July 25, 2010
Despite the fact that it’s the weekend and I’m entitled to sleep a little later, I get up every Sunday morning to watch the weekly news-talk shows; This Week, Meet The Press and Face The Nation, among others. The end-of-the-week shows are better than the nightly shows because there’s just slightly more perspective, slightly more objective distance that comes from looking back on the week past. Perhaps a little less shoot-from-the-lip commentary. I don’t always leave satisfied, but I come back every Sunday.
This Week used to be a lot better when Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts were there. It’s also the one that seems habitually to fall victim to its own flawed journalistic paradigm; the practice of giving equal weight and credence to opposing points of view, even when such views have little or no basis for such stature. It’s part of the principle that keeps George Will working steadily. It is this paradigm that populates these shows with a balance of left-leaning pundits and right-leaning pundits rather than a panel of objective, balanced journalists, the way these shows operated a few decades ago. Regrettably, there isn’t much demand for real journalists on television any more, or anywhere else for that matter.
This morning there was much talk and looking back on the Shirley Sherrod story. Everyone seemed to have an opinion as to who was at fault. No one seemed to consider the possibility that everyone – with the exception of Ms. Sherrod – was at fault. Let me count just a few of the ways:
Andrew Breitbart is at fault for creating and/or promoting a deceptively edited video clip with the malicious intent of creating a false and misleading smear of a government employee who is not a public official. Mr. Breitbart’s actions and his remorseless, harlequin commentary seem to suggest the character of a general low-life willing to do anything to promote his political agenda. But hey, who knows?
The NAACP is at fault for accepting at face value a video clip from a source that has a well established reputation for media manipulation. I suppose that none of the members of the NAACP executive staff have ever been to the movies – ANY MOVIE AT ALL – or have any experience with video images that appear to show one thing when in fact the opposite is true. Why didn’t the NAACP contact its local chapter where the speech occurred before issuing a public statement of condemnation? Why didn’t they contact Shirley Sherrod? That’s called “due diligence” and it’s about as obsolete as hand-written correspondence, door-to-door milk deliveries and objective, responsible journalism.
Fox News is at fault for treating the story as “Oh boy, we got a good one!” rather than as a new story (also known as “just being Fox News”). “Some people” (to borrow a favorite Fox News phrase) have suggested that Fox News is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican National Committee. That is just silly. The Republican National Committee (along with the Tea Party Express) is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp. There are plenty of stupid people in America, but not all of the people who watch Fox news are stupid. Many are simply willfully ignorant. They embrace ignorance-as-ideology. They don’t want to hear what anyone else might have to say because it’s all propaganda anyway and it might undermine their world-is-flat belief system. Fox News is the reliable, steady nicotine drip for this viewer dependency and Glen Beck is the world’s most notorious crack dealer.
All the rest of the news media are at fault (yes, I said ALL) for using another media outlet (yes, them) as the source for a news story. Would the New York Times ever say, “Well, the Daily News printed it, so it must be true.”? Sadly, they would, and that’s precisely what’s wrong with journalism today. Edward R. Murrow is spinning so furiously in his grave that his casket could be used for deep water drilling. (On the night of the 2000 presidential elections, all of the major broadcast networks called the election for George W. Bush simply because Fox news had just done so. Fox News did so because Bush’s cousin was the news director at Fox.) Every news media outlet, great and small, got the Shirley Sherrod story wrong and spent a lot of airtime doing so. Have any of them devoted a minute of airtime to say “WE screwed up”, to dissecting what they did wrong and what they should do to prevent it in the future?
The White House is at fault for flinching and cowering because the right wing boogey man maybe was about to throw a punch that hadn’t actually been thrown yet. They were surrendering their lunch money in a preemptive attempt to avoid getting beat up on the playground. You know, it doesn’t matter what your political party or ideology may be, nobody likes a White House full of pussies. And man, the White House has that really awful litter box smell.
Okay, enough about who’s at fault. Let’s talk about race, shall we? Allegedly, this all started because this one called that one a racist. And so that one said, “Uh uh, no you didn’t. I am Teflon, you are glue.” No one in America ever, ever, ever wants to be called a racist. It has become the worst possible epithet you can ever throw at someone. I suppose you could say that’s progress. Everyone in America is willing to “SAY” that racism is a terrible, terrible thing. There, now isn’t that all better?
So why don’t I feel better? How come I’m not actually being treated better? I’m sure it is mostly due to my unwillingness to let go and move on. Attorney General Eric Holder was right when he said that Americans are cowards when it comes to talking about race. But it was also pretty dumb to call people cowards when you know for certain that they are going to respond defensively. It did absolutely nothing to move the dialogue forward. I have my own point of view about racism in America, and I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that my point of view isn’t going to be very popular either. But if what I’ve said so far hasn’t caused you to stop reading, why stop now? But first a caveat, or perhaps a dodge.
I try to avoid making public pronouncements about what’s in someone’s heart, unless that person is my spouse or one of my children. I don’t call people racist because I have no idea what makes you tick or makes you say and do the things you do. But I will call you out in public about the things you say and do. If you make a racist statement, I won’t hesitate to say you said something racist. And if you commit a racist act, …well, you get the picture.
I truly doubt that there is anyone among us that hasn’t said, thought, felt or done something racist. And I don’t just mean at one time. I mean from time to time, every now and again. I am not ascribing malicious intent, although that is one potential ingredient. I’m saying that it is human nature to use “difference” as part of our personal GPS, part of how we navigate in the world. (I could elaborate on this and give examples, but you’re smart people. You get my point.) But if we are self-aware, and if we are honest with ourselves, we can create better habits and impulses for ourselves and learn to use “difference” as either a neutral or positive attribute. Putting “other” people down is not the most satisfying way to feel good about yourself. People are always going to be different. It’s how you engage that difference that matters.
So let’s stop calling people “racists” because, 1.) we’ve all been-there, done-that, so it’s not a valid distinction, 2.) it doesn’t actually address the words or deeds that were the real problem, 3.) it doesn’t offer any useful tools for solutions or a path for coming together, only for pushing apart. Let’s focus on “here’s what you said, and why that’s a really messed up thing to say.” The problem with this approach is that it requires clarity, honesty, specificity and effort. It requires work, and the truth is that y’all are some lazy-ass folks.
There’s another group that’s at fault; all the rest of us – myself included – who “talk amongst ourselves” and shake our heads and shrug our shoulders and accept as fact the belief that there’s simply nothing we can do. It’s simply the way it is and it isn’t going to change. Screw that. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what I CAN do, but I’m gonna keep scratching at this itch until it bleeds or until I figure something out. I’m gonna keep poking at it, and keep poking at YOU until we both do something. Sarah Palin and other Tea Party nutballs have suggested exploring a “second amendment solution” to their grievances. Well, I’ll put my first amendment solutions up against your second amendment solutions every day (and twice on Sunday mornings) and I bet I’ll kick your ass every time, because the pen is mightier than the sword, motherfucker.
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