. He didn't do that. He treated the office with reverence."

KQMS GMr Vince Shadrick said Thursday that no complaints had been received about the talk host's comments.